Nigeria singles out itself as the most violent soldier for Allah and Christ. Most northern Nigerian towns are flashpoints of intractable conflicts and feuding in the name of a god most people perceive through individual bias prisms. Over the past weeks, hundreds of Nigerians from across the religious spectrum have lost their lives in a struggle to affirm the superiority of one belief form over the other.
The Muslims declare a Jihad against the infidel Christians, while the Christians embark on Jeremiads against the savage Muslims. The ‘Realm of Peace’, where the Muslims call their favoured place is considered violated when pockets of peoples believing in something else exist; hence a ‘Realm of War’ prevails. Because of the cohabitation of Muslims and Christians in Northern Nigeria it is doomed to be in tension.
This permanent cultural/religious strife is not common to Nigeria alone. By way of comparison, we could cite the Crusades, European colonization of the New World, America’s sense of ‘Manifest Destiny’ (ordained by God as world leader), or the religio-political dualism of the Achaemenian kings. Away from their bona fide differences, all these historic projects are fuelled by sharp twofold distinctions between ‘us’ and ‘them’, in alliance with other bigoted contrasts, including moral versus immoral, modern versus primitive, dominant versus submissive, eugenic versus dysgenic, and sacred versus profane,. Those using such discourse naturally see themselves as persons who comprehend and strive to realize God’s will, that is maintaining a cosmic order or at least to impose that order they define as rational and progressive; while characterizing their rivals as religiously ignorant or rebellious.
Of the Holy God we seek his favor and succor, we all have to climb up the Jacob’s ladder, for in the eyes of God we are the lost tribes who have to strive to find his face. As to some people having the roadmap to God and holding the key to his kingdom, it remains to be seen through which valid model they qualify themselves.
The other day, the ‘erratic’ Colonel Khadafy proposed the partition of Nigeria along religious lines; Muslims in the North and Christians in the South. The distribution of religion in Africa did not happen along the same lines that the partition of Africa as the 1884 Berlin Conference, where a line was drawn on a paper and the east went to France and west to England. A complex series of Jihads and conversions to Islam took place just as the conversion to Christianity was going on. In the same ethnic group in Africa it is easy to meet dozens of different denominations/ religions. In the particular case of Nigeria, in the south, the Yoruba are both Muslims and Christians and in the North there are also pockets of Christians. Neighbouring countries like Cameroon have succeeded in interfaith campaigns where ecumenism is celebrated at the highest national level with the peaceful coexistence of cathedrals and mosques.
I have been wondering when Mohammed and Christ transferred their cross to Africans. It is understandable when Palestinians and Israelites fight. Fundamentally, the struggle is not over faith but over land. There are Muslims as citizens of Israel while there are also Christians as citizens of Palestine. The war over occupied territories is neither for Christ nor for Mohammed but for territory. When Khadafy compares his solution for Nigeria to the separation of Pakistan and India, he forgets the complexities of that region. We may again draw from the religious conflict pitting the Catholics and Protestants of Northern Ireland. Sheer fanaticism is giving way to wisdom in Ireland, inspired by the South African post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Committee. It is easy to comprehend the struggle between the races but that between religions, coming in the realm of faith is better surrendered to the God in whose name we feud.
On the racial score, Charles Darwin might be recorded as the father of racism with his elaboration of his Evolution of Species. Continuing the bias of Herodotus, the father of history, against the black race, Darwin’s study was inspired by his quest to find a blueprint for the survival of the white race. In his work “the Evolution of Species…” he creates a coded formula for the survival of the Caucasian (white). Notice the truncation of the title of Darwin’s study. The complete title is “The Evolution of Species and the Survival of the Favored Race,” the favored race here meaning the white race. Most experiments carried under different code names are only geared to controlling the other races and promoting the survival of the white race. Eugenics, apartheid, Nazism, was all for the preservation of one race, the white race.
By the time Africans fight along other races which want our annihilation, we sign our own death pact. Africa was enslaved, colonized and dehumanized in all sorts of ways, by all other races. Today, Arab Muslims kill black Darfurians in Sudan; Africans are seen as the greatest threat to the survival of the white race. Obama’s election as the 44th president of the United States gives enough justification for the racist movements to convince the doubting that the black man is about to take over the world. How do we then preserve our race when we join in vain struggles?
Africa had no reason to be involved in the First and Second World Wars. But we fought and died in King George’s Army, the Reich and the French armies. Biological weapons are all designed as subtle means to curb African population. When Africa numbered a billion people, the rest of the world cried foul. ‘Oh, how is Africa going to feed its billion people?’ But Africa has enough fertile lands, tenfold more than Europe. As to where the poor Africa was going to find the means to develop itself, Africa has the most wealth, the whole world put together.
Africa just needs to define itself, name itself and understand the minds of the other races who have taken enough time to understand the African mind. When Africa understands that it is a threat to the rest of the world, it will learn to develop means to counter the actions of the Economic Hit Men. Economic Hit Men was a cream of economists, scientists, engineers, professors trained to take over the developing world in subtle means in order to exploit their natural resources for the advancement of the interests of the industrialized world. The Economic Hit Men either succeeded in their ensnarement of developing countries, or they assassinated their patriotic leaders who stood in their way. When they failed to assassinate, they provoked a war and then came in and reaped the booty. While Africa loses its sons and daughters to the Economic Hit Men, it cannot afford to lose more in the name of God.
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