A Nigeria Thread (Non-Music Division)

xps and burnt rice

Nobody is denying that they're Islamic and frankly, I'm not all that concerned with how Islam ends up looking in the eyes of people with no sense of scale and context. I've made no universal claims about what a Muslim is supposed to be but we can't pretend that such rhetoric doesn't incite unnecessary Islamophobia and produce narratives that eschew more practical realities in favour of ideological ones.

Religion can be just as much (if not more) about 'the group' as it is self-confession. The reality of what Boko Haram actually does - how and why they do it, are not to be found in the professed ethos of Abubakar Shekau.

tbf, the link I posted was explicitly denying that they were Islamic?

like it's even in the title lol:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/12/the-boko-haram-terrorists-are-not-islamic.html

And he's well within his rights to do so. If he doesn't interpret their actions to be in line with Islamic principles, then how would you suggest he go about saying so?

maybe there is some extreme form of cargo cult enormity that is simply too remote from any substantial sect of whichever faith, boko haram's methods are perhaps too diffuse, extreme, whatever, for mainstream salafist jihad and anyone with any care for what the west thinks about islam will doubtless disinherit them but to simply remove them from spectrum of islam entirely is wilful delusion

if non-muslims want to invest in intra-islamic realness claims then they will presumably endorse as /properly/ islamic the claims of those quoted grandees who are denouncing boko haram, such as the current saudi grand mufti

In April 2012, he issued a fatwa allowing ten year old girls to marry insisting that girls are ready for marriage by age 10 or 12: "Our mothers and grandmothers got married when they were barely 12. Good upbringing makes a girl ready to perform all marital duties at that age."[9]

Rather than condemn the media for rightfully pointing out that this militant group organizes its ideology around an interpretation of Islam, he could condemn the group for calling themselves Islamic while transgressing tenets of the faith. The former is apologetics, the latter is totally within his rights (and virtuous even maybe). xp

I'd imagine that goes without saying? (though to be sure many people are)

And if his concern is "Islamaphobic" Westerners using this group to tar all Muslim believers, why doesn't he just remind readers that not all Muslims believe the same things, just like all Christians and all Jews don't believe the same things. Why can't he condemn a radical interpretation of Islam without writing it out of the Islamic context entirely? Can the religion not survive being associated in any way w/ Boko Haram? And if it can't, is that because Nigeria is not the only area in the world where violent Islamic fundamentalism is a phenomenon?

Because its quite clear that many Westerners aren't prepared to see things that way.

I'd imagine that as far as he's concerned the only way to divorce radical Islam from broader Islamic contexts is to severely emphasize a divergence between the two.

Well apparently it can

So do you believe that violent fundamentalism and Islam are inevitable bedfellows irrespective of other contextual considerations?

Well, I do believe that there is plenty of scriptural justification for violent fundamentalism in the Quran, but no, I don't think it's inevitable. Lots of religions have violence in their history + sacred texts but aren't damned to participate in it in 2014. I do however think that in 2014 there's a wide enough current of violent fundamentalism that justifies itself within the parameters of Islamic scripture and doctrine that to pretend otherwise is silly.

I should say Quran/Hadith. I'm not trying to make an argument about textual legitimacy in Islam.

the no true scotsman fallacy is interesting but I don't think straightforwardly fallacious as it conflates the formal, concrete sort of scottishness with the ideal sense, which is the more apposite for religion. I think that a pluralist approach to defining religions that prioritizes self-identity is anathema to the way a lot of actually religious ppl conceive of their own faith. There's a sense in which religions are vast, contradictory entities existing across eras that are responsible for countless appalling crimes, but individuals invested in a tradition will inevitably have their own take on its muggy, highly contested borders, something which they can personally reconcile with. everyone is trying to be a better scotsman.

the level of self-identification is trivial. to recognise the boko haram guys' actions as in some interesting sense islamic is to take their conception of islam over that of the vast majority of muslims, and I would wonder why. the chances of a catholic being associated in a negative sense with the inquisition seem slim, it's not part of discourse in the way that salafi-jihadism is, & carries less weight.

during the nairobi mall attack, the al shabab gunmen asked people to name the prophet's mother as a test to mark out who could leave. to stress the arbitrariness of demarcating a religion misses its importance, & using self-identification is as political a way of doing it as any other.

surely catholicism is less associated w/ the inquisition than islam w/ boko haram bc the inquisition was back in the 12th century. it's not like anyone is claiming that the Umayyad conquest of Hispania indicates violent undercurrents in Islam. they're looking at contemporary political movements. also, i'm not even sure about your distinction anyway. at least in the Jewish community there continues to be a historical memory of crimes of the inquisition - not just liturgically (the kol nidre melody was supposedly written by conversos who regretted being forced to hide) but continues to play out in actual communities of crypto-jews, which is enough of a real thing that i know about half a dozen ppl from crypto-jewish families.

like notably recent popes have felt it was necessary to apologize to communities who were affected by the inquisition, suggesting a level of institutional responsibility at the very least. (of course islam does not have an institutional coherency like catholicism does.)

the distinction is just that ilxors aren't shuddering in moral revulsion at the tics of catholic inquisitors

self-identification creates monolithic, incoherent entities that ironically no single believer could ever identify with. it's inherently an outsider's way of looking at a religion & pretty unenlightening in this situation insofar as it groups the boko haram guy with the schoolgirls he has kidnapped

the schoolgirls are christians from what i understand so i'm not sure your point... unless you are considering them (very) recent converts to Islam?

the distinction is just that ilxors aren't shuddering in moral revulsion at the tics of catholic inquisitors

the 800 yr old tics?

i do agree that it doesn't make sense to lump together a fascist radical islamic ideology w/ the forced convert victims of that ideology...

