Religion

How much popular support Boko Haram enjoys in northern Nigeria is a “riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” After all, in the war between Boko Haram and the Nigerian security forces some 20,000 people have died, and up to 2.5 million are internally displaced or are refugees. (All such numbers are at best estimates.) Yet the fact that Boko Haram has persisted since 2009, carries out operations, and continues to hold the high-profile Chibok school girls in captivity indicates an infrastructure and some degree of popular support. Chika Oduah, writing for Al Jazeera has published a fascinating story centered on a small group of Boko Haram women now in a government safe house in a program designed to de-radicalize and rehabilitate them. It is a must-read. Her article is anecdotal – the stories of specific women, with some commentary from social workers. Love for their Boko Haram fighter husbands plays a major role in their narrative. So, too, does their voluntary participation in “jihad.” Oduah reports “the women at the safe house say that as their husbands are working for God, they do whatever they ask of them.” A few, at least, appear to have lived well in the Sambisa Forest. At least one seems to justify child suicide bombers: “It’s OK to be a suicide bomber. It’s normal.” She tells the story of children volunteering for “paradise.” Other women talk about participating in suicide bomb attacks as a form of revenge for family members killed by the security forces. Still others describe initiation rituals that would appear to incorporate magic or drugs, both anathema to conventional Salafist Islam. Oduah also reports on the difficulties social workers face. Some social workers are “a little afraid of the women” because of their association with suicide attacks. The Boko Haram women are reluctant to talk: “The women are cagey, shifting their gazes as they change their stories.” Social workers also raise the issue of what will happen to the women. Apparently they are widely feared in their communities and their good treatment in a government rehabilitation program is resented at a time when Nigerian displaced persons are suffering extreme hardship. At some point, rehabilitation and reintegration of the large numbers of people in the north associated with Boko Haram will be a major challenge for the Abuja government.

Emma Green has published in The Atlantic her interview with Shadi Hamid, author of Islamic Exceptionalism. Her interview amounts to a riff of his book’s arguments. His focus is on why Muslims, especially in Europe, would turn to violent extremism. It has insights that are also applicable to jihadi movements in Africa, such as Boko Haram. Hamid argues that Islam is “exceptional,” that it rejects the Western trajectory of reformation, enlightenment, democracy, and secularism. He argues that for many Muslims, secularism and democratic politics are meaningless in the context of Islamic belief. He observes that for Western, democratic secularists, it is difficult to understand that a motive for violent extremism is a “desire for eternal salvation. It is about a desire to enter paradise.” Further, “On a basic level, violence offers meaning.” He also recalls that in its earliest days and later, Islam was involved in state-building, an endeavor that is inherently violent. The Islamic State, of course, claims to be involved in state building. So does Boko Haram, if more abstractly now that it has lost most of the territory that it once held. Hamid’s bottom line: violent extremism is a product of the failure of western secularism in an Islamic context. In northern Nigeria, the view that the secular state has failed is widespread. In Nigeria, the founders of Boko Haram saw the movement as pure Islam and that the secular state is evil. Ostensible Muslims who participated in the secular state were apostates who deserved the appropriate punishment, usually death or enslavement. As it has evolved, Boko Haram contains many strains, including the political and the outright criminal. But, it continues to contain a religious or ideological dimension. In that context, Hamid’s ideas are worth thinking about, and Emma Green’s interview is a useful introduction.

Below is a visualization and description of some of the most significant incidents of political violence in Nigeria from July 2, 2016 to July 8, 2016. This update also represents violence related to Boko Haram in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger. These incidents will be included in the Nigeria Security Tracker. <a href=’#’><img alt=’Weekly Incident Map Dashboard ’ src=’https://public.tableau.com/static/images/NS/NSTWeeklyJuly2-8/WeeklyIncidentMapDashboard/1_rss.png’ style=’border: none’ /></a>   July 4: Nigerian troops killed three would-be suicide bombers in Monguno, Borno. July 5: Sectarian violence led to the deaths of seven in Yakuur, Cross River. July  6: Cultists killed eleven in Sagamu, Ogun. July 7: Sectarian violence led to the deaths of eight in Okpokwu, Benue. July 8: Two suicide bombers killed themselves and nine others at a mosque in Damboa, Borno. July 8: Boko Haram killed three in Maiduguri, Borno. July 8: Boko Haram attacked Kala/Balge, Borno and killed seven civilians. Nigerian troops repelled the attack, killing sixteen militants and losing two soldiers.

