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Go Home Feebleness at the UN, Extremism in Nigeria

POLITICS FEBRUARY 20, 2012

Feebleness at the UN, Extremism in Nigeria

BY MARTIN PERETZ

I.

The U.N. General Assembly has, by a vote of 137-12 (with 17 abstentions), condemned Bashar al-Assad and his relentless killing of the Syrian opposition which has gone on for nearly a year. The news was on page 12 of The New York Times which tells you just how significant the paper’s editors thought the resolution to be. The gifted reporter, Rick Gladstone, told us just about everything you would want to know. But there was a stand-off between the article itself, telling us that the tally “signified the deep anger and frustration at the United Nations over its inability to halt a conflict that has left thousands of Syrians dead,” and a sub-head which informed that there was “chastisement but no muscle...” So what else is new? Do I need to go over the dozens of locales where regimes have organized the murder of thousands and hundreds of thousands of their inhabitants without the U.N. doing a thing but issue a negotiated resolution without resolve and without force? By the way, I spoke with a friend who had been in the G.A. hall during the proceedings and he said, “There was no fury, just business as usual.”

A Times photo accompanying the article pictures two elegant-looking women representing the non-existent state of Palestine—yes, it also has a place at the General Assembly—and I wondered what they were thinking about Syria, their most steadfast ally, and its slaying of so many of their fellow Arabs.

The Obama administration came into office pledging to revivify—revivify from what?— the moral and political standing of the United Nations. This, too, is one of the great self-deceptions of the president and his crowd, in this particular crowd Susan Rice and Hillary Clinton, who thought that somehow the president’s tranquilizing words and theirs would bring honesty and reason to Russia, to China, to African tyrants and, their biggest bet, to the intersecting orbits of Arab states and Islamofascist mullahs. 

 

II.

I take nothing away from the president and his leadership in our struggle—and, yes, it has been a struggle—against Al Qaeda. The much-deserved killing of Osama bin Laden (and the throwing him into the sea, as well, to meet the creatures of the deep) disrupted many of the routines of the Muslim underground which, however, is still supported by many Muslim charities aboveground. But Al Qaeda is not a monocratic organization. It has many brains and works through many hands. Al Qaeda in Syria or Iraq has nothing to do with Al Qaeda in Nigeria, although, as we know from Umar Farouk Abdulmutallah’s nutsy career, the hands of terror stretch from the Gulf of Guinea in East Africa to Yemen off the Gulf of Aden atop the Indian Ocean. 

In fact, Nigeria—with about 160 million people, roughly divided between Christians and Muslims—is probably Al Qaeda’s most important battle zone, although there is no world command structure. Or, for that matter, central treasury. The Nigerian branch, if that is what we can call it, is Boko Haram, which is more a monstrous sect than an armed camp. But it does have soldiers, well-armed soldiers, who can fight real battles. A recent editorial in The Guardian put it this way: “Boko Haram’s gruesome rise has pried open crevices where ethnic, religious and socioeconomic fault lines intersect.” This editorial followed by a day an interview with one of the group’s leaders which made clear that the stakes are life or death. Anybody who doesn’t practice shari’a law, including Christians, will be killed. Now, it is true that Boko Haram does not speak for all of the country’s Muslims. But it speaks for enough of them to frighten the Christians and the others who pray in mosques but don’t quite see Islam in the same light. 

Maybe the United States is looking seriously at what it can do in Nigeria to avoid an apocalypse. But maybe it is not. After all, how many hours does the president have in one day? If nobody in America is looking, be sure that someone in China is: Nigeria does have the world’s tenth largest oil reserves. Has that made it rich? Not at all. Although baby-faced Umar Farouk’s father is one of Nigeria’s wealthiest men. By the way, the A.P. reported on Sunday that five Christians were killed in a church bombing. These killings are by now routine. You don’t have to bother reading about this one: There’ll be a monstrous death happening soon.

Goodluck Jonathan is the name of Nigeria’s president. Bad luck is what its fate is likely to be. 

Martin Peretz is editor-in-chief emeritus of The New Republic.

