Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Bombs bursting in Nigeria

'Boko Haram' has come out explosively in Nigeria. The rigid Muslim group deals in terrorism with a single goal in mind: the establish sharia'h law as the guiding principle in ruling Nigeria.
The name itself tells all: 'no Western learning'. Reject everything coming from the 'West', rely on strict Muslim tradition and law. In that, BH is not a trend setter; an immediate example of the disastrous rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan comes to mind, and although in another tradition the genocidal rule of the Khmer Rouge.
Fight the West [read, the modern world] is not something from today. In Korea, China, and Japan such movements arose and ultimately failed.
Some may ask how could such a phenomenon like BH arise in Nigeria of all places? A country awash in oil wealth, one of the largest countries in Africa, a nation that promised much at the time of independence in 1960?
Well the promise of a bright future was quickly dashed. Within a handful of years, a breakaway Biafra challenged the unity of the country. The rule of law was scuppered in favour of a coalition of the North and the West, ably assisted by the military against the mineral rich East.
Military rule bred corruption and unrest, so much so that the central government in an attempt to control if not checkmate the breakdown of the state, agreed to rely on Sharia'h law in an unruly North.
As such, the can of worms was cut open and we see its poisonous fruit in BH.

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