tagged w/ Nigeria
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Four years ago, I wrote a dispatch for PBS’s Frontline/World about what at the time seemed to be a quaint little controversy unfolding in Denmark. Jyllands-Posten, the nation’s largest daily newspaper, had published some cartoons depicting Islam's founder and prophet, Mohammed. Images of the prophet are considered blasphemous under Islamic code, but what really pissed some Muslims off was the offensive way Mohammed was portrayed in some of the cartoons, particularly one that showed him with a bomb for a turban. The backlash was immediate, but relatively measured, at first. I reported the story three months after the cartoons had actually been published. Here’s where the controversy stood then:
There are about 200,000 Muslims in Denmark, accounting for 3 percent of the country's population. Soon after the cartoons ran, a few thousand of them took to the streets of Copenhagen in protest. But from there, the reaction snowballed to proportions that [Flemming Rose, the editor who commissioned the cartoons] never anticipated. At least 11 Muslim countries sent letters of protest to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The Organization of Islamic Conferences, a body that represents 56 Muslim states, put the cartoons on the agenda at its recent summit in Saudi Arabia. And the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights appointed a group of "experts on racism" to investigate the matter. And that's just the diplomatic blowback. In Kashmir, thousands of businesses reportedly shut down for a day in early December to protest the cartoons. (A reaction that left most Danes I spoke to perplexed). And according to the Danish Foreign Ministry, the youth group of Pakistan's largest Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, posted an $8,000 bounty on the lives of the cartoonists.
The dispatch ran on Dec. 22, 2005 and initially received modest attention. A month and a half later, I received an email from the editors at Frontline that the story had suddenly taken off and had received more feedback than any other that had ran up until that time. The snowball was growing out of control. In early February 2006, protesters in Muslim communities around the world took to the streets. Danish Embassies in Syria, Lebanon and Iran were torched. And over 200 people were reportedly killed in demonstrations in Nigeria, Libya, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Today, a new book, “The Cartoons that Shook the World” by Brandeis University professor Jytte Klausen, explores why cartoons published in one small paper in one small country had such resounding affects across the globe. Klausen demonstrates how the angry protests weren’t exactly spontaneous, but rather a well orchestrated campaign. But the book has sparked some controversy of its own. It seems that the authoritative account of the Danish cartoons chose to omit the cartoons that sparked the controversy to begin with. “The decision rested solely on the experts’ assessments that there existed a substantial likelihood of violence that might take the lives of innocent victims,” said a statement from Yale University Press, the book’s publisher. A number of organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and American Association of University Professors accused Yale of failing to stand up for free speech. Indeed, Yale’s decision seems to be exactly the kind of self-censorship that Jyllands-Posten’s editor Flemming Rose was trying to challenge when he initially published the cartoons. Again, from the initial dispatch: It was a provocation, Rose told me. A provocation to artists, writers, translators, actors and comedians who, he believes, are intimidated when it comes to addressing issues that some Muslims might find offensive. "The point was that we have some people who submit themselves to self-censorship," Rose said. "And they are doing so not out of respect, but out of fear." Rose listed several recent incidents to illustrate his point. After the 7/7 bombings in London, the city's Tate Gallery canceled plans to exhibit John Latham's "God Is Great," which featured a Koran (along with the Bible and Talmud) for fear of offending Muslims. And the translator of a new book by Dutch politician Aayan Hirsi Ali, a vocal critic of radical Islam, requested anonymity fearing the reaction of militants. (This is perhaps understandable. Ali previously collaborated on a film about Islam with Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, who was murdered on the streets of Amsterdam by a young Muslim man who claimed the film was blasphemous). But it was the complaint by a Danish childrens' author who said he couldn't find anyone to illustrate his book about Mohammed that finally led Rose to take action. Free speech, he felt, was being compromised. But Yale’s fears of a violent response are not unfounded. Obviously, there is the example of the deadly unrest of four years ago. But just this October, the FBI arrested an American man named David Coleman Headley and an associate for allegedly plotting an attack on Jyllands-Posten. Further investigation into Headley has shown that this might have been more than a crackpot scheme of some misguided radical. The FBI and Indian intelligence services now believe Headley helped plan the terror attacks in Mumbai last year. Federal prosecutors charge that Headley helped identify targets for Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based terrorist group, whose two-day attack on India’s financial capital left 163 dead. Four years ago, when I pitched the dispatch, I remember discussing with the editor at Frontline whether the cartoon story was too local and whether it had any legs. We decided that at the very least the story would say something about the uneasy relationship between Europe and its growing immigrant Muslim population. "The Cartoons that Shook the World" goes a long way in deconstructing how the cartoon controversy became much more than that.Four years ago, I wrote a dispatch for PBS’s Frontline/World about what at the... more
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President Obama made his first trip to sub-Saharan Africa this week. In his speech in Ghana, he called for a renewed relationship between the US and the continent. But he also sprinkled in a little tough love (fast becoming a trademark of the new president's overseas appearances). While accepting some blame on behalf of the West for some of Africa's problems, Obama also held up the mirror, calling on Africans to rid themselves of the corruption, conflict, dependence on oil and other commodities, etc that have stood in the way of meaningful growth. Here's a few Vanguard pieces that cover some of the issues that Obama addressed in his speech:
Oil and Corruption
HIV
Conflict
And for good measure, we'll throw in a little China...
