Over 200 dead in Nigeria

What does it mean to be part of modern world civilization? What does it mean to be barbaric, and uncivilized? What factors matter and which ones don’t, in that determination?

The recent tragic events in Nigeria, and the history leading up to the violence, starkly point out several answers to these questions. Although the chaotic nation of Nigeria has many different sources of conflict, the biggest and most dangerous is clearly that which pits the Islamic North against the Christian and animist South. Africans who for all practical purposes are indistinguishable from each other (on the basis of race, ethnicity) have chosen two radically different paths, two distinct inspirations from world and regional history, in defining themselves and their society. Southern Nigerians have, wisely and courageously, opted for the modern Western model of human rights, basic freedoms, separation of Church and State, and of course democratic rule. Northern Nigerians have instead unfortunately chosen, in a quite backwards and barbaric manner, to place the rule of civil law subservient to the so-called rule of Allah, the Islamic Sharia code, as their self appointed religious leaders choose to interpret and apply it – to everyone.

Keep in mind that this isn’t at all a conflict between Christians and Muslims. It’s a war between radical Muslim fundamentalists and everybody else in Nigeria. Nor is it a fight between the competing roles of Christianity and that of Islam in Nigerian society. Southern Christians aren’t trying to establish a ‘Christian’ state. They’re fighting, quite rightly, for the freedom of all Nigerians to practice and live in accordance with whatever beliefs they hold, in a properly secular state. They’re fighting for a more modern, civilized Nigeria. On the other hand, proponents of Islamic Sharia law in the North are fighting for the imposition of an exclusionary, discriminatory, and intensely misogynistic ancient code of law, which would condemn and exclude Nigeria from the ranks of civilized nations.

In short, civilization has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. It has everything to do with culture, philosophy, law, liberty (or the lack thereof), and religion (or more precisely the proper, limited role of religion within a nation-state).

In this world-wide war on terrorism, we must understand that Islamic fundamentalism isn’t a different form of civilization, it’s the very lack of civilization, and it must be fought everywhere, from Afghanistan to Indonesia to Nigeria, until completely defeated.