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2014-MAY-11 [SUN] 10:13 PST - NIGERIA: Boko Haram and the 276 Missing Schoolgirls
2014-MAY-11 [SUN] 10:13 PST Table Of Contents
NIGERIA: Boko Haram and the 276 Missing Schoolgirls [UPDATES]
2014-05-11 10:18 AM PST
"I ENJOY KILLING ANYONE THAT GOD COMMANDS ME
to kill, the way I enjoy killing chickens and
rams."3 These are the words of Abubakar
Shekau, the leader of the group known as Boko
Haram. Many, if not most, people now consider
this group to be a terrorist group on the same
level as al Qaeda, and although me and Dave
don't agree with their approach, that doesn't
mean that some of their complaints against the Nigerian government
aren't legit. Specifically, the inequalities in the allocation of
funds between the Christian oil-producing south and the Muslim
north which is very poor in comparison to the southern region.3
This inequality is not right, and it should be changed or fixed
somehow, but the way Boko Haram is trying to do it isn't right either,
at least in our opinion. It's an unspoken truth though that as
horrifying as these acts of terrorism are (which we think most people
believe they are, regardless of what the truth really is), they do help
to focus the world's attention on their plight or what they say the
truth is.
The problem is, because these acts are so horrifying, they tend to
divert attention away from the complaints rather than on them, and the
overwhelming result is that rather than trying to fix the problem, the
resulting response is usually just to kill the terrorist, and in the
process, innocent people get killed also. Boko Haram's response is to
then do even more killing, hoping that eventually that will help solve
the problem. It's a vicious cycle, and we abhor both approaches, but
it's also something that we don't have an easy solution to help fix
either, but we also believe that at least trying to fix the underlying
legitimate complaints should also be part of the fix rather then not a
part of it at all.
Beside the killing and mass kidnappings (specifically the
kidnapping of the 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in Northern Nigeria on
April 15, 2014), another of Boko Haram's desires, that we also disagree
with, is their goal to turn the country into a religious state,
especially the installation of Sharia Law as the law of the land. One
of the biggest problems we have with this law is its treatment of women
as property, and the added belief that women should not be educated or
be used for anything except as a bearer of children. I don't believe,
and neither does Dave, that women should be treated this way. It seems
to us anyway that this is the real reason that many Islamist extremist
like this religion, because it allows them to massage their male egos
by keeping women dependant on them and ignorant of the other
possibilities that life may have to offer them. They are afraid what
will happen to them and their egotistical belief that men are superior
to women.
We have no real proof that this is what's really going on, but it
just seems obvious to us from a psychological point of view. The
subjugation of women has been a major theme throughout most of the
history of Western Civilization, and it just makes sense that there
would still be some (if not a lot of) people around that believe that
this subjugation should not end. They don't like the idea that women
should be allowed to be independant (and let's face it and also be
brutally honest as to what's really going on here) and get to chose who
they have sex with and probably something some men don't like (as
witnessed by the recent shooting and stabbing rampage by Elliot Rodger
in California on May 23, 2014). It's probably way more complicated that
this, but to us it's where the truth more than likely begins, then not.
Using religion as a basis for this belief is easier than
explaining exactly why they don't like the end of this subjugation, and
it's even better when this religion also allows them to justify another
of their possible basic desires which is to kill people.
This is why we believe Abubakar Shekau (and the group he leads,
the Boko Haram) justifies the killings and mass kidnappings by
pretending that they are commands given to him by his God. Maybe he's
not pretending, and he really truly does believe that he (and his
group) are following his God's work, but (to us) it would be more
believable if he declared that the killings saddened him, but because
the commands are from God, he reluctantly must carry them out. Plus, it
doesn't help their cause either that they seemingly also kill those who
are following the same God that they're following.
I personally believe, and Dave seems to agree with me here also,
that it just screams out that he is doing this for selfish reasons
rather than a desire to follow any real God, because any real God that
would order these type of killing and kidnappings is not the kind of
God we would want to be associated with or hang out with in heaven or
in any kind of afterlife that makes sense to us, if an afterlife even
exist to begin with. It just seems to us that this kind of God is more
like the devil that's depicted in Christian religions, and are one and
the same person or entity or entities, and if that's what the
afterlife's like, we don't want anything to do with it.
To be perfectly honest, we can't prove what we believe about
religion is a fact (because like we explain below, religion is more
faith based than fact based), and maybe it's also because we're really
sentimentalist at heart, but we just find it hard to wrap our minds
around the idea that this is a good thing, or what a real God would be
like or want.
