Much Ado About Nigeria

While the events in the Strait of Hormuz captured the world's attention (and rightly so), significant incidents have occurred lately in the oil-rich nation of Nigeria that seem to be below the radar of the mainstream media. Nigeria is a member of OPEC and a major exporter of oil to the United States. But there are dangerous signs of a civil war brewing between the Christians and, you guessed it, radical Islamists. Like Sudan, Nigeria has a religious fault line, of sorts, with the Islamists in the northern regions of the country living under sharia law. However, many of the richest oil deposits (not to mention the majority of the shoreline) is under control of the Christians. This presents us with a recipe for conflict before we even consider the expansionist nature of Islam.

A new wave of violent terrorist attacks against Christians in Nigeria has left scores dead and the survivors fearful of ethnic and religious cleansing. Most of these assaults are the work of the terrorist group Boko Haram, a powerful force dedicated to overthrowing the government of Nigeria and imposing strict Taliban-like "reforms" that include a complete ban on Western or secular education. Their attacks have grown increasingly audacious and deadly. In 2009, Boko Haram struck at government buildings in the city of Maiduguri. The Nigerian government's response was severe, and by year's end founder Mohammed Yusuf was captured and killed by security forces. But Boko Haram was not finished. After breaking hundreds of members out of prison, the group went on a bombing spree across Nigeria. 2011 saw an increase in the level of coordination of their attacks, with a devastating series of bombings and shootings on Christmas Day that resulted in dozens of deaths. To make matters worse, the suspected mastermind of the coordinated assaults escaped police custody under suspicious circumstances, leading many in Nigeria to wonder who inside the security forces may be sympathetic to Boko Haram's cause. The Muslim-majority northern region has not been free from attacks by Boko Haram, and last week saw a string of bombings in the city of Kano that left around 150 dead.

So why don't we hear more about this? I see three primary reasons. First, Nigeria's position as an oil exporter makes instability there a potential problem for the world economy. Politicians do not want to draw attention to a situation that could spook the markets and see oil prices jump, especially in an election year. The city of Lagos, Nigeria's economic capital, has been spared most of the violence, but that could change rapidly and have a cascading effect on both neighbors and client nations The second reason for the silence is the fact that, by and large, African conflicts do not generate a lot of interest in Washington or at the UN. Oh, they make for great speeches, but no one has seriously considered taking any sort of action to stop or prevent such bloodbaths since the Battle of Mogadishu in 1993, and even then support was half-hearted at best. Rwanda, Darfur; the list of genocides in Africa goes on and on and the rest of the world hardly has time to notice. Finally, the persecution in Nigeria has been targeted against Christians by Muslims, and most of the world media would rather not talk about such a sore subject. It might remind them that those cuddly Arab Spring folks they supported so enthusiastically may in fact have darker motivations than they let on. From Kabul to Cairo and beyond, non-Muslims (and Christians in particular) are facing persecution on a scale never before seen in our lifetimes. The so-called champions of human rights sit in silence as atrocities occur almost daily in places they'd rather not think about. Not when they have to focus so much attention on calling the people of the United States racist and homophobic (after all, in Iran they "don't have homosexuals"). The gatekeepers of human rights have not only fallen asleep at their posts, in many cases they actively agree with some of the greatest violators of human rights in a generation.

So the next time you see some blurb on the news about terrorists in Nigeria or Kenya, remember that Islamism is a global phenomenon. What happens in some faraway country that you barely remember from geography class could very well have an impact on the rest of the world. That is why you must educate yourself on the real issues that we face. If you don't know what is going on and why, you will be powerless to do anything about it. The reason the self-appointed guardians of human rights have forgotten their duty is that we have not held them accountable. That stops now.