April 18, 2007

Islamists Gone Wild!

The introduction of shari'a law to Nigeria did not stop a band of radical Islamists from massacring thirteen people in a Kano police station yesterday. The attack follows a similar incident in Sharada, and precedes the upcoming national vote that will pit Islamists in the north with Christians in the south:

A mob killed 13 people in an attack on a police station in the northern Nigerian city of Kano yesterday, four days after unidentified gunmen shot dead a hardline Muslim cleric.

Police said that the mob, suspected of belonging to a radical Islamic sect, burnt the police station in the Panshekara district and killed the officer in charge, his wife and 11 other officers. The sect killed a divisional police officer in an attack in the Sharada district last week. Kano is one of 12 northern Nigerian states that introduced Sharia in 2000. The move alienated Christian minorities and sparked violence. Southern Nigeria is predominantly Christian.

Tensions are running high in the city of six million because of state elections held on Saturday and a presidential vote on April 21. It was not clear if the latest violence was connected to the elections.

Even the introduction of Islamic law in Kano did not stop Islamist terrorists from taking the law into their own hands. They killed the police that administer shari'a in Kano. With radical Muslims attacking shari'a police, what chance do the Christians have in peacefully co-existing with them?

This also points out the folly of those who believe that we can reach accommodation with radical Islamists. They do not act rationally, instead relying on violence and intimidation to extort the behavior they seek. Even fellow Islamists have no immunity from attack and annihilation. Islamists have begun to run wild in Nigeria, and unless something changes soon, it will follow Sudan in crumbling into civil war.

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Comments (6)

Posted by Mr Lynn [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 18, 2007 6:57 AM

Every week President Bush should go on television with a report on the Global War on Islamic Terrorism. He should emphasize the 'Islamic'. He can talk about progress and setbacks in Iraq, about bombings in Thailand, about Afghanistan, about Islamic attacks in (Moslem) Algeria, about the threat of civil war between Christians and Islamists in Nigeria, and so on, and so forth.

The American people, brainwashed into torpidity by the media, must be educated about the threat that worldwide radical Islamism presents.

And we must think about how to tackle the growing problem of Islamists in our midst. Radical Islam advocates the violent overthrow of the US Constitution and the creation of an Islamic theocracy. Does that not make its adherents candidates for careful scrutiny, expulsion from the country (if aliens), and prosecution (if citizens)?

But after a brief attempt at mentioning the enemy by name, President Bush has lapsed into silence, cowed apparently by the politically correct and the media.

Thailand, Sudan, Algeria, Nigeria. . . and then Spain? We too are on the list.

/Mr Lynn

Posted by lexhamfox [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 18, 2007 8:28 AM

Police violence and corruption are endemic in Nigeria and the divisions there are as much ethnic and economic as they are sectarian. There are Christian freaks like the Nigerian Dr King with his own brand of justice and I guess Christian massacres like the one in Plateau state would not rate a mention on this site. Christians gone wild? I don't think so. Indications are that the group that murdered the police in Kano were not even Nigerian according to Kano residents familiar with that particular militant group. They only number a few hundred in a community of millions of Muslim Fulani-Hausas

You seem to suggest that Nigeria's violence is sectarian but in the Southern Delta area youths who are fed up with federal and local corruption and abuse of power are also taking up arms and attacking police. Violence is taking place in areas with no Muslims whatsoever but Ed's rare post about Nigeria is about Islamic terror in Kano. Tell us Ed... were the police killed in Kano Muslims or Christians?

The little blurb you base this alarmist post on does not do the justice to the deep rooted chronic issues facing all Nigerians as they go to the polls.

Posted by docjim505 [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 18, 2007 9:25 AM

lexhamfox wrote (April 18, 2007 08:28 AM):

You [Cap'n Ed] seem to suggest that Nigeria's violence is sectarian but in the Southern Delta area youths who are fed up with federal and local corruption and abuse of power are also taking up arms and attacking police. Violence is taking place in areas with no Muslims whatsoever but Ed's rare post about Nigeria is about Islamic terror in Kano. Tell us Ed... were the police killed in Kano Muslims or Christians?

