Some might describe the new Cold War that dominates foreign affairs today as westernization and globalization versus Islamic fundamentalism. Recently, Boko Haram, a Nigerian selafist extremist group, abducted two hundred seventy-six girls from their boarding school and threatened to sell them as child brides. The kidnapping sparked a global outcry against the group and called for the return of the girls. Unfortunately the abduction is not an isolated event, for Boko Haram has been terrorizing much of Northern Nigeria for the past few years. The anti-westernization that fuels Boko Haram is not a product of the new Cold War and religious fervor, but in fact an anti-westernization sentiment that stems from the roots of colonial Nigeria.
Nigeria has a complex history and though it is independent the effects of British colonization are still present.1#2 Nigeria’s dissension is inextricably linked to the merging of Northern and Southern Nigeria in 1914.2#3 Early missionaries used Western education as a tool for evangelism causing a northerrn pulation dominated by islam to be suspicious and reject Western influences.3 In the south western ideals were more widely accepted as a result of their acceptance to Christianity and evangelism. Due to their easy acceptance of westernization the British built schools, roads and infrastructure in the South, none of which appeared in the North.
The biased Colonial policies, typically in favor of the Christian South, lead to regional disparities. 3 Due to a combination of historical factos, neglect and corruption, the predominately Muslim North has trailed the south in terms of education and wealth.2 Though the Northern population is probably larger it is much poorer than the rest of the country. Its...
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...Emerged in Nigeria." Boko Haram: How a Militant Islamist Group Emerged in Nigeria. Accessed May 26, 2014. http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4232/boko-haram-nigeria.
Campbell, Amb. John. "Why Nigeria's North South Distinction Is Important." The Huffington Post. February 07, 2011. Accessed May 26, 2014. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amb-john-campbell/why-nigerias-north-south-_b_817734.html.
Smith, Mike. "Boko Haram Is No 'global Terror' Group." The Guardian. May 15, 2014. Accessed May 25, 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/14/boko-haram-nigeria-corruption-abducted-girls-islamist.
"Africancourier." How the British Planted the Seed of Disunity in Nigeria. Accessed May 26, 2014. http://www.theafricancourier.de/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=481:how-the-british-planted-the-seed-of-disunity-in-nigeria&catid=122:africa--50&Itemid=819.
“Nigeria has always been a divided country plagued by weak governance, ethnic cleavages, and corruption”("The Historical Background of Boko Haram", 2014). Also, “Boko Haram was born in this context, with religious fervor growing in the Muslim north and finally manifesting itself in violent Islamist terrorism"( "The Historical Background of Boko Haram", 2014). When the British pull out the region, it left the Northern parts of Nigeria unstable and not ensuring that northern Nigeria opened the door to corruption by terror groups. “The system led by Bifurcated country with a productive south flush with oil wealth and impoverishes north struggling to reconcile modernization with dictates of the orthodox and rapacious power broker”(Wall, 2015). The country was not modernized like the southern part of Nigeria and majority of the people were uneducated and poor.
According to the CIA.gov, 50% of the Nigeria population are Muslim and 40% and Christian. The Islamic group believes that northern Nigeria is controlled by corrupt, false Muslims (“Curbing Violence in Nigeria (II)”). Therefore, Boko Haram wants to fix this by creating a fully Islamic State in the north while following the Islamic law, Sharia (“Curbing Violence in Nigeria (II)”). A preacher named Mohammed Yusuf established the Boko Haram group in Northern Nigeria nearly 12 years ago with intentions to develop an Islamic state. Prior to 2009, the Nigerian government underestimated the warnings and militant character of Boko Haram (Wikipedia.org). “Boko Haram 's trademark was originally the use of gunmen on motorbikes, killing police, politicians and anyone who criticises it, including clerics from other Muslim traditions and Christian preachers” (Chothia). In 2009, a flood of attacks were carried out by Boko Haram targeting police stations and other government buildings in a Northeast city called Maiduguri (Chothia). “Hundreds of Boko Haram supporters were killed and thousands of residents fled the city” (Chothia). Yusuf was also captured and executed by police during these attacks. Thereafter, Abubakar Shekau took control and a more rebellious and destructive Boko Haram group came about (Karimi and Carter). “Curbing Violence in
...at shocked me through all these articles is how there weren’t a single positive story about Nigeria. I had to get to the third page before I found something that was “kind of positive” about Nigeria. These definitely illustrate what the speaker was saying about single stories. Also 8 out of 10 stories where related to Boko haram. Therefore it won’t be a surprise for me to hear that people believe that Boko haram is the daily cup of tea. I didn’t really found anything that was directly related to the chapter because most of the stories were about BOKO haram crisis. The only thing that I found related to the chapter was how the Biafra war that has opposed the three major’s ethnics groups: Yoruba, Igbo and Hausas is still reflecting on the actual Nigerian crisis. In the north were these crisis are occurring, only certain ethnic groups or religious groups are attacked.
To adapt one of Isichei's claims, Nigeria's “confrontation with an alien culture, its conquest, and the experience of an alien rule, created … [crises]” (180). There were many riots and conflicts between the Nigerians and the British, although most of the uprisings were eventually subdued by the military power of the British. Riots were common—from the culturally rooted Yoruba riots in the West and the religious skirmishes with the Muslims and Hausa in the North, to the confrontations with the naturally ‘rich,' yet stubborn Igbo and Delta states. Apart from encompassing all the major ethnic groupings and regions in Nigeria, amazingly these conflicts also covered the three most explicit British inculcations: cultural, religious, and economic.