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23 comments

Boko Haram's vicious ideology, monstrous terrorism (attacks on Christians in Church on Christmas Day--200 dead) and significant success in gaining support or acquiesence in Northern Nigeria shows that Islamist radicalism is not the fault of Israel. Islamist radicalism is not a simple reaction to poverty, etc. (the liberal rationalization of the inexcusable)), nor does it derive from Israeli actions in the Palestinian conflict, nor from Western imperialism that ended 60 years ago. No. Like the existence of israel among Middle Eastern radicals, Boko Haram finds the existence of Christians theologically unacceptable per se. The parallel between Boko Haram and (say) Ahmedinejad's rantings, or Article 7 of the Hamas Charter, is instructive. This is not all of Islam, or even most of Islam--but it does come out of Islam, is now a significant minority of Islam, and it is based on Koranic texts.

- ProfEthan

February 20, 2012 at 1:20am

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"A Times photo accompanying the article pictures two elegant-looking women representing the non-existent state of Palestine—yes, it also has a place at the General Assembly—and I wondered what they were thinking about Syria, their most steadfast ally, and its slaying of so many of their fellow Arabs." Faced by this puzzling moral lassitude, the French philosopher Andre Glucksmann asked in 2006: "On the scales of world opinion, some Muslim corpses are light as a feather, and others weigh tonnes. Two measures, two weights. The daily terrorist attacks on civilians in Baghdad, killing 50 people or more, are checked off in reports under the heading of miscellaneous, while the bomb that took 28 lives in Qana is denounced as a crime against humanity. Only a few intellectuals ... find this surprising. Why do the 200,000 slaughtered Muslims of Darfur not arouse even half a quarter of the fury caused by 200-times fewer dead in Lebanon? Must we deduce that Muslims killed by other Muslims don't count - whether in the eyes of Muslim authorities or viewed through the bad conscience of the west?" Caroline Fourest wrote in Le Monde: “The Arab world gets inflamed over the Palestinians but never over the Uighurs. Rebiya Kadeer [the Uighur leader who lives in exile in the U.S.] has an explanation: “In their eyes we are just Asians, and foremost, we are not oppressed by either the United States or Israel, therefore they are not interested.” Whereas 12 small Danish drawings sent shockwaves, the fact that Korans are burn by Chinese officials in Xinjang (information given by Rebiya Kadeer which I have not been able to verify) doesn’t give rise to the slightest of murmurs. When Uighur dissidents seek refuge in Muslims countries, they are immediately sent back to the Chinese authorities.” And if you want to know how the Palestinians view the events in Syria you need look no further than in your own academic backyard, where, prof. Abukhalil obligingly allows us to gain a direct view into the Palestinian peculiar mindset: "So here are the new rules for democracy in the Middle East: democracy requires support for armed insurrection against the Syrian regime; but democracy also requires that violence is never used against the Zionist regime." "Having witnessed Western liberal and conservative enthusiasm for Arab violence in Libya and Syria against regimes that US wanted to bring down, do you know how I will now react to any Western voice that calls on Palestinians to adhere to non-violent struggle? I will basically say: that the Palestinians deserve exactly the same weapons and arms that NATO showered on Libyan NATO militias. And a bit more. " And you ask: where is the outrage? where, indeed? Hitchens once explained this, by employing a Turkish proverb: "When the axe came into the Forest, the trees said "The handle is one of us"

- noga1

February 20, 2012 at 7:05am

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ProfEthan tries to take a reasonable view of the Islamic awakening. Unfortunately, the problem with Islam is worse. It is a totalitarian imperialist doctrine, like Communism. It wasn't the nice passive Communists that we had to worry about, it was the active ones. Muslims are told to "Fight all men until they accept Allah as God and Muhammed as His Prophet." Koran 9:29 tells Muslims to subdue the non-believer, force him to pay protection money (jizya) and make him feel subdued. Why are Muslims on the war path now? Because today they can. They were repressed by European expansion in the past. They were thrown back at Tours, Vienna, and Lepanto, then colonized. Now they have Western money, Western weapons, and Western Internet. They are spreading senseless bloodshed in Nigeria and have corrupted the United Nations beyond recognition.