An excellent point. A couple of thoughts:

1. Many Americans are on a hair-trigger about Muslims, and automatically suspect (if not assume) that any horror such as the shooting at Virginia Tech or the OKC Bombing must be the work of islamofacists. I recall seeing the news about the OKC bombing break and everybody was speculating that it was Islamic terrorists; I don't think it crossed anybody's mind that the murderer was a white man.

2. While there are unquestionably "christofascists" out there, they are regarded rightly or wrongly as a disgusting minority. I'd wager that 99%+ of American Christians absolutely detest Fred Phelps, for instance.

In contrast, we hear all the time about ayatollahs and imams preaching hatred and murder and war in their mosques.

Christofascists seem an aberration. Islamosacists seem much more mainstream.

3. In contrast to the idea that people commit violent acts because they're islamofascists, I've seen others advance the idea that it's all about economics. IIRC, the State Department did a report about Muslim terrorists that left religion almost completely unmentioned. Honestly, had one changed a few names, it might have been a Cold War-era report about communist parties in Latin America: it was all about poverty and government corruption as motivators for terrorism.

The answer lies somewhere in the middle; we've all got to be careful about what pigeonholes we use.

Posted by jerry [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 18, 2007 1:44 PM

LF:

I have been pondering a response to your post today. I certainly agree that the African continent is rife with tribal strife and pure thuggery but there is a difference between the violence in the Christian South and the Muslim north. The Muslims are part of world wide pattern of Muslim violence against both the insufficiently Muslim and the non-Muslim while the thugs in the Christian south are just that …thugs with no particular agenda beyond their immediate surroundings. For the life of me I don’t understand this constant attempt to equate actions by Islamic radicals with other individuals, groups or nations.

Well, actually do and my question was rhetorical. Martin Heidegger started it all when asked if he now preferred liberal Western government to totalitarianism. He told his questioner that he saw no moral difference between the West and the Communists and given that he preferred the Communists. What he was saying was that if you there is not difference between the two, i.e., not good or evil, then there is nothing wrong with picking evil. Your inability to differentiate between a worldwide pattern of Muslim violence occurs whenever Muslims encounter the other either defensive actions by the victims or even random violence by others is sign of your post-modern moral blindness.

Posted by lexhamfox [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 18, 2007 9:23 PM

Jerry, I would agree with you in the case of the murder of the publishers in Turkey (today) but not the attack on the local authorities in Kano. Ther are material differences between the two in terms which you yourself highlight.

Also, I'm not sure if the Christian thugs are as vanilla as you suggest, In the Plateau massacre it was allegedly gangs working with the collusion if not outright support of local authorities committing the atrocities against the Muslim minority in a largely Christian state. Also, the Delta gangs target oil firms and especially the Westerners who work for them. The circumstances of both point to larger agendas and in the one case it is blatently sectarian.

Posted by jerry [TypeKey Profile Page] | April 18, 2007 9:56 PM

LF:
There you go again trying to balance and equate to groups so you can make excuses for Muslim violence.

There is basic difference in the way we view these conflicts. You tend to look at the local condition such as corruption in Nigeria; the refusal of the Jews to allow the Palestinians the unlimited right of return; the injustice of Hindu domination of Kashmir, the insults of Christians in the Philippines or East Timor; the refusal of black African Muslims to submit to their Arab masters in Darfur; the failure to address the grievances of the Muslims in Southern Thailand; or the failure of Swedes to honor the customs of Muslim immigrants in Malmo.

I other hand look at common element in the equation. Wherever Muslims come in contact with the other they seem to feel that they are the aggrieved party and require redress through violent means if necessary. Could it be that whatever the proximate local cause the underlying problem is found in the Muslim community and not victims of their anger? Could it be that the real underlying Muslim grievance is the failure of the other to acknowledge the superiority of Islam?

You appear to be a clever fellow so what prevents you from connecting these dots? It is not matter of finding what is different but what is the constant in the equation.

You remind me of Stavrogin in Dostoevsky’s “The Possessed.” He is a man who is incapable of moral discernment and is really the prototype for today’s “sophisticated” Post-Modern thinker.