Nigeria

A Tale of Two Atrocities

Mark Noonan13 Comments

Atrocity One:

At least 32 people were killed in a Muslim Fulani herder attack on a Christian area of north-central Nigeria on Tuesday (Feb. 26), sources told a Morning Star News correspondent.

The early morning assault on villages in and around Maro, in Kajuru County of Kaduna state, came after a Feb. 10 herdsmen attack on Angwan Barde, in the same county, that killed 10 Catholic Christians along with an unborn child.

Atrocity Two:

The death toll for the deadly terror attack that targeted two mosques in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand, on Friday rose to 50, Police Commissioner Mike Bush said in a press conference Sunday morning.

Another 50 people were injured, 36 of whom remain in hospital, he said. Of those, 11 are in critical condition, including one four-year-old child.

Now, which atrocity are we supposed to get worked up over? That’s right, you guessed it: the one which fits the Liberal Narrative. Heck, I bet 99% of the people of the United States never even heard of the first atrocity. I did a quick search of CNN and found nothing on it. ABC had nothing on it, either. I didn’t bother looking at other major MSM sites – if they had it, at all, it was probably only a small mention. It certainly didn’t get the national hand-wringing we’re getting about the New Zealand attack.

To be sure, as Christians we must care about both attacks and pray for all involved. But why am I supposed to get worked up at the rare event of Muslims being attacked by non-Muslims when my brothers and sisters in Christ are attacked all the time for their faith? What happened in Nigeria last month is a fairly routine event. If you’ve got a good reason for this double standard, I’m all ears…but if you don’t, then I’m disinclined to believe you actually care about either attack.

And I think that is what bothers me most about this – the callous disregard for human life; not just by the murderous bastards carrying out the attacks, but by the global left which reveals its cynicism by it’s selective outrage. They don’t really care – they just think they can use the one, and not the other, to advance their political agenda. It is no surprise they don’t care – people in favor of aborting children are not likely to be filled with reservoirs of genuine human kindness. If you don’t care about an infant being killed, then you aren’t going to be sorrowful when older people are massacred.

More Guns, Less Boko Haram

Mark Noonan4 Comments

When the rest of the world is only offering you a Twitter hashtag in support, you some times have to take firm action to protect  yourself:

BAUCHI, Nigeria — Villagers in an area of Nigeria where Boko Haram operates have killed and detained scores of the extremist Islamic militants who were suspected of planning a fresh attack, the residents and a security official said.

Locals in Nigeria’s northern states have been forming vigilante groups in various areas to resist the militant group who have held more than 270 schoolgirls captive since last month.

In Kalabalge, a village about 250 kilometers (155 miles) from the Borno state capital of Maiduguri, residents said they were taking matters into their own hands because the Nigerian military is not doing enough to stem Boko Haram attacks.

On Tuesday morning, after learning about an impending attack by militants, locals ambushed two trucks with a gunmen, a security official told The Associated Press. At least 10 militants were detained, and scores were killed, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to give interviews to journalists. It was not immediately clear where the detainees were being held…

I have a friend who is from Nigeria and upon a time we were discussing his home country – which even though he has become an American, he still loves very much and he has a lot of family still living there. After a while, I asked him why the people of south Nigeria put up with it?  Why not just kick the mostly-Muslim north out of the country and have done with it? Nigeria is pretty evenly divided north and south, after all – and the guys who are causing all the ruckus are mostly from the north. Get rid of them, get rid of a large part of the problem.  My friend told me that after the Brits cleared out, the people of the south went to school and learned how to make and build – the people of the north joined the army and learned how to oppress and steal, and they won’t let the south out because the south has the oil.  If the south leaves, the north will have nothing to steal and no one to oppress.  And, so, rather stuck.

It occurred to me after that conversation that the solution, if we want to help Nigeria, is to figure out a way to arm Nigerian militias for local defense in the south. Help the people there just defend themselves and maybe either the north will go away, or will at least become a bit more respectful of the people of the south and won’t steal so often, nor kidnap little girls.  This action by the “vigilantes” (as they are described in the MSM article) is the way to go – and we should offer SEALs and other expert trainers to the Nigerian communities along with sufficient arms and ammunition.  Do that, and over a rather short period of time, the problem there will be resolved, one way or the other.