- amidut

February 20, 2012 at 7:42am

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Amidut: there is no doubt that the hyper-violent and intolerant is, or can be, a strong element in Islam. But with Muslims I happen to know personally, this is not so. Just the opposite. Of course, they are Americans. Indeed, one of my Muslim students said to me that if a Renaissance comes to Islam, it will come from America, that is, from the Muslim experience in America. Her husband said to me that there is monotheism, divided, it seemed to him, into three equal branches: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. This sort of sentiment would get him hung in Iran or Saudi Arabia, and imprisoned in Pakistan. I'm not a Polyanna. But the picture is not entirely dark. What is required is for liberal intellectuals to stand up to the totalitarians, and here I agree with Amidut. Islamism is the third totalitarian wave we have had to face: first Nazism, then Communism, now Islamism. What is disgraceful is that so many liberal and bien-pensant leftist intellectuals spend their time coming up with rationalizations and excuses for the Islamists' hyper-violence and intolerant behavior, because they are the oppressed of the third world. That's even been done with Boko Haram. And of course in the Middle East, these people see the violence and totalitarianism of the Islamists as Israel's fault. (The behavior of Boko Haram in northern Nigeria puts paid to that idea.)

- ProfEthan

February 20, 2012 at 8:35am

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ProfEthan "The violence and totaliniarism of the Islamists as Israel's fault" Really? The British colonialists created the totalitarian Islamic countries because as they said, it was easier to handle this corrupt dictators so ingrained in their nature, to continue exploitation of Muslims, and pursuit of British interests. Not the Jews , they were too honest with their own people. Islamic dictators continued promoting hatred towards Israel to distract from their own mistreatment of their own people. The Arab Spring has demonstrated that Israel is not the culprit. That the Muslim people have awakened that their own dictators are the guilty ones.

- JAIMECHUCH

February 20, 2012 at 10:42am

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ProfEthan Just inform your students of the real world. Israel prospers as a free democratic country. While Muslim countries under corrupt dictators fall back into misery and poverty and violence. Blame the dictators do not blame Israel. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-19/israel-safest-as-stock-investors-discount-threat-of-war.html

- JAIMECHUCH

February 20, 2012 at 11:31am

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Jaime, I was not saying that "The violence and totalitarianism of the Islamists was Israel's fault." Just the opposite--I was attack those people who do say this, and using the violence and totalitarianism of Boko Haram in Nigeria as the clinching argument.

- ProfEthan

February 20, 2012 at 3:23pm

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One of the problems with Russia has been that we keep dissing them one week as human-rights-destroying paranoid authoritarians hanging onto their old USSR allies, and then the following week we are scratching our heads wondering why they won't cooperate more on Iran. If I were Russia, I might wonder wtf the United States wants.

- ironyroad

February 20, 2012 at 4:51pm

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I grew up with the Cold War. My father worked for Dr. Strangelove. (I exaggerate, but with some truth.) It was not a "sure thing" that we would defeat the atheist evil empire, any more than it was a sure thing that we would kick the British out, or preserve the union without slavery. How did we defeat Communism? People died in places like Korea and Viet Nam. We subverted the "Reds" with slogans and consumerism. It's harder with a religion. Even so, Catholicism (the sweet religion of Popes who spoke to God and conducted Inquisitions) was subverted/"Reformed" by Protestantism, the sweet religion that dunked witches and murdered Irish and aborigines in Australia and America. [Both groups picked on Jews, btw. And let's not speak of whom the Jews picked on...] Nevertheless, here in 2012 MOST Catholics and most Protestants behave themselves in a civilized way. So it took ... what, 2000 years ... for Christianity to turn itself into a civilized religion? So. What do we do? Do we exterminate every Muslim? Do we bribe every Muslim? If I say not every Muslim is not a stone cold killer, will Noga [and who knows whom else] flame me? For what? Not being Jewish enough? For calling myself an eth...? I will read every one's intelligent, perceptive, knowledgeable suggestions of how to bring peace to a world occupied by humans with interest, attention, and perhaps even courtesy (though that it sometimes a rare quality in this refined community that tells everyone else how to behave well, but does not always practice what it pre...)

