The heartbreaking video of a Christian pastor in Nigeria last year begging the West to help the Christians who are being systematically slaughtered by Muslims — mostly Hausa and Fulani tribesmen — in the north and northwest of Nigeria, deserved to be disseminated everywhere. But the Western world paid no attention. No one at the U.N. called for a special session to discuss the long series of massacres of Nigerian Christians. No Western leaders called publicly for an end, at meetings of NATO or the G-7, to the murders of helpless Christians. No Western military have been sent to help protect the Christians. In the West, governments are too busy trying to find ways to accommodate Muslims now living in, or moving in ever greater numbers to, the West, and do not wish to antagonize Muslims in their midst by protecting Christians under Muslim attack elsewhere. The Christian clerics in Iraq have long deplored the West’s indifference to their fate. Now it seems, it is the turn of Christians in Nigeria, who are left without any outside Christian aid to help them survive in parts of north-central Nigeria where they once felt safe, but now are under constant attack .
It was no different during the first great war made by Muslims on Christians in Nigeria: the Biafra War of 1967-1969. This was a classic Jihad. Hostilities began when Muslims from the Hausa and Fulani tribes conducted a sudden pogrom against Christians living in the North, killing many thousands. The Christians, chiefly of the Ibo tribe, realized that they could no longer defend themselves within the framework of the Nigerian nation, for both the national government, and its army, were dominated by Muslims. Islam had originally spread in northern Nigeria through the Jihad declared by Othman Dan Fodio in 1804, but then came a period when Christianized Africans in the south had held their own, sustained in the 19th century by the British who naturally favored the Christians. After all, there was little point in converting Africans to Christianity if they were then to be massacred by Muslims. The British were their proselytizers and their protectors. Things had completely changed by 1967, when the Christians declared the independent state of Biafra.
Now no Western country helped the Biafrans in their desperate struggle. Tens of thousands of Biafran civilians were murdered by Egyptian pilots flying Migs, who repeatedly bombed and strafed the Christian villages. Up to a million Biafrans died of starvation.
Col. Ojukwu, the Biafran leader, declared in his Ahiara Declaration of 1969 that the Biafrans were fighting off a “Jihad” that was being waged against them — and the word was not being used figuratively.
But the reaction in the West was one of studied indifference toward Biafra, or even hostility.
Great Britain, France, the United States, the rest of Europe, did nothing to help the Christians during the Biafra War. Only two states recognized Biafra during the war: Ghana and Israel. The rest of the Infidel world turned its back, pretending to believe that it was more important to “keep the most populous black African country as one nation” even if this meant the subjugation of the Christians, and the appropriation of southern oil wealth by the Muslims, who controlled the army, and repeatedly attacked the Christians of Nigeria wherever they were to be found. Another consideration in the West was no doubt oil: the sooner the conflict ended, the sooner that Nigerian oil could come back on the world market. The West, then, didn’t want the Biafrans to hold out, but to capitulate.
Now the Christians in Nigeria are again under attack. Boko Haram has kidnapped hundreds of Christian girls in north-central Nigeria, forcibly converting many, using others as sex slaves. Fulani herders have attacked Christian villages in a steady campaign of terror in northwestern Nigeria. One attack involved the burning to death of a Christian pastor, his wife, and three children. The Christians are helpless, reduced to posting videos pleading with the West’s Christians to help them.
For a long time, the Muslims in Nigeria have been enforcing their own rules, and threats, as to acts of supposed blasphemy, even outside the Muslim-dominated north. When a Christian journalist back in 2003 made an innocent joking remark about how “Muhammad would have appreciated the girls in the Miss World Contest” (which contest was closed after violent Muslim protests), she had to flee for her life to England. The suppression of the Christians in the south, with many of their population centers occupied by the Muslim-dominated army, continues, largely unreported by a Western media that does not want to hear about, much less have to report on, still other examples of Muslim violence and aggression that can, that media fears, serve only to increase “Islamophobia.”
The West should study how it behaved during the Biafra War, and the consequences of its abandoning, as it did during that war, the Nigerian Christians. Nigeria remained one state, but the Muslims clearly dominate that state. Life for Christians has become ever more uncertain and physically dangerous. There is no “convivencia.”
