Shocking news article
\’ Raping makes us feel free’: DR Congo’s soldiers reveal astonishing stories\’ . The title says it all. My question to all readers; are we still in the 21st century, or are we quickly reverting to the dark ages? Those dark ages are not very far off; it was called the ‘wild, wild, west’ by the Americans, when bandits ruled with their guns through fear.
How is, what is happening in Africa any different from the American cowboy story, or the D-Day we had just celebrated after 70 years?
What is the UN doing about all this rise of terrorism? Are we serious enough to propose that the Security Council can veto a UN Force in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to stop all this wanton rape and killing? Are we all really dumbstruck by such fear or ‘frozen into inaction,’ even in the face of such atrocities, and can only write about it or simply forward it to friends and allies?
Can we, the rest of the world, really not do anything about all this wrong? Is our so-called World Cup of Football so important that it is license for the dark continents to do whatever they wish in the meantime? Are there not now many darkening areas in the world wherein human rights violation are becoming the norm rather than the exception?
In the light of the reality of such atrocities in dark arenas of our world let me reflect on the more infamous Boko Haram phenomenon.
Who is Boko Haram?
Malaysians do not need to guess the answer to the above question. Simply understanding the etymology of the two words will tell us enough to understand the issues related to this global campaign related to the Nigerian peoples’ attempts to recover their more than 200 school girls kidnapped from their school. They have now reframed their campaign from \’bring back our girls\’ to \’return our girls\’.
Now, they have elected to speak directly to the terrorists who have kidnapped the girls with a view to ransoms being paid for them.
Instead, my question to all Malaysians is: how is this very different from our missing 239 passengers from Flight 370? Or, to our South Korean friends, I ask: how is this different from the more than 200 school-kids who have drowned in their ship tragedy? Or, to the rest of the world I ask: how is this different from any ‘almost natural disaster,’ but which are aided and abetted by human and malicious intentions?
The Congregation of the People of Tradition for Proselytism and Jihad (Arabic: Jamāʻat Ahl as-Sunnah lid-daʻwa wal-Jihād) – better known by its Hausa name Boko Haram (pronounced [bōːkòː hàrâm]) – is an Islamic group and takfiri militant and terrorist organisation based in the northeast of Nigeria, north Cameroon and Niger.
Founded by Mohammed Yusuf in 2002, the organisation seeks to establish a \”pure\” Islamic state ruled by sharia law, putting a stop to what it deems \”Westernisation\”. The group is known for attacking Christians and government targets, bombing churches, attacking schools and police stations, and kidnapping western tourists, but has also assassinated members of the Islamic establishment.
Violence linked to the Boko Haram insurgency has resulted in an estimated 10,000 deaths between 2002 and 2013.
So, who are these Boko Haram terrorists? Do we have people like them in Malaysia? Simply put, are they not a group of Taliban-like ‘terrorists’ who are against all forms of westernisation seen through the bigoted eyes of conservative and uneducated Muslim men who view ‘educating their women’ to read, write, and do arithmetic, as the ‘symbolic buku’ they want to declare as ‘haram.’
The two root words are ‘buku’ and ‘haram,’ although communicated in their Hausa language; these root words are Arabic words for ‘the books’ which they ‘haram,’ which means ‘are forbidden,’ or ‘is taboo,’ or ‘considered non-kosher.’
Is education then equal to westernisation?
Are they suggesting that there were no books in the East, or that education was absent in the East? Are they only talking to Nigerians, or is theirs a fundamentally Muslim worldview and perspective of radical Muslim fundamentalists? Where then did the words, ‘buku’ and ‘ilmu’ or ‘knowledge’ of the east or south come from? After all where was the papyrus even developed, if not east of Istanbul?
Is the hierarchy of knowledge we possess really western? Is not truth or objectively knowable truth the same anywhere in the world? Are not science and her consequential scientific methods of empirical certainty, even if only at the 95 percent, a modern way of knowing truth; at least in the physical and material world?
Is there some other kind of knowing which is beyond science? Is not spiritual knowing beyond modern physical sciences? Is ‘the spirit of a basketball team’, like for example, the Miami… visible for those who have eyes to see? Is that not why we say, their team spirit is really good and they have ‘esprit de corps.’
Is the spirit of God visible? Are not the beauty of the created world and their universal structures and natures explicitly reflective of an invisible creator; regardless of the name we call or label the person?
Does not that creator give all mankind due regard and dignity for every human person? Or, do we really believe in the superior race of some kind; whether black, or white, green, or grey? Some prefer to make the Martians our superior beings. Does not all this really suggest the inferiority of their mindsets and the psychology of that sole individual human being who thinks like that; instead of the majority of us who think otherwise?
Why then do we allow ourselves to be bullied by such threats and claims? Cannot the majority of us take on such tactics and call them for what it is. If the ‘wild, wild, west’ is here again, is it not time for a new breed of cowboys and Indians to emerge for the good of humanity? Have we all not seen that movie before and do we need to really see it live for us to be convinced.
I say, for every girl or guy who is raped or shamed publicly, we need to raise another generation of people who will stand up and we say, ‘return our girls!’ It is time for the whole world to stand up and be counted. This is not about the amazing race of media; this is about the amazing human race of our sisters and brothers; we cannot simply stand by and watch. May God bless Malaysia.