- skahn

February 20, 2012 at 5:14pm

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irony: The Russian Federation should see a nuclear Iran as destabilizing to Russia and any dreams the Putinescas (no anchovies in that saucy mix!) have of restoring some of the lost Soviet Empire (the Stans). Just because Iran has kept their promise to Russia to stay out of Russia's Caucausus does not mean that will continue if Iran has nuclear weapons. wtf does Russia want may have something to do with Azerbaijan, and Baku. I stand with amidut, that Islam is an intolerant imperialistic ideology that has a religious component, something that Communism probably should have kept in their ideology.

- K2K

February 20, 2012 at 5:30pm

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I'm glad ProfEthan agrees that Liberals must stand up to Islamism, even though we may disagree about how separable it is from traditional Islamic doctrine. I much prefer that this war takes place in the realm of ideas and politics, not wars of extermination, as feared by SKahn. People do change their beliefs in history. In the US, that means we must stand up to Islamist front groups such as CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) or NIAC (National Iranian American Council). We need to support legitimate law enforcement efforts to monitor and contain such groups and Islamist paramilitary groups. We need to insist that American laws and traditions be upheld. That mean, for example, that Muslim cab drivers MUST accept passengers with service dogs. Female genital mutilation, honor killings, and polygamy must be severely punished. And so on. In foreign policy, we need to drop our delusions about Islamic democracy in the Middle East. That has been a complete oxymoron. The Obama must be called out for its unproductive flirtations with the Muslim Brotherhood, the mother of all Islamist organizations. It's weakness in dealing with Islamic Iran. Only thus can we truly help Liberals and minorities in the Muslim world.

- amidut

February 20, 2012 at 5:52pm

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amudut, I will just say that your comment passes my subjective "sensible and constructive" comment test. Thank you, and a good start.

- skahn

February 20, 2012 at 6:40pm

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skahn Muslims will fix their lives themselves. It will be, hopefully, in peace and industry. If you read Vali Nasr books , and Muslims follow his advice ,it will be a better world for Muslims. It will be a better world for all of us. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vali_Nasr The Arab Spring was a necessary start. It will get better. It has to. I am sure that belligerent theocratic regime will have to change for peace and prosperity. People will practice their religion, and work for peace , industry, prosperity. Please read Vali Nasr . I hope Muslims read Vali Nasr. I have been sold on him for a long time.

- JAIMECHUCH

February 20, 2012 at 6:55pm

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Jaime, Thank you for the information on Vali Nasr. He sounds as if he is an intelligent, knowledgeable, and sensible people. Everyone should pay attention to intelligent, knowledgeable, and sensible people, especially those people who lack such qualities. Perhaps now that humans have developed the ability to transplant hearts and other major organs, perhaps they will develop the ability to do wisdom transplants.

- skahn

February 20, 2012 at 9:37pm

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"If I were Russia, I might wonder wtf the United States wants." No, the Russians have come to know more or less exactly what we want: Everything. And that should be an adequate explanation of their attachment to Iran among other things. "We need to support legitimate law enforcement efforts to monitor and contain such groups [as CAIR and NIAC]..." Hmmm--I wonder what those "efforts" would actually amount to in practice and to whom else they might be applied before very long. "...polygamy must be severely punished." Must it? Well, perhaps, but why, exactly? "Koran 9:29 tells Muslims to subdue the non-believer, force him to pay protection money (jizya) and make him feel subdued....[The Muslims] were thrown back at Tours, Vienna, and Lepanto..." Yes, scripture--including Koranic scripture--CAN be rather intolerant, can't it? But, ah, Lepanto--now those were good days. You forgot, however, to number among the great triumphs the clean sweep we finally made of the Iberian Peninsula.

- ccarrick@vzavenue.net-old

February 20, 2012 at 10:18pm

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Xenophon: Lepanto was a DEFENSIVE victory. It was a desperate defense--NOT an aggressive campaign. It was Suleiman the Sultan who was on the offensive (siege of Malta just before). Huge and very destructive Muslim raids on east coast of Spain, south coast of France and west coast of Italy just before. One needs to remember that less than a century before the Declaration of Independence, the Ottoman jihad was battering the walls of Vienna. I agree mostly with Amidut at this point.

