Rylance: Let’s talk to IS, not bomb them
WOLF HALL star Mark Rylance claimed last night that Britain should open peace talks with Islamic State – and even likened the terrorists to Nelson Mandela.
The actor said the murderous extremists were ‘not enemies’ but people who ‘feel there is injustice’.
But he was immediately criticised by politicians for his ‘dangerous’ suggestion.
Mr Rylance made the extraordinary comments to The Mail on Sunday before giving a speech at a Downing Street rally organised by the Stop the War Coalition ahead of this week’s Commons vote on air strikes in Syria.
Asked how the Government could negotiate with people such as mass murderer and IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, he replied: ‘You have to talk to the people around him. Are you telling me that bombing the people around him will have any effect on him?’
Rylance claimed the only way peace was achieved in many cases was through communicating with people regarded as terrorists. Referring to Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams and the late South African leader Nelson Mandela, he said: ‘We were told you can never talk to them. But eventually we do talk to them, and they are not enemies, they are people who are angry where they feel there is injustice.
‘They may be wrong, but they may be right.’
He added that the West was guilty of killing innocent people in Iraq – and was cheered by a crowd waving ‘Don’t bomb Syria’ placards as he repeated at the rally that David Cameron should not take military action but talk to those involved.
Other speakers included former Respect MP George Galloway and Labour frontbench MP Diane Abbott. But the actor’s remarks were condemned last night by former Tory Defence Secretary Liam Fox, who described IS as ‘murderous fanatics who hate us for who we are’.
He added: ‘To compare them to Nelson Mandela or Gerry Adams is not only wrong, it is dangerous.’
And Labour MP Keith Vaz, who chairs the Commons Home Affairs Committee, said: ‘Mark Rylance is a brilliant actor, but his analysis of the current situation regarding counter-terrorism is hopelessly wrong. Islamic State is unlike any other group the world has known.’