Boko Haram and the Lord’s Resistance Army: Hunted Children & the Problem of Fundamentalism in Africa

[pampango]

The horrific story of the kidnapping of nearly 300 girls from their school in Borno Province, northeastern Nigeria, by the Boko Haram terrorist group has again underlined the problem of violent fundamentalism in Africa. Reports say more kidnappings have been undertaken today.

Boko Haram, which was founded in 2002, has many resemblances to its Christian counterpart in northern Uganda, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

Both groups have a holier than thou attitude to fellow believers. Joseph Kony, an ex-Catholic leader of the extremist Christian Lord’s Resistance Army, says he wants to impose the biblical Ten Commandments in a literal way. Christopher Hitchens wrote of Kony as described by an ex-associate, saying Kony “has found Bible justifications for killing witches, for killing pigs because of the story of the Gadarene swine, and for killing people because god did the same with Noah’s flood and Sodom and Gomorrah.” Kony also upholds male dominance, urging polygamy; he has allegedly fathered dozens of children with several wives. Both are characterized by magical thinking. Kony teaches that wearing a Christian cross is protection from enemy bullets. Kony led an insurgency to overthrow the Ugandan government but failed, and was forced into exile in Karachi.

Boko Haram is the Nigerian Muslim counterpart of the Ugandan Christian LRA. It was founded in 2002. It has sometimes been called a Nigerian Taliban. It wants to overthrow the Nigerian government. In the past few years its adherents have killed thousands. It has melded with local criminal gangs and sometimes does bank robberies. Its leader, Abubakr Shekau, speaks of imposing a literalist understanding of Muslim canon law or sharia. The movement reacted against the legacy of colonial education, forbidding Western-style schools.

http://www.juancole.com/2014/05/resistance-children-fundamentalism.html

[Victor_c3]

1. I'm a hardcore peacenik, but I'm all in favor of using our military to defeat these sorts of people

- providing we do so with a very clear partnership with the governments we partner with.

I joined the Army in 1997 and sought to become an Infantryman and eventually end up in either a Ranger Regiment or Special Forces with the full desire that my military service would be used to make the world a better and safer place for all people. Getting deployed to Africa and being a part of a team to remove (I hate the word "kill", but that is what it is) these guys and their militias would have been something that I would have loved to have had an opportunity to do. That would have been some military service that I would be proud of. Instead, I served as an Infantry Platoon Leader in Iraq for 13 months and did little to nothing that I'm either proud of or want to tell my children and family about.

I had my heart in the right place, but I was sent to the wrong fight.