Nigerian Catholic Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama has called for “the same international support to tackle Boko Haram as France has received since it was hit by Islamist attacks last week.”
I wonder whether or not the massive march and show of support in France against Islamic terrorism is the beginning of the democratic West’s resistance to Islamic terrorism—or merely a symbolic and momentary “illusion.” Will the massive show of solidarity in Paris lead to legislation that closes national borders, deports those on no-fly lists, deports radical imams at radical mosques, together with their radicalized followers in mosques and in prison, and deports those who have traveled to Iraq, Syria, and Yemen for jihadi training? Will it lead to legislation that also abolishes the “no-go” zones–the kind of hostile, separatist Muslim-only neighborhoods in which French Jew Ilan Halimi was tortured by groups of Muslims for three weeks before he died?
Will France pass such legislation, as well as enforce it?
Aside from how these attacks will affect Europe and the United States, the Nigerian Archbishop is right to demand international action and attention.
Boko Haram’s most recent jihadi attack in Baga allegedly resulted in the horrendous murder of 2,000 people. More than 13,000 have died since Boko Haram began its bloody rampage in 2009. Hundreds of thousands have been driven into internal exile and are homeless. Countless girls and women have been kidnapped, sold into sexual slavery, forcibly converted to Islam, or married off to jihadi barbarians.
On Sunday, Pope Francis condemned “deviant forms of religion” and “religious fundamentalism … which eliminates God himself … even before it eliminates human beings.” The Pope also denounced the “abominable kidnappings of young girls by Boko Haram militants in Nigeria.”
Clearly, the #BringBackOurGirls hashtag did not work. It was a very human, but merely symbolic, gesture held up before a ravenous wild beast. I am not sure what the West can do for or about Africa in a post-colonial period, given the realities of years of civil wars, poverty, corruption, tyranny, and barbarism.
Until the world democracies decide that “deviant forms of religion,” aka radical political Islam, are at war against all those who crave Western freedom and at war against the entire world, as long as the United States has a President and an administration that did not even attend the Paris march and refuse to utter the words “Islamic terrorism”–which is, indeed, terrorizing the entire world–matters will continue along the same dangerous path.
Nigeria will continue to suffer more Baga-like attacks, as will all the innocent civilians in the Middle East, Central Asia—and the West.
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