The West ought to intervene now, as it shamefully did not during the Biafra War, both by sending weapons to the most imperiled of Nigerian Christians, and by dispatching, too, its own troops to help protect them from what is clearly a Jihad, conducted intermittently, but genocidal in its intent. The last time around, the West did not intervene, but that non-intervention was not met with gratitude by the Muslims. They simply continued their Jihad without fear of such intervention. Rather, the West’s refusing to intervene in the Biafra War was interpreted, correctly, by Muslims as a sign of Western pusillanimity masquerading as statecraft.
Given the constant series of Muslim attacks on Nigeria’s Christians, it’s time to rethink the Western view that Nigeria must not be made into two states. Why not? Why should Christians be forced to endure remaining in one state with Muslims who do not wish them well, and who attack and kidnap and murder them? The notion that Nigeria “must stay in one piece” in order to remain the most populous black African country, for were it to be split into Christian and Muslim states, it would no longer be “Africa’s most populous state,” and that this would offend the amour-propre of too many black Africans, is absurd. Why should someone in Burkina Faso or Angola care whether Nigeria was the most populous African state or not? And there was no similar objection raised when Sudan, then the largest state by land area in Africa, was divided in June 2011 between two states: Sudan, dominated by northern Muslims, and a new state, Southern Sudan, dominated by black African Christians and pagans.
The Western nations shamefully let the Biafrans down during their unsuccessful war for independence. Had they stepped in, during that war, had they sustained the independent state of Biafra by supplying it with military aid, especially with both airplanes and defenses against Egyptian Migs, the continued spread of Islam in West Africa might have been slowed, if not halted. The West has had nearly a half-century to consider the consequences of its decision not to help the Biafran Christians. In Nigeria, the Christians are still, or are rather, yet again, the targets of murderous Jihadis. Outside Nigeria, the Western countries did not win Muslim hearts and minds by refusing to help the Biafrans; rather, they aroused Muslim contempt. And the Western passivity encouraged the Nigerian Muslims in their mass murdering, including the deliberate starvation of between half a million and 2 million Biafrans.
It’s time to try something new. If the Christians in Nigeria today ask the West for troops and weapons to protect them from Jihadis, this time the correct response — Yes, we will supply both — should be given. We have nothing to gain by way of Muslim sympathy, which as Infidels we cannot win no matter what, and a lot to lose in the continued mass murdering of Christians. This time, we must help them. The current administration has shown itself willing to unshackle itself from failed policies. Look at how unceremoniously it ended all American aid to both UNRWA and to the Palestinian Authority, and then shut down the Washington office of the Palestinian Authority. That reverses decade of failed policies. Let’s hope the Administration takes a new tack in Nigeria.
Debra Gour says
I guess when there are more Islamic attacks on our Western Communities, only then will we consider sympathizing or getting involved with helping our Christian Family in Nigeria or other persecuted Countries !* ” First they came for… ” WW2 It took alot before we stepped in to help the Jews during Nazi Invasion !* Thank goodness some were Hidden away by their neighbours. ???⛪
Rarely says
My history knowledge is a bit foggy but I seemed to have missed the part where “…we stepped in to help the Jews…” part. From what I’ve read the Allies did nothing to “help the Jews” until the Nazis were routed and the Allies started to free up the concentration and death camps the Germans had deserted. Even after we knew what was going on we even refused to bomb the railway lines to the camps.
But yes thank goodness for the super courageous people who hid many Jews at risk of their own death. They are real heroes.
Wellington says
If you reference the Oxford Companion to World War II you will find within some of the reasons why the Allies didn’t bomb the railway lines. First of all, the information that was received was very vague and, second, most of the camps were deeply buried away from most bombing lines, but even more important, the Americans and Brits simply didn’t believe that anyone could be so callous as to kill an ethnicity en masse.
Even when the non-Jewish Pole, Jan Karski (an intrepid human being if ever there were one) saw first-hand what was being done to the Jews and made his way to America where he met many dignitaries, including the Jewish-American Supreme Court Justice, Felix Frankfurter, and told them what was happening, they simply couldn’t compute what he was saying. Frankfurter himself said about Karski, “I didn’t say he was lying, I said I couldn’t believe him.”
It was only when the Allies in the last days of the war started liberating those in the concentration camps and death camps that the reality of what the Nazis did was fully understood. Eisenhower himself gave leave to thousands of soldiers so that they could bear witness to what the Nazis perpetrated (one of many reasons why Holocaust denial is disgustingly erroneous). Eisenhower said, after what he saw, that he found a new reason to hate the Nazi bastards and that was because for the first time in his life they made him feel ashamed of his German heritage (and what a supreme irony it is that the Supreme Allied Commander of the Allies in the European Theater of WWII was of German descent).
gravenimage says
Spot on, Wellington.
