by Ikemesit Effiong
Last Thursday, Olaiya Phillips, the chairman of the Northern Christian Elders Forum, movingly asked the world in the Huffington Post, “Are Iraqi Christians Worth More Than Nigerian Christians?” The crux of the piece was that in light of the moralistic pretensions of the United States, by a mile, the world’s preeminent global power, in authorising a military intervention, albeit limited in its capacity in Iraq on behalf of that nation’s minorities, surely it can do the same for adherents of the same religion in the backwaters of Africa’s most populous nation.
The piece was written seminally, with the sombreness that the subject matter rightly deserved and a tone that conveys to the reader the enormity of the crises that befall both Iraq and Nigeria and the sheer inability of their governments’ to address the various complexities that have fed the current insurgencies both nations face.
However, this argument is problematic for a host of reasons, not least because of Mr Phillips’ reduction of Iraq’s seemingly intractable political imbroglio and the rise of the Islamic State group into one simple narrative – an attack on Christianity by Islam and his genuine, yet somewhat misdirected belief that the US is really involved in Iraq for the sole task of ‘protecting’ Iraqi Christians.
The simple fact is, that’s not the case. US President Barack Obama made that very clear in his speech authorising airstrikes on Salafi Islam’s newest (and so far, most violent) group that the “initial goal” of the military intervention was to protect Americans in the country and to help the Iraqi minorities stranded on Mount Sinjar, in northern Iraq. In his words, “We are going to maintain vigilance and ensure that our people are safe.”
It is important to note that the first ambit of Mr Obama’s Iraq strategy is to protect his country’s strategic interests in that part of Iraq. That shouldn’t shock us. It’s what every sensible country would do.
Boko Haram has targeted and killed everyone – Christian, Muslim, men, women and children, civilian, military, Hausa, Fulani, Kanuri – simply put everyone. It simply does not help our national conversation, or situation, to zero in on the rather unique plight of northern Nigerian Christians, however palatable, or pitiable the argument may be.
Secondly, when it comes to the protection of minorities, Christians actually do not come first in the pecking order of America’s rescue plan, however imprecise (and uncertain) it may be in Iraq. That accolade is reserved for the Yazidis – a Kurdish ethnic offshoot (although they consider themselves a distinct ethnic group) who number about 600,000 worldwide, reside mostly in Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria, and follow a distinct religion that blends elements of Sufi Islam and Zoroastrianism.
In line with its view of Shiites, Christians and a number of other groups in Iraq, the Islamic State considers them apostates and has killed at least 500 Yazidis since it began its deadly march from eastern Syria, where it has been fighting the forces of Bashar al-Assad down through central Iraq in a daring push to capture the capital Baghdad. The event that galvanised global public opinion and gave the White House the moral armoury to re-enter a country it left three years ago was the encirclement of between 10,000 and 40,000 predominantly Yazidi civilians on a barren mountain by the IS group.
Thirdly, Mr Phillips forcefully advocates airstrikes by the United States against Boko Haram militants firmly positioned in parts of eastern and southern Borno. This week alone, they proclaimed an Islamic caliphate in Gwoza, much like their IS ideological cousins did two months ago (For the uninitiated, this is what a caliphate means). All fair and good, except that airstrikes on its own are wholly ineffective to deal with an adversary with effective possession of territory, especially when that territory is as expansive as central Iraq or, in our case, much of Borno and Nigeria’s north east. Present-day Libya, pre-2003 Iraq before the American land invasion, Vietnam and Nazi Germany before D-Day in 1944 are firm historical proof that mastery of the skies is often just a prerequisite, and not the lynchpin for a successful land based military effort.
The thing is, to simply advocate that the greatest military force in human history bombard a pestering, irritating, and fearsome foe is as simplistic as it gets. Plus, this author has established that Boko Haram’s objectives extend far beyond attacking Christians in the northeast, or the north for that matter.
Even if the United States could mount a direct military intervention in Nigeria’s northern badlands, a similar argument should be made for the various countries that Mr Phillips mentioned in his piece – the Central African Republic; Syria; South Sudan; and Burma (Interestingly, the minorities under threat here are Muslims). The truth is, America has never, and can never be the guarantor of the protection of the world’s Christian populations, and it has never pretended to be such a thing.
Boko Haram is simply a manifestation of a virulent, legalistic and unabashedly sadistic brand of Salafi Islam that sees itself as the purest and truest form of the religion established by the Prophet Muhammad in the 5th Century. To deal with it will require international cooperation – diplomatic, political and yes, in some cases, military – of an order which the world has not been capable of mustering (in this case, not least because of Saudi Arabia )since the end of the Second World War.
And this is not considering the problematic headaches American airstrikes on Nigerian soil will provide for issues of Nigerian sovereignty, the inevitable collateral damage in civilian casualties with its attendant effects on questions of government accountability, especially in light of overwhelming national distrust in Abuja’s intentions.
Boko Haram has targeted and killed everyone – Christian, Muslim, men, women and children, civilian, military, Hausa, Fulani, Kanuri – simply put everyone. It simply does not help our national conversation, or situation, to zero in on the rather unique plight of northern Nigerian Christians, however palatable, or pitiable the argument may be.
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Ikemesit Effiong is a legal practitioner, political blogger, research consultant and avid troller of online curiosities. He reads too much for his own good, talks too little for others’ comfort and believes that the best place to be is underwater – with a swim trunk of course. He tweets from @JudgeIyke.
Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.