Lincoln Davidson, Bochen Han, Theresa Lou, Gabriella Meltzer, Ayumi Teraoka, and James West look at five stories from Asia this week. 1. Prominent Chinese lawyer facing possibility of lifetime imprisonment. The Chinese police have recommended prosecution on a charge of “subverting state power” for Zhou Shifeng, director of the Beijing Fengrui Law Firm whose arrest last summer invigorated a campaign to discredit and dismantle networks of rights-focused defense lawyers who have attempted to challenge the government. Zhou’s law firm took on many contentious cases about legal rights, representing the likes of dissident artist Ai Weiwei and Uighur academic Ilham Tohti. The charge of “subverting state power” can carry a sentence of up to life in prison. In comparison, Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years for “inciting subversion of state power”, which is generally regarded as a lesser offense. Prosecutors now have up to a month and a half to decide whether or not take Zhou to court on the subversion charge. While it’s possible that the charge will be lightened, Zhou’s legal peers say that prosecutors are more inclined to stick with the more serious charge so as to set an example for other lawyers under investigation. China’s crackdown on lawyers is part of a comprehensive tightening of civil society under President Xi Jinping, in line with recent moves to restrict activity of foreign NGOs in China and reform the legal profession qualification system. 2. Obama meets the Dalai Lama. U.S. President Barack Obama met privately with the fourteenth Dalai Lama on Wednesday despite China’s firm opposition. The meeting—the fourth between the president and the spiritual leader—took place in the residence instead of in the Oval Office, which is traditionally reserved for heads of state. The White House reiterated that the personal meeting does not symbolize a shift in U.S. policy toward Tibet, which Washington considers part of China. However, President Obama encourages the Dalai Lama and his representatives to work directly with the Chinese government to resolve their differences. Beijing considers the Dalai Lama an anti-China separatist and has urged foreign governments not to host him. The Chinese Foreign Ministry emphasized that Tibet is part of China’s internal affairs, and that Washington risks jeopardizing relations with Beijing with the meeting. The meeting comes amidst increasing tensions between the two countries in the East and South China Seas. Just last week, the U.S. military accused a Chinese fighter jet for conducting an “unsafe” intercept of a U.S. reconnaissance plane that was operating in international airspace over the East China Sea. 3. Hyderabad on “high alert” for potential polio outbreak. Officials announced on Wednesday that a strain of active, vaccine-derived type 2 polio virus had been found in the water at a sewage treatment plant in Hyderabad, the capital of Telangana state in southern India that is home to over seven million people. Twenty-four sections of the city have been declared “most-sensitive areas” for a future outbreak. This discovery has prompted a precautionary vaccination drive that will begin Monday and reach 300,000 children, according to a statement from India’s Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Thanks to collaboration between federal and state governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and non-profit organizations, India detected its last case of polio in West Bengal in 2011 and was declared polio-free in 2012. Despite this success story, experts such as regional health officer Rajesh Singh have expressed mounting concern: “When the vaccine is given through the mouth, the liquid that gets dissolved and passed on in the form of stool accumulates in the sewage system. The virus in that vaccine becomes a stronger and more resistant strain.” 4. Tokyo governor finally resigns. Tokyo Metropolitan Governor Yoichi Masuzoe resigned on Wednesday after admitting to an inappropriate use of political funds to pay for personal travel and entertainment, including manga comic books and a Chinese-made silk calligrapher’s robe. The election for a new governor will occur on July 31, only three weeks after the House of Councillors election. Masuzoe had long refused to resign, even warning that he might dissolve the assembly if his non-confidence vote passed. He finally agreed to resign when the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and the Komeito, which backed him in the February 2014 election, started urging him to step down, cautioning against the damage he might cause to the upcoming Upper House election. Political parties are now quickly searching for candidates to back, and so far two women have been mentioned: Yuriko Koike, former defense minister for the LDP, and Renho, acting president of the main opposition Democratic Party. While Masuzoe set off the public’s furor over his expenses, the resulting Tokyo gubernatorial election is expected to cost about 5 billion yen ($50 million). It is critical that the Tokyo residents vote based on candidates’ ability to successfully run the metropolitan city without undermining public confidence. Only voting for famous names will only lead to another gubernatorial election. 5. Afghanistan and Pakistan exchange heavy fire along border. Last Sunday, Afghan and Pakistani forces exchanged heavy gunfire at the Torkham border crossing—the busiest official border crossing between the two countries—resulting in five dead and dozens injured. The fighting forced the closing of the border crossing for the second time in the past month, and tensions continued to escalate as a Pakistani Army officer was killed in the fighting on Tuesday. Each side has accused the other of unprovoked firing. In a dispute over the construction of a border gate by Pakistani forces, Pakistan claims the gate is on their side of the border and is designed to curtail the movement of militants, while Afghan officials say the construction violates an agreement on building new installations along the shared border that requires mutual discussion and agreement. Various ceasefires have been violated throughout the week with both sides reportedly deploying additional troops and weaponry to the border and summoning respective ambassadors to lodge formal complaints. As of Friday, construction had resumed on the Pakistani side despite a ceasefire requiring work to be halted, and the crossing remained closed, stranding thousands. The dispute comes after months of increasing tensions between the two countries over the ongoing war against that Afghan Taliban. Bonus: Jack Ma says fakes better than original products. Ma, the founder and chairman of Alibaba, the largest e-commerce company in the world, said this week that “fake products today, they make better quality, better prices than the real products, the real names,” adding fuel to perceptions that the company profits from counterfeiting. Fake products, often produced by the same factories that make brand-name items, have long been widespread on Alibaba’s platforms, and critics have accused the company of not doing enough to combat counterfeiting. Earlier this year an anti-counterfeiting industry group suspended Alibaba’s membership. Ma may be on to something: there will always be consumers who are unwilling or unable to pay the premium charged by brand name products. But growing Chinese demand for foreign-produced goods suggests that many consumers are hoping to avoid knock-offs.