Garfield says
Vague information!? Supplied by whom!?? They knew.
gravenimage says
Actually, the Allies did *not* know the extent of the horrors of the Holocaust. The Nazis went to considerable trouble to hide the awful details.
mortimer says
1,000 to 2,000 Christians are MURDERED EACH YEAR BY MUSLIM JIHADISTS.
The indifference of Western governments is UNCONSCIONABLE. President Trump, please intervene. Tell Nigeria you are going to have a joint operation to find and arrest all jihadists in Northern Nigeria.
The Nigerians have not been honest enough to do this themselves. US military advisors have to train and guide the Nigerians to be effective. United Kingdom should also be involved and perhaps other NATO militaries as well. The situation has to be set right once for all.
Over 200,000 Christians have been murdered in Nigeria by MUSLIMS in the last 30 years. Let’s help the Nigerian army to stop the genocide.
Bud says
Mortimer, If I’m not mistaken, more often than not, the Nigerian army is complicit in these atrocities against defenseless Christians, either actively or by turning their backs when the Fulani attack villages. This action/non-action on the part of the army seems as well to be encouraged from higher up in the government.
mortimer says
Nigerian Police Force … very corrupt. They need lots of foreign trainers to come in and raise their standards, especially in ethics and anti-corruption. Big problem. Drain the swamp.
Paul J says
That’s because Christianity itself is under attack in the West. The old ” enemy of my enemy is my friend” garbage. Anti God marxists that control Western governments will do NOTHING to help something that they themselves want to see the end of. Until islam turns on them of course. Then the knights of old will be lauded as super heroes; not rampaging crusaders.
Charles Lutz says
Paul Jay: Get your ducks in a row. Anti-God Marxists do not control Western governments. The Ruling Class (corporations, ultra-wealthy, Sorros, Pelosi, etc) does
gravenimage says
Actually, Mortimer, President Trump has been one of the only–perhaps *the* only–Western leader to bring up this issue:
“Trump raises Christian persecution in Nigeria with its president”
https://www.premierchristianity.com/News/World/Trump-raises-Christian-persecution-in-Nigeria-with-its-president
In a press conference in the sunny rose garden outside the White House, President Donald Trump said in front of President Muhammadu Buhari: “We are deeply concerned by religious violence in Nigeria including the burning of churches and the killing and persecution of Christians.
“It’s a horrible story and we encourage Nigeria and the Federal State of local leaders to do everything in their power to immediately secure the affected communities and to protect the innocent civilians of all faiths – including Muslims and including Christians.”
…
We have even provided anti-terrorism training to the Nigerian army.
The problem, of course, is that Muslim Buhari has no intention of stopping Boko Haram and other Jihad terror groups.
mortimer says
According to the U.S. Department of State,
The most serious human rights problems during … [2011] were the abuses committed by the militant sect known as Boko Haram, which was responsible for killings, bombings, and other attacks throughout the country, resulting in numerous deaths, injuries, and the widespread destruction of property; abuses committed by the security services with impunity, including killings, beatings, arbitrary detention, and destruction of property; and societal violence, including ethnic, regional, and religious violence. Other serious human rights problems included sporadic abridgement of citizens’ right to change their government, due to some election fraud and other irregularities; politically motivated and extrajudicial killings by security forces, including summary executions; security force torture, rape, and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of prisoners, detainees, and criminal suspects; harsh and life-threatening prison and detention center conditions; arbitrary arrest and detention; prolonged pretrial detention; denial of fair public trial; executive influence on the judiciary and judicial corruption; infringements on citizens’ privacy rights; restrictions on freedom of speech, press, assembly, religion, and movement; official corruption; violence and discrimination against women; child abuse; female genital mutilation …; the killing of children suspected of witchcraft; child sexual exploitation; ethnic, regional, and religious discrimination; trafficking in persons for the purpose of prostitution and forced labor; discrimination against persons with disabilities; discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity; vigilante killings; forced and bonded labor; and child labor.
Note: the human rights abuses and atrocities are well known the US and UK and they now have to intervene and stop them.
Rarely says
Nigeria’s population is in the 200,000,000 range equally split between muslims (mostly in the north and west) and Christians. A tinder box if there ever was one.
What magical formula do you envision would allow the U.S., Britain and NATO to improve the situation?