I'd assumed that being from borno/the north in general they were muslim but ok, if not I stand corrected

They were abducted from a mixed school and there are Muslim and Christian girls missing fwiw.

anyway, i'm not sure what it adds to mention that muslims themselves are victims of these radicals (i've seen this article made a lot recently - as tho it somehow absolves Islamic theology of any kind of influence in BH). that's really only an objection if the argument is that this is a holy war between christians and muslims (a claim i've only seen from the political christian right). the real critique is that this radicalism hurts all kinds of people, including muslims.

article argument

like if i argued that a particular religion oppressed women, you wouldn't say that the critique groups the women of that religion w/ its oppressors. that would be weird.

i don't see this debate as anything new, really. al qaeda and other militarized forms of islam have been at the center of debates about islamic identity for decades.

the question is what counts as 'islamic theology', who makes that call & why. the broader your definition of a blanket term the less useful it becomes as an explanation of events&motivations. if you argued that say, islam, oppressed women you would have to exclude certain elements as inessential, despite lots of people explicitly identifying as islamic feminists

no disagreement from me. that a particular ideology emerges from islam means more about the ideology than it does about islam as a whole (which is too complex to reduce to most sociopolitical generalizations)

A pretty good summation of what a lot of Nigerians think is really going on here, albeit with a very strong Jonathan/PDP bent
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/05/season-conspiracies-goodluck-jonathan/

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/05/23/nigerias_house_of_cards_growth_boko_haram_inequality

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/08/world/africa/nigerian-newspaper-weekly-trust-says-army-blocked-distribution.html

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/boko-haram-may-have-killed-thousands-attack-say-experts-n283011

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-30728158
From the BBC story on this

While President Goodluck Jonathan, who is seeking re-election next month, has condemned the attack on a French satirical magazine in Paris as dastardly, he has not commented on the violence at home, our reporter says.

this story made me so sick + sad
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/world/africa/suicide-bomber-hits-maiduguri-nigeria-market.html

Terrible. Using a 10-year-old girl as your suicide bomber.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/12/-sp-boko-haram-attacks-nigeria-baga-ignored-media

More on why the Baga killings have gotten little media attention

journalism has had trouble covering African conflicts (thinking specifically sudan, congo, nigeria, mali off-hand) for a long time now - it's not safe so it's hard to keep ppl out in the field and i guess it doesn't generate enough clicks to dedicate specific reporters to various areas. so a lot of western media can only re-report african news stories which are often underfunded themselves.

Plus, as the article and others have noted, Nigeria's own politicians, especially its prez, don't even want to talk about it:

Media analyst Ethan Zuckerman said that the president is “understandably wary of discussing Boko Haram, as it reminds voters that the conflict has erupted under his management and that his government has been unable to subdue the terror group”. Nigeria’s elections are set to take place on 14 February. The president was also criticised for celebrating his daughter Ine’s wedding over weekend, in the aftermath of the killings.

The situation in the north can seem so hopeless. Will the February elections make a difference?

I don't see how it could help.

Couldn't a new president help improve the military, the government bureaucracy, and work with other nations better to make life in the north better for the citizens(controlling or defeating extremists and making life better for others so they won't wanna join the extremists). Naive dreams?

Maybe if we all started wearing t-shirts that said "I Am Nigeria"?

Nigerians in the diaspora are already tweeting stuff like that!

First thing to do is to get shot of this clown, Goodluck Johnson.

http://touchvision.com/video/96698

The PDP is by far the most powerful political party in Nigeria and has won every election in the country (handily but by no means uncontroversially) since sustained civilian government became a reality 16 years ago. This may change in the future if the newly formed APC continues to gain traction, but it almost definitely won't during next months election. In that sense thinking of Goodluck as the problem isn't really helpful, especially if we're not giving due consideration to what the most likely alternative would be.

The government's silence on the Baga situation is odd and inexcusable but not entirely surprising. Goodluck's unfailing tactlessness as a leader and public figure aside, the level of intrigue surrounding Boko Haram and power brokers in the north is crazy and looming elections only serve to exacerbate that. The silence is certainly calculated but trying to parse what the logic behind it might be is futile and depressing.

The military was quite purposefully hobbled both in terms of manpower, funding and bureaucratic infrastructure, retaining usefulness in the fulfilment of foreign mandates but severely limited in its capacity to act meaningfully within the country. Of course in the wake of a deadly civil war and the coups and counter-coups that brought about numerous military dictators this made absolute sense. Now of course things are different, the army isn't equipped to deal with Boko Haram and Washington is blocking attempts by the Nigerian government to purchase arms on human rights grounds.

As for cooperation with other nations...
http://www.punchng.com/news/chad-niger-pulled-out-soldiers-from-baga-cds/

Sadly, things will most probably get worse beyond the election, which is likely to see unprecedented levels of violence. Plummeting oil prices has put tanked the economy with the added insult of Nigerians not experiencing the benefit of reduced prices. The Naira is in a hole and public sector workers aren't being paid, so yeah I guess naive dreams is about right.

it should probably be mentioned that chad soldiers have been pretty controversial as well

Was reading about refugee issues across the borders in the North. Folks are fleeing

The idea of Goodluck Jonathan not wanting to talk about Boko Haram for reasons of political expediency is sickening.

unless you are considering them (very) recent converts to Islam?

Forced conversions, of course.

That image reminded me of Ceddo, Ousmane Sembene's 1977 drama about the forced Islamisation in the 17th century Sahel of his native Senegal. It's on YouTube with French or English subtitles.

bh now in cameroon

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2015/01/chadian-troops-join-war-against-boko-haram-201511815165034154.html