Over the past few days, both the United Kingdom and the United States have warned their nationals of a possible Islamist terrorist attack in South Africa. The warnings cite upscale shopping malls in Johannesburg and Cape Town as the most likely targets. It is not clear what, specifically, led to the warnings. However, Ramadan started on June 5, and the self-proclaimed Islamic State has called publicly for terrorist attacks during the Holy Month. States often reject such U.S. and U.K. warnings as somehow implying that they cannot protect their residents and visitors. Such warnings can also impact negatively on the tourist industry. Predictably, in response to the U.S. warning, Clayson Monyela, a South African foreign affairs spokesman, said, “The state security agency and other security agencies in this country are very much capable of keeping South Africa safe and everybody in this country, including Americans,” according to Reuters. Reuters also reports that South African security officials say that “there are no known militant groups” operating in the country. South Africa’s Muslim minority is very small, less than 1.5 percent of the population. However, Reuters also quotes analysts as saying that a terrorist attack is “feasible,” and that current economic hardships and very high levels of unemployment could radicalize South African Muslim youth. South Africa’s security services are among the best in Africa. Nevertheless, no country is immune from a possible attack. Shopping malls are particularly vulnerable, as the 2013 al-Shabab attack on Nairobi’s Westgate Mall showed.

Sectarian conflict in Nigeria’s Middle Belt is attracting more attention both at home and abroad. Typically, conflict involves Muslim Fulani herdsmen clashing with Christian Barome (or other small tribes) farmers. Conflict between pastoralists and farmers has been endemic for years in the Middle Belt, where the predominately Christian south and the mostly Muslim north meet. The coincidence of boundaries between religions, land use, and ethnic groups promotes conflict, as does its manipulation by politicians to advance their particular agendas. Historically, the Fulani preyed on minority tribes to feed the slave trade. When Christianity arrived in the Middle Belt, it was embraced by the minority tribes, as opposed to the Islam of the slave catchers. What does seem to be new is the magnitude of the killing. Fulani herdsmen are moving further south than in the past, driven by desertification that in turn is a result of climate change. That brings them into increased contact with Christian agriculturalists in some of Nigeria’s best farmland. There is also conflict over water use. The general weakening of the Nigerian state associated with the conflict with Boko Haram, and the deployment of substantial military resources to the northeast, also facilitates the growth of violence. Middle Belt violence has long been underreported. However, with the catastrophic (for the Nigerian economy) decline in oil revenue, there is more attention to developing the non-oil sectors of the economy, especially agriculture. The Middle Belt has the potential for once again becoming a major breadbasket for West Africa, as it was prior to the discovery of oil, and the region is attracting more attention than heretofore. More generally, security has become an issue of greater salience across Nigeria, with popular demands for better police protection. However, resources are constrained, and the Inspector-General of Police, Solomon Arase, remarked in late-April that a manpower gap exists at the “strategic policing level” in Nigeria.