What it comes down to it (we think), is that what most people
choose to believe about religion is either based on how they were
raised or what they wish were true (and sometimes they are one and the
same things), but that don't make it fact, because after all, truth is
truth regardless of what you believe it is. Belief doesn't change the
real facts. You can believe the world is flat, but that don't
automatically make the world flat.
Religion is more of a belief based on faith rather than on any
actual fact, proven by logic, or science. That's why it's called faith
or belief rather than a logical conclusion, but that don't make it
wrong, and that's why I'm not saying me or Dave are right and other
people who believe differently are wrong, but that don't mean that
killing people based on faith is right. It just doesn't make any sense
to us.
But regardless of all that, we believe ultimately you have to go
with what makes you feel confortable with yourself, and that is why me
and Dave choose to believe (regardless of what's really true) that if a
God does exist (I believe in the more tradition kind of God, while Dave
believes God is just really gravity, but that's another whole different
story and way beyond the original scope of this particular blog post);
he (or she) is a benevolent God rather than an evil one that commands
certain believers to kill and/ or hurt other believers. We just like it
when people are nice to each other rather than mean, and like we wrote
above, we both just have a hard time wrapping our minds around the idea
that being mean is a good thing and what religion (or any belief
system) should be all about.
And, it's not like other religions or belief systems haven't
killed for their causes either. As a matter of fact, many of the major
wars through out history have also been justified for religious
reasons. Most of the established religions today have a major part in
this history also. In short, the religion of Islam is not alone in this
regard. To us, like we wrote earlier, this is not ultimately what
religion should be about, but that don't make it true, it's just that
being nice is more harmonious and makes more sense than being mean to
each other, but that's just our opinion. Seeing people be mean to each
other makes us feel bad, and if that's what the one true religion
really is and what the afterlife will be like, and since we can choose
how to feel before we die (especially since afterwards we might have to
feel bad for all of eternity), feeling good is how we want to feel now
while we can, rather than feel bad right from the beginning. We believe
it's better to feel good for a short time rather than never at all.
And even though these actions by Boko Haram are horrendous, one
thing we agree on is that they do bring attention to the plight of
the Nigerian people (especially those Muslims who live in the north),
and it unfortunately (and rightfully so in our opinion) doesn't
always really help bring about any kind of the constructive changes
that actually help anyone, because more times than not, all it ends up
doing is hurt people and that tends to shift the focus from their cause
(no matter how legit) to a condemnation of their actions instead and
the real result is that people are hurt and die for nothing, except as
a form of enjoyment for those who perpetrate these evil acts.
Although this website is ultimately about finding the truth, it's
also about being nice to everyone equally (and also considering
different beliefs equally), at least at first, and thus not hurting
anyone for no good reason, especially the innocent. Helping the
innocent is more important to us than hurting them (or hurting anyone
for that matter, at least not without some kind of fair and unbiased
investigation), and one of the things that hurt people (besides
violence and other things like that) is being forced to go missing,
which is usually what happens when people are kidnapped and forced
(against their will) to go missing (which seems th have happened in
this case), and this does not make us feel good at all.
And this is why we chose to write this article about the missing
kidnapped girls, and not because we want to prove what the one true
religion really is or if there is even such a thing; and even though we
admit that why we do what we do here concerning missing persons is
ultimately for a selfish reason, it's at least a selfish reason that we
believe helps people rather than hurts them.
Ultimately, history will either prove us wrong or prove us right,
and it's a gamble that we feel we have no choice but to make, because
we selfishly want to feel good and not bad, and thinking about people
going missing against their will without trying to do something about
it does not make us feel good. We're not saying our website will change
the world, but it's the best we can do and to do something (no matter
how small) is better than doing nothing at all.
We also believe that missing persons are a symptom of a larger
psychological problem (or disorder) rather than the problem itself, and
it shouldn't be ignored just because many people (especially many of
those in authority) believe it's not that important a problem or
because there's no easy or cheap solution to solving it.
Sometimes people do decide to disappear just because they believe
it's the only choice they have when choosing between their own need to
survive (either psychologically or physically) and another person's (or
persons') self interest and selfish desire or need to be mean, and not
because they are forced to for some evil outside intent or desire. Many
people seem to believe this is the missing person's problem and not
theirs. If people want to be stupid, why bother spending money we don't
have to find them when in the end they'll just do it again and again
and again? We believe this inaction is wrong and one of the many
reasons why we created this website.