This is likely one of those terrible situations where obvious solutions simply don’t exist. It probably would be a bad idea to start play cowboy.
gravenimage says
In that case we tacitly support Jihad.
E T says
After the people in the death camps were rescued, people worldwide and the German people said they did not know what was going on at the camps—They knew and did nothing, they fell in line, they collaborated.
Now in 2019, a Muslim, US congresswoman is Center stage selling her “Impeach The Mother……” t-shirts.
With the introduction of computers we were told how much wiser we would be, with first hand knowledge of what was happening in the world. The world has fallen in line, millions of collaborators, aiding and abetting the Islamic takeover, the tech companies, Professors, media all supporting the OIC countries, UN, EU and the main man George Soros.
Love for mankind has been peddled by the left, the very people who have turned a blind eye to the Christian atrocities all over the world. They have abandoned God.
mortimer says
Nigeria has to clean up the corruption that is rampant in the country. They have to clean up police corruption which is the source of much of the problem. Nigeria’s leading citizens who have done very well in the booming economy of Nigeria should also become involved in cleaning up Nigeria’s horrific crime problem and corruption. Corruption in Nigeria is costing lives.
Courts needs to be strengthened and judges protected with armed security guards so they will not be afraid to enforce the law against ruthless criminal gangs.
gravenimage says
Dear Mortimer, allowing the mass slaughter of Christians in Nigeria is not corruption–it is Jihad.
May says
Tackling corruptions is one of item but how can you stop killing of innocent Christians? Where are Nigerians Christians leaders such as Bishops (clerics), Strong men of God who can stood up for the country? Iam just thinking loud!
mortimer says
The government of Nigeria could for a start send armed special constables under the national police force of Nigeria that are responsible directly to the government, rather to local corrupt police forces, to guard churches in Northern Nigeria.
An international intervention in Nigeria should focus on improving training for the national Nigerian Police Force which is undertrained and underfunded. The traditional corruption in the Nigerian police should be a priority for reform measures. The system has to be changed so that accountability is increased making corruption much harder to practice. This will take lots of training, but there is no alternative but to help and improve the largest police force in Africa by putting it on the right track.
gravenimage says
If this were just about poor training and corruption, one might assume that danger to Christians and Muslims would be about the same–but it is not.
Martin says
OT – video – NIGERIA – Kaduna Police Rescue 300 People From Muslim School
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ2DwEQDAnw
Martin says
Hundreds of chained captives released from Nigerian Muslim school
Police say children as young as five were among those released from the building in Kaduna
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU0jjYnNaeA
gravenimage says
Thanks for those hideous videos, Martin.
There is more information here:
https://www.dw.com/en/nigeria-police-free-chained-abused-children-from-islamic-school/a-50605407
The information is vague, though–it sounds as though some of those abused were Christian or suspected of being Christian; others appeared to have been Muslim, but considered bad Muslims. Some of the abuse seemed to be more generic. Horrifying, in any case.
How many more Islamic schools are there like this in Nigeria–and around the world?
Wellington says
Fitzgerald asks, “…Will Christians be helped?”
I would be highly surprised if they were because Christians are expendable while Muslims are not.
What a stupid, rotten age we live in.
Infidel says
In the absence of anything else, I checked Wiki, and it looks like Nigeria is now 50% Muslim and 40% Christian. And in the process, gone, if Boko Haram can make it a major jihad battleground of the world, while infesting neighboring non-Muslim countries like Cameroon or Central African Republic
As Hugh has suggested in the past, it’s high time that the West considers resurrecting the support for Baifra. Let the Christian south have their own country based in Lagos, and the Muslims keep Abuja and northern Nigeria
Wellington says
Infidel: Your solution is perfectly logical and rooted in fairness but Islam doesn’t care about logic or fairness. Indeed, with respect to real estate, Islam wants it all—every last square mile on earth.
Infidel says
Wellington, granted, but I’m talking about what the legendary ‘International Community’ could do. In the 60s, everybody supported Nigeria in putting down Baifra. Today, the non-Muslim world community ought to revisit that.
Of course, the way realpolitic works, you’ll likely have some Muslim countries, such as Syria or Egypt, recognize such a breakaway country, while non-Muslim countries, like the UK or France support Nigeria’s ‘territorial integrity’
Angemon says
2003, eh? How quickly things change…
gravenimage says
I don’t think she’d be any safer defending a beauty contest in many parts of Nigeria today.
