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Are Nigerian Christian Lives Not Worth Mentioning?
I couldn’t even find a mention of what is going on in Nigeria to the Christians there on any of the mainstream media websites. I am fascinated that a lone gunman kills worshipers at a mosque in New Zealand and there is a national conversation about violence against Muslims in the United States. But the premeditated hunting of Christians in Nigeria isn’t even worth a blurb? I typed in “Nigeria” at the CNN website and the first thing that came up was “Greta Thunberg inspires global climate protest.”
We hear so much about how the United States needs to take in “the tired, the poor, the huddled masses…” How about we start with people like the Nigerian Christians, Coptic Christians, not to mention Christians from across the Middle East, Asia, and other parts of Africa. Shouldn’t we prioritize people like these Christians who are actually being persecuted?
I would be curious as to the thoughts of the Ricochet community.
Published in Foreign Policy
That doesn’t fit the narrative. Don’t you know Islam is the religion of peace?
News is about reporting what is unusual. If something isn’t unusual, it’s not news. It’s “olds”.
Political violence in New Zealand is highly unusual.
Tragically, in the secular worldview that predominates our popular media culture, the slaughter of Christians is not particularly news-worthy. I suspect that this is the case for several reasons, not least that Christianity is thought of as being a silly superstition and thus is generally held in mild contempt within the community of cultural elites. Also, since Christianity is inextricably associated with Western Civilization and European nations, there is a prevailing attitude that Christianity is inherently bad and contributes to the evils of colonialism (believed to be an exclusively European sin). These prejudices lead to the conclusion that the Nigerians would be much better off abandoning their Christianity in order to save their lives. By bitterly clinging to their religion (silly, unenlightened superstition to begin with), the Nigerians can be thought of as inviting their own suffering. Why would this be newsworthy?
I feel like Tevye. I think that you are both right.
I am torn about this issue.
On the one hand, I definitely want to give a refuge to my fellow Christians who are being persecuted.
On the other hand, if we give a refuge to all of them, the persecutors will have succeeded in driving them out of their countries.
The obvious theological answer is to pray. This has no downside, but may not be effective.
The obvious political answer is to take military action to strike against the persecutors. This has obvious downsides.
It’s my (vague, unsourced) understanding that the US already takes in a relatively high number of immigrants from Nigeria, thanks to high levels of education among Nigerian applicants (2/3 of Nigerian immigrants have bachelor’s degrees). It’s definitely true that Nigerian immigrants are among the top economic performers of any immigrant group in the United States, with an average household income higher than “white” Americans. Skilled immigrants do well regardless of where they come from.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2015-10-13/it-isn-t-just-asian-immigrants-who-excel-in-the-u-s-
It’s not just anti-Christian bias, though I agree that’s a part of it. I think there’s also a bit of ethnic prejudice as well, as few people seem to know about the relatively high education levels in Nigeria. When folk hear about massacres in Nigeria they may tend to think, “well, that’s just Africa for you,” but the reality is that this sort of religious terrorism in a country as advanced as Nigeria should be really alarming to more people than it is. It suggests that the forces of theocratic medievalism really don’t want Africa to modernize, and that’s the biggest obstacle to Africa’s future prosperity rather than “Western racism”.
Indeed, Nigerians do very well. Do we take in a large number of Nigerians? I believe that the 2016 census shows something like 380,000 households listing themselves as Nigerian in origin. Not much compared to the millions crossing the border from the central and south America.
Also, you are spot on that immigrants with skills, not just physicists and professors, do well in America. Let’s bring in more of those people! ;-)
We have a Nigerian priest at our Texas parish, yet they were not mentioned specifically in our communal prayers. Rather, we were prompted to pray for all victims of war. Perhaps I should ask him to arrange a specific prayer group.
Rwanda was a similar story. And Kenya.
I wouldn’t call it medievalism. Political domination by brute force and genocide are not particular to any period of history or any one ideology. It is simply the timeless story of the unjust seeking power over the just.
Personally, I think “political domination by brute force” serves as a pretty good definition of “medievalism”, but that’s just me.