In 2009, following Boko Haram’s apparent revolt, the details of which remain murky and contentious, the Nigerian security services, mostly the army, destroyed the group’s Maiduguri compound. The army arrested then Boko Haram leader, Mohammed Yusuf, and turned him over to the police, who extrajudicially murdered him. The army killed at least eight hundred of his followers and family members. Boko Haram survivors went underground only to emerge in 2011 under a new, bloodthirsty leader: Abubakar Shekau. Since then, fighting between Nigeria and Boko Haram has resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and more than two million internally displaced persons. Though by no means free of violence, Boko Haram had not been especially murderous before 2009. In 2015, the Institute for Economics and Peace characterized it as the world’s most lethal terrorist movement. The Nigerian security services’ 2009 Maiduguri killings were the catalyst that transformed Boko Haram into a violent terrorist movement devoted to the destruction of the Nigerian secular political economy. In December 2015, in Zaria, Kaduna state, the security services killed more than 350 people, mostly Shias, according to a new report by Amnesty International. Nigerian Shiite authorities maintain that there are an additional 350 missing. Amnesty documents crude efforts by the Nigerian security authorities to cover-up the massacre. As in 2009, there was a confrontation between the security services and a religious sect; the army claims the Shias were trying to murder the chief of army staff moving through their neighborhood in a convoy. The Shias deny anything other than peaceful intent. The Shias leader, Ibrahim al-Zakzaky, and his wife were severely wounded and have been detained without charge. Zakzaky was granted access to a lawyer only in April. There are fearsome similarities between the incidents in Maiduguri and Zaria. Must we anticipate from the Shias the same violent trajectory as that of Boko Haram? There are differences that may mitigate Shiite violence. The aftermath of Mohammed Yusuf’s murder was captured in a video that went viral in northern Nigeria; Zakzaky, however, is still alive. Yusuf in his preaching was increasingly characterizing the Nigerian secular state as evil and he appeared to incite violence against it. Zakzaky has always been opposed to violence. In 2009, the authorities moved very slowly toward an investigation of the bloodshed in Maiduguri. In Zaria, by contrast, the state government has moved quickly to investigate the incident and has promised a report. To prevent a repeat in Zaria of what happened in Maiduguri, it is to be hoped that the investigation of the incident is credible and thorough, and that the authorities hold accountable those responsible for the massacre. Zakzaky and his wife, now detained without charge since December, should be released at once. But, if the Nigerian government fails to take these actions then there is the risk that members of Zakzaky’s Shiite sect will go underground, just as Boko Haram did.

The consequences of the brutal war between Boko Haram and the Nigerian security services will be with us for a long time. In the BBC’s series, “Letter from Africa,” Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani describes how the experience of Boko Haram occupation and subsequent liberation exacerbated the division between Christians and Muslims in the town of Michika. Christians and Muslims now hold their markets on different days of the week, and children from each community taunt those from the other. Nwaubani sums it up, “These days, the Christians and Muslims cannot stand each other.” She reports that the town was liberated by the Nigerian military after seven months of Boko Haram occupation, but security is now in the hands of “professional game hunters” and “vigilantes,” two informal, nongovernmental groups that are also suspicious of each other, even though their memberships are religiously mixed. But, Mwaibani also reports a good-news story: the work of the Adamawa Peace Initiative. Its goal is peacebuilding by working to reduce violence through encouraging religious, community, and business leaders to work together. It has been active in the state of Adamawa since 2012, working with the American University of Nigeria*, based in Adamawa’s capital, Yola. It has Michika as a focus. The initiative has organized dialogue involving “the town’s leaders, women, men, youths, hunters, and vigilantes.” Mediators are teachers and respected Christian and Muslim clergy. Frank dialogue is having a salutary effect: one resident comments, “We had been carrying these grudges instead of tabling them. We had been pretending as they did not exist.” The celebrated Africanist Stephen Ellis once remarked that a failing state is like a person who is sick, not a machine that can be repaired quickly. Recovery is by fits and starts and takes a long time. The same is likely true of smaller communities. The Adamawa Peace Initiative is providing therapy for a community that has been very ill. *As a disclaimer, I serve on the board of the American University of Nigeria.