President Obama made his first trip to sub-Saharan Africa this week. In his... more
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Right now everyone is watching the US assist the Yemeni effort to hammer the living crap out of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. "It's a new front in the war on terrorism!" crowed prominent news bloggers (me, last week). But this week, I want to look at another geographic clue that's come from two recent Al Qaeda-related attacks: Africa.
The Underpants Bomber (never gets old) was from Nigeria. Much has been made of his visit to Yemen and his contacts with Al Qaeda. But the chilling part of the story to me is that even after his own father ratted him out as a potential terrorist he was still able to fly into the US.
Sure, sure, one time incident. But just this last week a Somali man nearly assassinated one of the Danish cartoonists responsible for controversial depictions of the Prophet Muhammad. The assailant was also apparently connected to Al Qaeda. He was also apparently suspected of terrorist intentions. He was on a terrorism watch list in Kenya. And he too gained a visa that allowed him to attempt an act of terrorism in a Western country.
That's two pretty big slip-ups in as many weeks. Why? Is it possible counter-terrorism officials aren't paying attention to Africa?
Recently on the Current News Blog:
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- Five years since the tsunamiRight now everyone is watching the US assist the Yemeni effort to hammer the living... more
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One of the topics we follow closely here at Current News is the growth of megacities in the developing world. As more and more of the world's citizens leave their farms and take up residence in urban settings, cities like Lagos in Nigeria, Chongqing in China and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil become visions of our possible future.
Rio's winning of the 2016 Olympics was seen by many as a recognition of the growing influence of such cities. This week, however, Rio has been engulfed in violence as its drug gangs have gone toe-to-toe with its police. In this dramatic video you can see that gangs even managed to down a police helicopter.
From the NYTimes:
For years, the police essentially abandoned the shantytowns, or favelas, that ring the city’s wealthier neighborhoods, following a policy that resembled containment more than enforcement. That allowed drug traffickers to create strongholds where violence is pervasive. And as the downing of the helicopter illustrated, the police have not done enough to slow the flow of weapons into the favelas.
This is the sort of strategy we'll see more and more of in developing megacities as under-resourced municipal services strain under the pressure of rapidly growing populations. The Olympics, as it so often serves to highlight a country, may end up highlighting this escalating drama in Rio.
If you're down in Rio, let us know on Current News. We'd love to hear your perspective from down there.
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- Oxy beats out crack in San Francisco's Tenderloin
- Witch children of NigeriaOne of the topics we follow closely here at Current News is the growth of megacities... more
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Current.com user hpseaton pointed out this disturbing story: Children denounced as witches are tortured, killed on Current News. Here's a short excerpt:
Nigeria is at the center of an increasing number of cases in which children accused of witchcraft are then tortured or killed.
Pastors were involved in half of 200 cases of "witch children" that The Associated Press reviewed, and 13 churches were named in the case files.
Last November, Channel 4 in the UK produced a documentary entitled "Saving Africa's Witch Children" which looked at this problem in Nigeria. (The video is not embeddable - but you can watch part of it over here.)
An editorial in Nigeria's Guardian newspaper later in the month confirmed the terrible accuracy of the documentary:
This documentary exposes a disturbing social reality in Nigeria: the reign of ignorance and obsession with superstition. Poverty has done terrible damage to our society and the souls of men. Surrounded by so much uncertainty and unable to fulfil basic ambitions, Nigerians are increasingly seeking solace in the new churches which promise "miracles and wonders." In these churches, extremism is the norm; any form of disappointment or career setback is identified as the handiwork of witches and wizards. And the priest, claiming to have supernatural powers, immediately points to a child, a relation or a colleague at work as the Devil. So many relationships have been destroyed as a result.