Angemon says
I was thinking about “fleeing for her life to England”. Asia Bibi wasn’t offered asylum in the UK for fears of “unrest”…
gravenimage says
Ahhh….good point, Angemon. Sad but true.
GreekEmpress says
Waiting for Pope Francis and/or the Vatican to speak out on this subject. And waiting….and waiting…..
Garfield says
Keep waiting. That Pope is hideous.
European pagan says
Their president is muslim, I think that is the problem, that is why they don’t do anythingto help Christians…
gravenimage says
Goodluck Jonathan–the last president–was more personally decent but almost completely ineffectual, since so many in Nigeria support Jihad.
Muslim2019 says
This is a very misleading article. The root cause of the conflict is resources, not religion. It just so happens that the herders are mainly Muslims and the farmlands are mainly Christians. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/terror-and-security/battle-scarce-resources-muslim-cattle-herders-christian-farmers/
Secondly, the “western world” will not come to the aid of “dying Africans” because to the west black people are subhuman so their white Christian “brothers” has never aided and will never do so.
Thirdly, many of these herders as well as Christians who kill Fulanis too are ignorant, a number of them are illiterate too. Who slaughters children? Only an ignorant and morally depraved person – these actions have absolutely no religious sanctions.
Wellington says
“The root causes of the conflict is resources, not religion.”
Bullshit. While socio-economic factors should be considered, if ALL of Nigeria were Christian, animist, agnostic or atheist, said country would be infinitely better off. Islam, as usual, is a bane to peaceful existence (and by “peaceful existence” I DON’t mean the submission shit Islam requires of non-Muslims in order for a fake peace to exist).
As for the “western world” not ready to come to the aid of black people, the best place in all the world today that blacks can live is in a Western country like America, Canada or the UK. So, you got this ass-backwards, as is your wont on many issues.
Moreover, the Islamic record on black slavery is roughly ten times as bad as the Western world’s has been. Islamic slavery of blacks began in the seventh century as opposed to the fifteenth century in the West. Also, in the West black males were not castrated but in the Islamic sphere they were in droves. And the West has apologized profusely for black slavery. When has the Islamic world ever apologized for this? Indeed, slavery is still going on of blacks in Mauritania, Sudan, et al. And can you name me a single school of Islamic theology, Sunni or Shiite, which has unambiguously stated that ALL slavery is wrong?
This is enough for now except to say that whenever anyone, including you, try to defend Islam at the expense of the West, of white people, of Christians whatever race they are, et al., all you really do is shine more of a light on just how egregious Mo’s creed really is.
Your turn if you care. Give it a shot.
gravenimage says
+1
gravenimage says
“Muslim2019” wrote:
This is a very misleading article. The root cause of the conflict is resources, not religion. It just so happens that the herders are mainly Muslims and the farmlands are mainly Christians.
……………………..
What crap. The implication that Muslims have the right to steal the land of their non-Muslim countrymen if they like it is sick, in any case.
More:
Secondly, the “western world” will not come to the aid of “dying Africans” because to the west black people are subhuman so their white Christian “brothers” has never aided and will never do so.
……………………..
More vicious crap. The US alone gave $89 million in foreign aid to Nigeria last year. The UK and other Western nations also give aid to Nigeria, as do Western charities. Odd, if we are all supposed to be so ‘racist’.
More:
Thirdly, many of these herders as well as Christians who kill Fulanis too are ignorant, a number of them are illiterate too. Who slaughters children? Only an ignorant and morally depraved person – these actions have absolutely no religious sanctions.
……………………..
There is a full on genocide against Christians by Muslims in Nigeria. Is “Muslim2019” saying that Muslims are kidnapping and raping Christian girls because they are a “resource”? Grotesque.
Marigold says
Thankyou Hugh for your excellent analysis of Christian persecution by Muslims in Nigeria over the decades up to the present day and for your opinion on what should be done to end it. The video is really heartbreaking and the so called Christian governments of the West, the MSM , the UN and Pope Francis should be ashamed of themselves for remaining silent about it.
UNCLE VLADDI says
Goodluck, Jonathan!
martin land says
If only there was a Christian pope, of understanding and honest fortitude, there would be a crusade in Nigeria, and elsewhere. Every parish would call it’s men to stand in defence of the faith. Alas, so far we are fallen. May the Lord have mercy on us, principally by driving us with whips and kicks to not dare cross the road from our embattled brethren.