Learning from Boko Haram
The Islamic extremist group Boko Haram managed to become a household name last April with their abduction of 276 teenage girls from a school in Chibok, Nigeria. With this atrocity, the group thrust themselves into the global spotlight, triggering the #bringbackourgirls campaign in the hopes of raising awareness. Boko Haram has been active for more than a decade, but 2014 might have been their busiest year yet with estimates placing the number of innocents murdered at around 2,000, compared to a sum of 3,000 over the five-year span of 2009-2013.
The English translation of Boko Haram (officially known as the “People Committed to the Prophet’s Teachings for Propagation and Jihad”), is open to interpretation, but the phrases “Western education is forbidden,” or perhaps “Westernization is a sin” approximate the message best. By declaring an attack on education—an attack on rationality itself—Boko Haram has marked itself as an especially dangerous terrorist group with connections to ISIS and Al-Qaeda, according to The Telegraph. An attack on rationality itself, you ask? Isn’t that a little extreme? At first glance, it might seem as if the group’s roots lie in some backlash towards Western imperialism, the encroachment of Western ideals that always creates cultural loss. Such a perspective lends credence to their claims but does not match up with what they actually define as Western. As written in a BBC News article named “Nigeria’s ‘Taliban’ Enigma,” their founder, Mohammed Yusuf, said in 2009 that he believed that “[rain] is a creation of God rather than an evaporation caused by the sun,” also stating his belief that the earth is flat. It is an illuminating quote; Yusuf and his successor Abubakar Shekau, with their denouncement of all education without a basis in the Quran, seek to suppress the very virtues of discovery and curiosity that are considered so important around the world. The uneducated are less likely to stir the pot. Thus, Boko Haram has launched a dedicated campaign against schools and institutions of learning and has effectively instituted a caliphate in the territory under their control.
Under the guise of cleansing the land of un-Islamic teachings and fighting cultural loss, Boko Haram’s campaign of violence and oppression has been incredibly effective.
Ultimately, Shekau, after the death of Yusuf in 2009, has used Boko Haram’s religious affiliation as a tool for control. Under the guise of cleansing the land of un-Islamic teachings and fighting cultural loss, Boko Haram’s campaign of violence and oppression has been incredibly effective. The bulk of their violent efforts have been directed at citizens, forcing many to comply or otherwise face death. Despite the mounting threat, it seems as if all efforts at curbing the wave of destruction caused by the insurgents have been too little, too late. The Nigerian military is corrupt, has inappropriately allocated funds, a low morale and a high rate of infiltration by anti-government forces, according to a New York Times article titled “With Schoolgirls Taken by Boko Haram Still Missing, U.S.-Nigeria Ties Falter.” Nigeria desperately needs assistance if they are to start winning strategic victories, but support from the U.S. and other countries has waned after citing inappropriate use of resources and equipment and attributing a number of human rights abuses to the Nigerian military itself. The same New York Times article wrote that the situation seems worse than hopeless; the Governor of the Borno state of Nigeria, Kashim Shettima, said in January of 2014, “Boko Haram are better armed and are better motivated than our own troops” and went on to state, “Given the present state of affairs, it is absolutely impossible for us to defeat Boko Haram.”
Nonviolent solutions, unfortunately, seem impossible under these circumstances. Boko Haram will have to be stamped out with deadly force lest more cities fall. Just last week, the city of Monguno and its 100,000 residents fell to Boko Haram forces. The method of concentrated effort that has been utilized by the Kurds and other Middle Eastern forces in the fight against ISIS will be necessary. Looking to the future, however, it’s clear that Boko Haram’s directed attacks strike at that which is most dangerous to them: freedom of speech, freedom of thought and individuality. Denying education is a tool for control, and in the future, the only way to strike at the heart of Boko Haram and those like this terrorist group will be to raise a generation of educated and thoughtful young people.