I reject the “Enlightenment” narrative that’s set against medieval morons. I’m rather protective of medieval and ancient peoples, including pagans.
For some reason, people in the West (especially the US) see sub-Saharan Africa as completely alien, more alien than even Asia… it is simply seen as incomprehensible, and is generally only portrayed in stories about magnificent animals (remember Cecil?), famines, and civil wars… Are Africans seen as agents or objects? objects of pity, and “compassion fatigue”?
I think as a general principle it is very difficult to get regular news from around the world unless one goes in search of it, or it becomes popular with the press, perhaps to support a narrative.
I will pray for Kaduna; for one brief year, my daughter and I lived a 2-3 hour drive from there, in a city which has been damaged by Boko Haram.
Mark Steyn’s latest speaks to the same contradictions.
https://www.steynonline.com/9249/calling-out-around-the-world
I think we are deeply uncomfortable condemning blacks for really evil stuff. Massacring Christians, rape and female genital mutilation are serious problems that African blacks do to each other. In a similar fashion, we can’t politely criticize black-Americans for fatherless families.
I say it’s a mix of Rousseau’s noble savage and the modern lefty idea that you are either a victim or a victimizer and that’s all. I call this left-wing racism and I see it so much more than right-wing or old school racism.
I didn’t claim they were morons. I claimed that it was an era when political domination was obtained by brute force.
“On America’s watch, public expression of Christianity was obliterated in Iraq, and the last Christian church in Afghanistan razed to the ground. Almost exactly two years ago, when 148 students were slaughtered at a school in Kenya, President Obama could not bring himself to identify them as Christian, even though their killers had gone to great pains to separate their captives according to their faith, releasing the Muslims and killing the Christians. As I remarked somewhat mordantly, apparently black lives don’t matter when they’re Christian.” — Mark Steyn, April 11, 2017
https://www.steynonline.com/7751/the-incoming-roar
Rush discussed this on his show. The MSM isn’t interested in these atrocities bevause they don’t support the narrative, which is conservatives are all white supremacists, and hate Muslims.
The truth is there is no such thing as the “alt right”. White supremacists are left wing, and have their home in the Democrat party. They are a holdover from the KKK, also an organization that supported Democrats. Heck, the Dems even had a Klansman as a Senator.
But back to the post. The MSM doesn’t want people to know about the slaughter of Christians at the hands of Islamicists, so that is why they are going all New Zealand all the time. They finally have a bona fide white supremacist killing Muslims he hates.
Watch for another attac on the 2nd Amendment. NZ has extremely strict gun control laws, but the killer passed the requirements (from what I’ve read so far). Now NZ is calling for even stricter laws, much to the chagrin of gun owners who have already put up with strict requirements. Look for the tact by the left to be this:
“Because even the strictest gun control laws don’t work, the only thing we can do is outright prohibition.”
This is appalling. It is an intersection of religious persecution and a generations-old feud between the nomadic Fulani and settled farmers and ranchers in that part of Nigeria. To their shame, the Fulani militants are murdering Muslim farmers and ranchers who get in their way as well.
As I understand it, a few years ago, the government closed off a substantial portion of what the Fulani consider their “open grazing” rights, in favor of a more closed “ranching” scheme. (Bit like the inclosure acts and precipitated by the damage to farmland done by the Fulani herds as they moved through.) And I believe that is what set this off. No doubt there is a strong element of religious persecution here; however, there are other underlying causes to these horrific muderous sprees.
If the Fulani have radicalized and turned terrorist, I cannot imagine a more difficult network to infiltrate than a nomadic people with no central authority and no fixed locus of operation.
I lived in Kaduna (the city is considerably north of the area in the state where these atrocities are taking place) for a few years, and attended a state-run school after Nigeria’s independence from Britain. This is heartbreaking, and I’m just glad Dad didn’t live to see it.
As to why it’s not reported more, I think the comments on this post have that covered.
My field of study in history was Medieval History. I too chaff at that period as being especially bad either intellectually or politically (just too many examples to the contrary). That said, it was a rough period in European history. ;-)
Wow, that must have been a pretty interesting chapter in your life! I agree that news out of Africa is harder to find than a bible in a brothel!