The churches organise what they call special Deliverance sessions, sometimes overnight, or early in the morning and every activity is targeted at "that witch in your life that is blocking your progress". Go to any of those churches and witness how feet-stumping, hysterical men and women scream: "Holy Ghost Fire, Burn Them"; "Father Kill My Enemy" "My enemy die, die. I say die, die, die, die by fire now" Thus, many churches have been taken over by closet assassins and murderers looking for witches, wizards and enemies to kill. Too many atrocities have been committed in Nigeria in God's name.
Even with the efforts of NGOs like Stepping Stones Nigeria to combat this problem in the Niger Delta region, it's a difficult task for the government. Especially since the government has a hard time in general policing the restive Delta region, as Mariana van Zeller found out when she visited Nigeria's MEND rebels.
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- Insider trading: The Tamil Tiger connectionCurrent.com user hpseaton pointed out this disturbing story: Children denounced as... more
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A new study released yesterday in Washington DC, United States of America (USA) by the Global Financial Integrity (GFI) indicates that Africa lost over $1.8 trillion in illicit financial outflows from 1970 through 2008.
The study placed Nigeria at the op of the ladder in illicit outflows among Sub-Saharan African countries. Titled “Illicit Financial Flows from Africa: Hidden Resource for Development”, the new study however focused more on illicit financial outflows from just one source: trade mispricing. It however did not take a look into outflows from mispricing of services and smuggling.A new study released yesterday in Washington DC, United States of America (USA) by the... more
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A NIGERIAN court has banned Twitter and Facebook debates on the country's first wrist amputation for theft.
The Magajin Gari Sharia court in the northern city of Kaduna on Monday ordered the Civil Rights Congress (CRC), one of the country's leading rights groups, to suspend its Twitter and Facebook online debates on the amputation, which was carried out in 2000.
The court granted an interim injunction "restraining the respondents either by themselves or their agents... from opening a chat forum on Facebook, Twitter, or any blog for the purpose of the debate on the amputation of Malam Buba Bello Jangebe," said the order.
Jangebe was the first person to have had his right wrist amputated on the orders of a Sharia court in Zamfara State, a year after 12 northern Nigerian states adopted the strict Islamic penal code.
The order followed a suit filed last week by the Association of Muslim Brotherhood of Nigeria, a pro-Sharia group based in the northern political capital of Kaduna, which argued that internet forums would be used as "a mockery of the Sharia system as negative issues will be discussed".
The head of the CRC, Shehu Sani, confirmed to AFP that he was served with the court papers on Monday.
"We opened the blog, the Facebook and Twitter chats 10 days ago to serve as a platform for which Nigerians could air their opinions on Sharia law as a whole and the justification or otherwise of the amputation of the hand of Malam Buba Bello Jangebe," Sani said on the phone from Kaduna.
Out of Nigeria's 36 states, 12 re-adopted a strict version of Sharia in 1999 nearly a century after it had been abandoned.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/world/islamic-court-bans-online-chat-on-theft-amputation/story-e6freoox-1225844539845A NIGERIAN court has banned Twitter and Facebook debates on the country's first... more
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In the light of the reports of further killings on the night of Tuesday 16-17 March, see here on the Jos Diocesan website, and the continued declension of The Episcopal Church in the USA from Christian faith in the confirmation of the election of Mary Glasspool while Christians in Nigeria are being killed for professing the very faith that TEC is resiling from, we publish Andrew Carey's article in the current Church of England Newspaper:
The evil, despicable massacre in Nigeria of some 500 Christian men, women and children has excited remarkably little international comment. This despite the fact that three villages were attacked near Jos by Muslim gangs who trapped women, children and the elderly - those who couldn't run fast enough to escape - then cut them to pieces.
Archbishop Ben Kwashi described the scenes: "I could see kids from age zero to teenagers, all butchered from the back, macheted in their necks, their heads. Deep cuts in the mouths of babies. The stench. People wailing and crying." Times ('500 butchered in Nigeria killing fields', Tuesday March 9, 2010) entire families were killed to the chants of 'Allahu Akbar'.
Muslim inhabitants of the villages were evacuated before the attackers came in an area which is under a military curfew. Archbishop Kwashi believed a powerful, well-connected grouping must have been responsible.
Where are the statements from the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Pope in condemning this violence that has been meted out to Christian communities in Nigeria time and time again? Similarly mealy-mouthed has been the media describing such events as 'inter- community is equally responsible for the aggression. Yet there is no equivalence, the vast number of lives claimed over the years have been Christian. Churches have been attacked repeatedly and the triumphant killing slogan 'God is Greatest' ('Allahu Akbar') has brought shame upon Islam repeatedly.