Many of these missing person cases where someone chooses to go
missing are not as easy to decide whether they are the onea choosing or
someone else is forcing them for their own selfish reasons or intent,
but we do believe that finding these missing persons so we can find out
what the truth really is, is more important and seems more right than
wrong to us, and also because we believe that more people go missing
against their will (and as a result of some evil intent or desire on
someone elses part rather than because they are trying to escape their
past or a bad situation) than is generally believed.
We may be wrong, but what if we're right? What if finding these
missing people does more good than harm? There's only one way to prove
this, and that is to find them and let them tell us (and the world)
themselves. We think this is worth all the work we put into this and
also because of the education it affords us and everyone else, and as a
result we believe it is worth being proven wrong and that our theories
and beliefs are just hogwash, even if only one missing person is saved
from being hurt or killed. We know it's selfish to believe this, but we
believe it's a good kind of selfish rather than the bad kind, and only
those who are missing can tell us for sure and not the other way around.
That's our story, and we're sticking to it until someone (or many
someones) can prove to us that our theories are wrong (that missing
persons are a symptom of a larger problem that, like the prevalence
of serial killers and such, is more widespread than is currently
believed to be the case) and that this work and beliefs should be
abandoned in favor of a more passive disregard for possible human
suffering that seems to be the exception rather than the rule.
The way things stand right now, this passive disregard just
doesn't appeal to us and is just too easy a way to justify continuing
to do nothing at all, which to us is not logical and doesn't make any
sense at all.
UPDATES:
BOKO HARAM 'CAPTIVES' ARRIVE AT NIGERIA REFUGEE CAMP - Nigeria
3 May 2015 Last updated at 04:22 BST
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-32571284
"A group of nearly 300 women and girls, which the Nigerian army says
were freed from Boko Haram militants earlier this week, have been taken
to a refugee camp in north-eastern Nigeria... "
BOKO HARAM SEIZES 25 GIRLS FROM TOWN IN NIGERIA - Nigeria
Fri, Oct 24, 2014, 01:00
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/africa/boko-haram-seizes...
"Suspected Boko Haram militants kidnapped at least 25 girls in an
attack on a remote town in northeastern Nigeria, witnesses said,
despite talks on freeing over 200 other female hostages they seized in
April... "
SUSPECTED BOKO HARAM FIGHTERS MOUNT DEADLY ATTACKS AFTER NIGERIA 'CEASEFIRE' - Nigeria
Maiduguir, Nigeria Sat Oct 18, 2014 1:01 pm EDT
By Lanre Ola
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/18/us-nigeria-girls...
"(Reuters) - Suspected Boko Haram militants have killed dozens of
people in five attacks on Nigerian villages that occurred after the
government announced a ceasefire to enable 200 abducted girls to be
freed, security sources and witnesses said on Saturday... "
NIGERIA ANNOUNCES CEASEFIRE WITH BOKO HAREM - Nigeria
Oct. 17, 2014 | 4:29 p.m. EDT
By Paul D. Shinkman
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/10/17/nigeria-announces...
"Six months after almost 300 girls went missing, hope re-emerges on
recovering captured girls... "
NIGERIAN DEFENSE CHIEF SAYS MILITARY HAS LOCATED ABDUCTED GIRLS BUT CAN'T GO IN WITH FORCE - Nigeria
Published May 26, 2014 Associated Press
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/05/26/nigerian-defense-chief... /
"ABUJA, Nigeria - Nigeria's defense chief says the military has located
nearly 300 school girls abducted by Islamic extremists but cannot use
force to free them.... "
BOKO HARAM: WEST AFRICAN LEADERS DECLARE 'WAR'
18/05 03:27 CET
http://www.euronews.com/2014/05/18/boko-haram-west-african-leaders... /
"West African leaders have vowed to wage ‘war’ against Boko Haram at a
meeting with EU and US representatives in Paris... "
FOOTNOTES (and other RELATED Material):
1West Africa leaders vow to wage 'total war' on Boko Haram
2U.S. Officials Question Ability of Nigeria to Rescue Hostages
3Boko Haram leader: Is there a method to his madness?
4Abducted Nigerian girls likely split up into smaller groups, officials say
5Nigeria’s Boko Haram smearing the image of Islam: Saudi Grand Mufti
6Everything You Need to Know About Boko Haram, the Group Kidnapping Nigerian Girls
7A mother’s anti-war editorial on #BringBackOurGirls
8Video Rant, Then Deadly Rampage in California Town
©Copyrighted by Dave Ayotte & Caty Bergman
LAST UPDATED: Saturday, October 10, 2015