Christian President Inaugurated, Muslims Set off Blasts and Kill in Protest

and why not? its no different than the way you portray all conservatives to be the same. hypocrisy, what a bitch

no doubt. it seems more cultural than religious based. africa always has been a hot bed of bigotry and violence among rivaling tribes. it even goes so far back and beyond to the days of american and european slavery where it was the natives who captured their brothers and sisters selling them to the traders. had it not been for "in country" greed and hostility there may have never been a market for african slaves.

Oh there would have been a market for slaves, we would have just found a different way to extort those we wished to, sure maybe it would have been harder, probably not that much. Not to say what they did was right or wrong, but I dont think slavery in and of itself is right or wrong. But alas that is a whole different issue. But yes for the most part a lot of tribes when converting to one religion or another would pick based on which way their allies were going and which way their enemies were going. The truth of Africa is that the wars are older than history knows, they just use different words to rally the charge these days.

Ok this is now the third time typing this reply so if I get and error this time I give up. Ok well there was no sense in typing that becuase if it doesn't work then no one will read it, wait then what is the point in typing this? Huh? Moving on, the wars of Africa are far older than our histories, they are not now nor were they ever about religion, they are about war and a culture that worships it. Not bad or wrong but these wars have been fought since before Muhammad and Christ were even born, they were fought long after they were dead and will be fought long after we are all dead. That is what war is, it is a beast fed on blood and the more death the more power it has. You cannot contain it you cannot control it, and the gods who deem themselves worthy to play their hands in such conflicts are fools for thinking themselves worthy of taking on the only real god these people have ever known, War. Oh and the slave trade, with or without the help of the natives we would have continued the trade, there was much money to be made. Not to lessen what they did to each other, but the truth of slavery is that in and of itself it is not bad and wrong it simply is, and has been, we may try to make it more or less but in the end we are all slaves to something.

Just a point of clarification. Sub Saharan Africa is comprised of 55 countries. Some have tribal conflict but none predate Christ. Some predate Mohammed, but the overwhelming majority do not.

Just a point of clarification, you get that names of tribes, and the names of their masters are all meaningless, right? The wars are all the same, the people change, they change their languages and names and meanings, but the wars are all the same. If you dont believe a war can outlive the people who fight it, I ask you what is with the middle east. We have been fighting that war since ancient Greece. Sure over time the west has changed, we changed out names, religions, locations, hell we even changed our race. The war is still the same.

In Nigeria and Sudan it is Muslims enslaving and killing Christians, not vice versa. This is also happening in Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Cote D'Ivoire, Uganda, Chad, Kenya, and Tanzania. Can you name one African country where Christians are killing Muslims for being Muslims?

Your looking at these wars with tunnel vision, open the mind, go back deeper into history, stop looking at them as Christians and Muslims but rather as human beings. Until then you will just be another blind tool of the war itself. Not bad or wrong, we are all the blind tools of so many wars, wars we dont even know exist. However power is found in seeing something for what it is, and what it is not.

Wasn't trying to be snotty with the "point of clarification comment." I was trying to make the point that the "wars of Africa," as you put it, do not predate Christ.

I don't find the names of tribes to be useless. If they were useless, we could not have a narrative record, but we do. I know that wars can last eons. But conflict is between two (or more) groups. When one group ceases to exist, the conflict, or war, ceases.

Not looking at them with tunnel vision. Actually know quite a bit out them particularly in East and Southern Africa. For me, your larger point was somewhat, unfortunately, undermined by the inaccurate references to lengths of the conflict. In the 60s you will find very little Muslim on Christian violence in Africa. Communities worshiped side by side with no problems, even in Egypt. It wasn't until the radicalization of Islam, which started in Saudi Arabia in 1979 that things started to change. Overlooking the specifics of the conflicts today lends itself to moral relativism.

Names are merely a brand for people. The people are never extinguished, sure there are plenty of nuances that change the names and places, but the people generally remain the same. And just because something is meaningless does not mean it is not useful. Take the name England, sure there an English people and all that but what does that name actually mean? It means nothing. The names and stories are so meaningless because we cannot be there to actually see what they people meant them to mean. And yes these would seem to dissipate, but they flare back up, with new names and new meaning behind them, but the war is the same, its different for each generation but the war is the same. Also do not forget most of these tribes have a lot of lost history, so there are many wars still living and breathing that we do not even know exist. Wars can lie dormant for a thousand years before they flare back up again, look at Libya and Italy, once it was Carthage and Rome, once it was spears and elephants and the war was fought for the glory of the homeland. Today it has a new name, and new meanings, but the war is the same.

See you are getting deep into the details, which I get there are a lot of details to look at, but still you are failing to see them as Human beings. And what is wrong with moral relativism, after all without the admission that there is a God there can be no other answer than we made it all up, and most of what we see today can be answered simply with we made it up. I dont admit that there is a god when discussing history so I do believe that we made it all up, when you see that we made it all up, suddenly you get these conflicts on a greater level. Really you dont even have to admit we made it all up, just look at all the similarities between this and all the wars of the past. Like I said many wars lie dormant but they are still the same. War is war it is, it cannot be anything else.

Man I just disagree with you. I think you are trying to play down the specifics of the conflict that is currently going on in Nigeria. It's not tribal, it is religious.

Peoples do get extinguished through death or assimilation. Example, Native Americans.

The concept of England, is more than a name. It is a common history shared by its inhabitants. The ideas of the English Magna Carta from 1215 helped form the basis for our, and other, governing systems.

Lost history means and end to the war. If one can't remember a reason to have conflict, then why have it?

Libya and Italy are nation states. Carthage and Rome were city states. It's not the same war. It's a different war, fought for different reasons, on the same terrain.

Moral relativism prevents one from seeing circumstances clearly as it does not allow for truth. Moral relativism says that no party in the Nigerian conflict is to blame. Reality says that, in this current Nigerian conflict, it is Muslims attacking and killing Christians. Nothing morally relative about it.

I appreciate the discussion but this old man is off to bed. Good luck to you.

well said littl. africa has always been a warring country. either with gun or machete. a violent and vicious bunch. and slavery in one form or another seems to have been in existence almost as long as mankind. sometimes benevolent sometimes not

a point most liberals refuse to recognize or acknowledge

semantics, ok youre right continent then. but its all the same so it may as well be one big country