“The sun never sets on the British Empire,” Great Britain often bragged. By 1914, about 85% of the earth’s surface was colonized by Europe. Between 1884 and 1885, The Berlin Conference took place to carve up the African continent (Background Essay). Europeans saw high potential in Africa and thought the continent was empty, even though it was not. It was roughly “untouched” and they thought they could do anything they wanted (Doc.1). Great Britain’s colonization in Kenya affected the country’s religion and culture, education, and government.
Nigeria is a constitutional republic in West Africa. The majority of its citizens are Muslim (50.5%) and Christians (48.2%), the rest belongs to other smaller local religions. Because of this major diversity in the religious viewpoints many of the citizens in the Nigeria does not identify themselves as people
Nigeria contains more historic cultures and empires than any other country in Africa. People were first known to inhabit Nigeria as early as 5 B.C. They first constructed a kingdom in the center of Nigeria, which is named Jos Plateau. This was the first of many widespread kingdoms of that region, but two centuries later it would extend to Bornu, which is located on the western region of Nigeria (Gascoigne 1). Nigeria was made up of mostly kingdoms until British colonized in the 1800’s. The Soko Jotojhad and Yotruba wars encouraged slave trade at the time the British were trying to abolish the slave trade. Slaves were normally traded for European goods such as guns and gun powder. At this time, the British encouraged trading palm oil over trading slaves. Many of the slaves that were exported to Britain were intercepted by naval ships and shipped to Sierra Leone to collect palm oil. Some Nigerians began to migrate back from Sierra Leone in search of their homes and trade. British missionaries were invited to follow the slaves back, and in the 1840’s they wer...
In 1884 and 1885, the European powers met as the Conference of Berlin. Here, they decided to seize all of Africa and divide it into spheres of influence. After negotiations, imperialist wars, and conquests, the Europowers were successful. In 1900, the Colony of Lagos and the Protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria were formed. In 1914, these protectorates, including Lagos, were brought under a single colonial administration. However, the well-educated southern elite dominated this administration. The British believed it was best to not play a role in Nigeria’s everyday life. They decided to let the administration handle things to an exte...
Boko Haram has recently been in international news including South Africa. The most recent of attacks was on a church where Attackers armed with heavy ammunition and explosives killed twenty-two people in a northeast Nigerian city. They set off many bombs and fired shots into the masses during the attack on the church in Waga Chakawa in Adamawa, before burning residents houses and taking hostages during a four-hour bloody siege. Boko Haram wants to impose sharia law, and wants to split Nigeria equally between Christians and Muslims, Boko Haram has killed thousands of people over the past four-and-a-half years, and is considered one of the biggest security risk in the largest oil producer in Africa and second largest economy in Africa after South Africa.
Nigeria is a developing country in West Africa that was colonized by the British in 1884 at the Berlin conference where Africa was divided by European powers (Graham 2009). The British wanted to expand their empire, which meant taking over other countries that had resources that they wanted, and would allow them to expand their trade market and economy. One of the colonies that British colonized was Colonial Nigeria, which was forced to participate in the slave trade in the past and was controlled by the British through the set up of trading posts and selling manufactured goods. The British split Nigeria into the north and the south regions (Temple 1912). The Southern and Northern Nigeria Protectorates controlled these two regions.
To colonize the land of Nigerian tribal people or any other lands in the world, the British wisely used religion as a tool of invasion. Though the process of spreading Christianity took longer time than war and killing, the attack on belief and spirituality made the native people completely submit to the new government which generated and supported the religion that those people followed. In fact, the British missionaries succeeded in convincing the Igbo people of the new religion despite the Igbo’s conservativeness and extreme superstition.
...’s depictions of both traditional and modern beliefs in varying degrees illustrate the importance of both in contemporary Nigerian culture, as well as the greater Africa as a whole, and how both are intertwined and cannot exist without the other. In effect, she skillfully subverts stereotypes or single perceptions of Africa as backward and traditional, proving instead, the multifaceted culture of Africa. She further illustrates that neither traditional African nor western culture is necessarily detrimental. It is the stark contrast of the fundamental cultures that inevitably leads to clashes and disagreements. In the end, what holds African countries such as Nigeria together is their shared pride. Modern, western influences can bring positive changes to society, but new cultures cannot completely eradicate the foundational cultures to which a society is founded on.
According to the book, A History of Nigeria (2008), Nigeria is historically unique for three different reasons. First, it was found that there had been a high level of migration from the Northern part of Nigeria to the Southern part due to the Savanna. Second, humans within the regi...
While the outside world considered Nigeria to be a united and monolithic entity, even the British colonial administration was wary of the reality of Nigerian politics; the nation was not so much a “country” as it was more than three hundred different groups coalesced into one.4 5 These tribes were divided between three main spheres of influence: the Yoruba, the Igbo, and the Hausa. Historically, their interests were often opposed, and their cultures did not come into regular contact with one another until the British occupation. In spite of the differences British administration a...
Civilians find themselves without stable shelter wondering around the streets in hope for a better life. In rare cases some people do find their way around the chaos but it never lasts too long. Africa severally suffers from mob attacks. The main conflicting mobs in Africa currently go by the name of Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab. Boko Haram first originated in 1995 under another name called The Shabaab. Boko Haram is an Islamic jihadist militant organization based in the northeast of Nigeria. Founded by Mohammed Yusuf in 2001, the organization seeks to establish a pure Islamic state ruled by Sharia law. The group is known for attacking Christians and government targets, bombing