July
30
The “Taliban” in question are mostly students who left the university earlier than expected.
They have created a sanctuary on the border of Chad, called “Afghanistan”. From this location, their movement called boro haram ‘(’ Western education is a sin, “in Hausa language, which dominates northern Nigeria) is organizing attacks against” infidels “and the representatives of the state Federal.
They have already attacked several police stations. This time the police and the army responded, resulting in high stock.
For a “pure Islamic state”
But “boro Aramco have extended their struggle to four other states in Nigeria. The ‘boro haram to establish a state of “pure Islam” in this country of 150 million. Their claims have even less chance of being accepted that millions of Christians live in northern Nigeria. Nearly half the population of the Federation is also a Christian.
Nigeria
The federal authorities have already made many concessions to the extremists. For a decade, the Sharia has been imposed in a dozen northern states of Nigeria while the introduction of Islamic law is contrary to the Federal Constitution. Its introduction sparked deadly riots between Christians and Muslims that have claimed tens of thousands dead in the almost universal indifference.
Some 11 September 2001, the city of Jos, previously a haven of peace and tolerance has turned into pandemonium. Rioting resulted in the deaths of at least a thousand people in a few days. Each new anti pogrom in the north of Nigeria, Christians are taking refuge in Jos, a city in the center of the country. “They dream then do battle with the Muslim minority in the city,” said a Westerner who has worked in this city for over twenty years and saw the rising tensions. “Before the whole world lived in harmony, but now people do not mix more. There was a religious ethnic cleansing in the north. Purely Muslim neighborhoods. Or simply Christians. Only the upper classes of society mingle a little. “He says.
The tension builds even more than Christians are also less willing to make concessions. Evangelicals are gaining ground. They want to conquer the north of Nigeria and starting to confront the Muslims. Unlike Catholics who traditionally had a more accommodating. Last year, Jos, dubbed “capital of peace” until recent years has been the scene of particularly deadly new clashes: 300 dead according to the authorities, 700 according to Human Rights Watch. Well over 1000, according to the inhabitants of the city. “We saw the Norias of truckloads of corpses, the official is widely underestimated”, we said one of them.
Silence, on tue
Traditionally, in Nigeria, the authorities minorent stock of religious clashes. The media also receive instructions to that effect. Since the announcement of pogroms in the North provokes the reaction of Christians from the South who want to avenge their own. And killing in Lagos or in Ibo country (South-Eastern Catholic) an equal number of Muslims. A macabre competition and endless.
These pogroms were all the more taboo than Nigerians remember the beginnings of the war in Biafra, which was three million lives from 1967 to 1969. The secession of Biafra had been preceded by pogroms anti Ibo in Northern Nigeria. Traders Ibos were massacred in large numbers in areas dominated by Islam. Biafran leaders took these pogroms pretext to justify and legitimize their secessionist movement.
Coexistence between Christians and Muslims is increasingly difficult. A growing number of Christians leaving the North, because the demands of Muslim fundamentalists are increasing.
“In the universities of the north, particularly in Zaria, fundamentalists have not accepted the verdict of the polls. A Christian was elected delegate of students. Dozens of them were murdered. Christian students were raped and mutilated “, says one of them who left this city and joined his family in the South. It is also the rise of intolerance on the imams trained in Sudan and Saudi Arabia. “They roam the Black African and demonize Christianity and the West, seen as responsible for all ills,” says the student who now try to have as little contact with Muslims.
West Africa is beset by tensions
The rising tension is visible to varying degrees in most of West Africa. In Mauritania, the authorities have recently asked Israel to close its embassy in the wake of pressure from the Islamists. In this country, an American was killed June 23 in the street by Islamists, action claimed by Al Qaeda Maghreb. He was accused of wanting to proselytize religion.
In Mali, an officer in charge of counter-terrorism has recently been shot dead in his home by Al Qaeda. A British tourist was also killed in June, by the same organization. Even the peaceful Senegal no longer seems quite safe. Radical Islamists have spread throughout the neighborhoods. They refuse all contact with the Islamic Brotherhood, much more tolerant. These new Islamists have a deep hatred of the West. In their view, a ‘white’ is either an American or a Jew or someone who works for them. What makes the dialogue or the profession of journalism of the most difficult.
Brotherhood Islam itself is not immune to certain excesses. Thus, the Mouride, the most powerful brotherhoods of Senegal, have been a state within a state in Touba, the holy city where nearly a million inhabitants. In this “radiant city”, cinemas are banned and non-religious music. Schools in the Republic of the officially secular country are also prohibited. The football is not more of this. Surprising decision in a country passionate about football. When asked “Why?” The religious right go meet with a unstoppable argument: “Because this game was invented by Jews who were playing with the heads of the prophets.”