Historically, there has been no West African tradition of martyrdom by suicide. Suicide, in fact, continues usually to be viewed as anathema. Nigeria’s first case of suicide bombing occurred only five years ago, in 2011. Since then, it has become associated with Boko Haram, the radical, Islamist movement that seeks to destroy the secular government in Nigeria. The Pew Research Center in 2014 did a poll on Muslim views on suicide bombing in fourteen countries with large Muslim populations. Pew summarized the question as, “Suicide bombings can be ___ justified against civilian targets in order to defend Islam from its enemies.” Respondents could fill in the blank with ‘often,’ ‘sometimes,’ ‘rarely,’ ‘never,’ and ‘don’t know.’ Pew also aggregated ‘often’ and ‘sometimes’ into a single figure. The highest ‘often/sometimes’ aggregated percentages were Palestinian Territory (Gaza) at 62 percent, Bangladesh at 47 percent, and Palestinian Territory (West Bank) at 36 percent. The lowest were Pakistan at 3 percent and Tunisia at 5 percent. There were three sub-Saharan African countries on Pew’s list: Nigeria, Senegal, and Tanzania. The aggregated ‘often/sometimes’ scores were respectively 19, 15, and 26 percent. If the aggregated score for Nigeria is broken down, 9 percent opted for ‘often’ and 10 percent for ‘sometimes.’ As noted in a March 15 blog post, polling indicates about 10 percent of Nigerians are favorably disposed toward Boko Haram and about twenty percent of the country’s Muslims are favorably disposed toward the Islamic State. The percentage of Nigerians who say “suicide bombings can be often justified…” and those who say “suicide bombings can be sometimes justified…” is within the range of those Nigerians, presumably mostly Muslim, who are favorably disposed toward Boko Haram and the Islamic State, both of which make prominent use of suicide bombers. The aggregated figures for views on suicide bombings in Senegal and Tanzania are surprisingly high. They may indicate more sympathy for radical Islamic movements than conventional wisdom accounts for.

One of the many unknowns about Boko Haram, the radical Islamist terrorist movement associated with over 150 killings thus far in 2016, is how much popular support it actually enjoys. It is counterintuitive to witness popular support for a movement that brags about (and films) its grisly beheadings, makes use of female and child suicide bombers, and has contributed to some three million internally displaced persons in Nigeria and hundreds of thousands of refugees in adjacent countries. On the other hand, in its current iteration it has been active for five years, shows tactical flexibility, and kidnaps hundreds of women and girls. The more than two hundred Chibok school girls kidnapped in 2014 have never been accounted for, indicating that the movement has some logistical support structures that can feed, clothe, and house them. Polling by the Pew Research Center may provide some indication of the degree of popular support Boko Haram enjoys. A 2015 poll found that about one Nigerian Muslim in five is favorably inclined toward the so-called Islamic State. A 2014 Pew poll indicated that about 10 percent of Nigerian’s are favorably disposed toward Boko Haram. Polling in Nigeria, especially in a war zone, is fraught with difficulty. Nevertheless, Pew Research Center polling has a good reputation. There is little consensus as to the size of Nigeria’s population or the proportion of it that is Muslim. A frequently cited estimate of the total population is 183 million. The CIA and the Pew estimate that about half of the population is Muslim, and slightly less than half Christian. However, the Muslim birthrate is very high. Other sources estimate that Muslims represent a greater portion of the population of Nigeria. Whatever the size of Nigeria’s Muslim population, it is huge (the fifth largest Muslim population in the world). If 10 percent of Nigerian Muslims are favorably disposed toward Boko Haram, that would indicate millions of supporters, to a greater or lesser degree. That, in turn, would indicate that Boko Haram has no shortage of potential recruits.