Christians in the West, and the leadership of Church in particular, have expressed so little concern. All of our major interfaith dialogues have continued as though blithely unaware of these realities over the years. And it is striking that the same Muslim leadership we dialogue with is intimately concerned with the plight of Muslims in Palestine and Kosovo conscious of the wider community of Islam - the Umma. Despite this international consciousness they are all too reluctant to take any responsibility for stains on Islam's honour.
And the character of Christian timidity is even more striking against this backdrop. We too have an international faith, and possess ecclesiologies of a universal, worldwide nature yet our leaders neglect Christian minorities else- where.
On Premier Radio last year Sheikh Dr Muhammad al-Hussaini, a lecturer at Leo Beck Rabbinical College, blamed churches in the West for barely uttering a whimper about the persecution of Christians in Muslim-majority countries. He called on church leaders to be a voice for persecuted minorities. To be encouraged to do this by a Muslim leader is a back-to-front state of affairs. The way to encourage a moderate Islam - some- thing the vast majority of Muslims want and desire - is to challenge hypocrisy, extremism, and evil wherever we see it.
ENDIn the light of the reports of further killings on the night of Tuesday 16-17 March,... more
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The tragic deaths of African footballers Endurance Idahor and Bartholomew Opoku are being mourned this evening as both men collapsed during separate games in Sudan and Ghana respectively.
Former Nigerian U-23 international Idahor, 25, slumped to the ground 15 minutes into play on Saturday night. He was rushed to hospital and it was later reported that he had died from cardiac arrest.
In a freak coincidence, Ghanaian player Bartholomew Opoku, 19, collapsed in the 83rd minute on Sunday night. On Monday it was announced by club officals that he had died, less than 48 hours after Idahor. The cause of Opoku's death is as yet unknown.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/africa/8558235.stmThe tragic deaths of African footballers Endurance Idahor and Bartholomew Opoku are... more
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200 - 500 people, most of them Christians, were slaughtered on Sunday in central Nigeria. Muslims with machetes came from the nearby hills early Sunday morning. Hundreds of villagers, including women and children, were hacked to death or burned in their homes.
The city of Jos, in central Nigeria, has become an explosive fault line between the country's Muslim dominated north and predominantly Christian south. The killings occurred in three villages in and around Dogo Nahawa, three miles south of the region's main city of Jos.
The violence comes after sectarian killings in January left more than 300 dead, most of them Muslim. Sunday's bloodshed appears to be reprisal attacks.
http://www.examiner.com/x-10853-Portland-Humanist-Examiner~y2010m3d8-Religion-Muslims-slaughter-Christians-in-central-Nigeria200 - 500 people, most of them Christians, were slaughtered on Sunday in central... more
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Some 500 people are now reported to have been killed in a weekend revenge attack following religious clashes near Nigeria's city of Jos, officials say.
Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8555018.stmSome 500 people are now reported to have been killed in a weekend revenge attack... more
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eva2
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added this
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2 years ago
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A Nigerian human rights activist is criticizing police for arresting him and his colleagues during a protest over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Shehu Sani and about 100 others members of the Civil Rights Congress held a peaceful rally to coincide with a visit to Abuja by former leaders of the US and UK - George W. Bush and Tony Blair, who were in the city for a conference marking 50 years of Nigerian independence.A Nigerian human rights activist is criticizing police for arresting him and his... more
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A Swiss research company, Covalence, periodically publishes a ranking list that measures, according to various parameters, the ethics of large multinational corporations. At the bottom of the list are thus the worst companies in the world, those who have a serious negative impact on the lives of people for working conditions or the damage they cause. It is not really an exhaustive catalog of the evils of the world, but it is a good approximation.
http://www.inaltreparole.net/en/money/classificaimprese290110.htmlA Swiss research company, Covalence, periodically publishes a ranking list that... more
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Extra!! Extra read all about it, René Descartes travels to Nigeria.
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We are on a new journey of change, the people of Africa will now take their right full place in the world. Social intelligence is the movement, and it will not be televised. Over the wire is how he told us to travel as we reach everyone around the world. I have welcomed him in my house for he will be staying with us in Delta State for 3yrs. Everyone is excited about the arrival for we have been waiting for a leader that will lead us. He also said that his friends will be coming in and out as we build the new Africa. I called current to let everyone know this, and they said "The World Is watching". So stay in tune. Visit http://wazobianigeria.com/ for the latest updates.Extra!! Extra read all about it, René Descartes travels to Nigeria.... more
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lola7
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added this
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2 years ago
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