- ProfEthan

February 21, 2012 at 12:18am

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ProfEthan, Yes, I agree--ALL of them were essentially defensive victories. The Reconquista merely took longer than the others, lasting almost eight centuries. And I certainly don't disagree that those who invaded and controlled Spain deserved their eventual expulsion. It's amazing how tenaciously people will fight to regain land that has been taken from them.

- ccarrick@vzavenue.net-old

February 21, 2012 at 8:00am

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Xenophen, the Koran and other Islamic scriptures cannot be dismissively waved off. They are unfortunately quite relevant today. They are the foundation of law in every state in the Muslim world today. Millions of Muslims received their only schooling in traditional madrassas. And enough Muslims are willing to follow the militant 7th century dictates of the Koranic tradition. As incredible as that seems to us in the secularized 21st century West. Polygamy, although the fantasy of every man, is not a joke. It accentuates social inequality and degrades women. Why should we grant Muslims special privileges and accommodations in the West? It is time that liberal-left people in the West recognized how antithetical Islam is to their values. Islam is itself the quintessential imperialist system. It has enslaved and murdered millions of people, including white Europeans taken in Islamic conquests and raids on Europe. Slavery still exists in the Muslim world today. Only a few generations ago (19th century), the Ottoman Turks occupied southeastern Europe and brutally oppressed the Orthodox Christians there.

- amidut

February 21, 2012 at 8:03am

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Yes, Amidut--Muslim naval raiders enslaved about one and a half million Europeans between 1550 and 1800. This is rarely talked about. Those million and a half slaves are in addition to the ten million to fifteen milion Africans taken as slaves by Arab slave-traders during that period. This is rarely talked about too. The massive Arab slave-trade out of Africa was only ended by the efforts of the Euro-American powers, especially the British, between 1840 and 1900. This, finally, is also rarely talked about. The reasons for the pervasive silence on these issues are all too obvious.

- ProfEthan

February 21, 2012 at 8:34pm

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"Yes, Amidut--Muslim naval raiders enslaved about one and a half million Europeans between 1550 and 1800. This is rarely talked about." A popular history of Muslim slave raiding of Europeans--titled White Gold, I believe--was published within the last 5 or 10 years. If you want something that no one talks about, how about the Bengal famine of 1769-1773 caused in large part by the tax and export policies of the East India Company and the replacement of grain land with opium plants for export. 10 million Bengalis died. Now that's something no one talks about.

- ccarrick@vzavenue.net-old

February 21, 2012 at 10:10pm

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The slaughter in Syria is a humanitarian crisis. But it may turn into a proxy war with Russia, China, and perhaps Iran on one side and the US pushing The Arab League out of its inertia on the other side. Perhaps. But I hope not. The last real proxy war with China and Russia was in Vietnam. I served there as a medical corpsman. I wouldn't wish war on my worst enemy after that experience. After the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the country seems fatigued and disillusioned. And I seriously wonder if we have enough troops to commit to another proxy war, if events in Syria spin out of control. By enough troops I actually mean enough fresh troops, not the ones who have done repeated tours of duty in either war zone. I think we have stretched to the limit what an all-volunteer armed forces can accomplish right now. Drones and special forces operations will just not cut it in Syria if we commit to a plan of action against the regime. And I really don't think America have the fortitude and resolve for a re-institution of the draft, given how it divided this nation into those who went away and those who stayed behind during my war. So our real options are quite limited after two long and inconclusive wars. That is the harsh reality of the Syrian question. I think Assad knows this is the dilemma in our country and why he has disregarded pleas for a cease fire or negotiations.

- rewiredhogdog

February 21, 2012 at 10:42pm

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The European and American Lefts are by and large hostile to western civilization and friendly to Islam. In Europe this is explicit, in the US it is somewhat more subtle. This despite that the fact that Islam treats women as chattel, punishes homosexuality with death, and that to this day Muslims in some counties carry on a brisk trade in black slaves. This despite the fact that the Islamic world today is a moral and intellectual desert, where tyranny, poverty, and stupidity rule the roost. Could somebody please explain to me this bizarre political phenomenon?

- bulbman1066

February 23, 2012 at 12:09am

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For "counties" write "countries.

- bulbman1066

February 23, 2012 at 12:12am

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