USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: Nigeria and Islam

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The Salafists are a less understood and recent member of this most unholy of alliances. While we were sleeping, these religious charlatans were quietly stealing the minds of large numbers of Muslim youth throughout Africa and the Arab region. It was not a difficult task. The Salafists had, and continue to receive massive financial backing to the tune of millions from the medieval Wahhabi creatures in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. This allowed them to prey on the disillusioned and poverty stricken youths throughout the continent and the Arabian Peninsula. They seduced the poorest of them with scholarships, covering all costs, to Salafi infested institutions, where they have been and continue to be, indoctrinated with a simplistic, puritanical and one dimensional view of Islam and the world. The Salafis offer themselves to the Muslim Ummah as the sole solution to the crisis of modernity and secularism. This is opium for the people, especially the youth. It appeals to the poor and marginalized who have little or no education. It also appeals to youth from the wealthier middle-classes, who are completely disaffected by the hypocrisy and double standards of their parents' generation – a generation which they perceive as having 'sold out' to the West, which entailed abandoning their Islamic values. To these youths, the Salafists seem to be the only ones talking militancy and offering a tangible solution.

This is not the first time we have witnessed the emergence of such movements. In recent history, we have observed the emergence of fascist movements, which in all their tendencies, offer simplistic and puritanical solutions to the crisis of capitalism and existing political systems, and prey on the disillusionment, disenfranchisement and fear of the masses, especially the youth. We have also seen deviant religious ideas used as a weapon during slavery, throughout the colonial project and in Apartheid South Africa, to name a few examples.

The Salafists have become imperialism's shock troops – foot soldiers doing their dirty work. It is no accident that Ansar Dine has emerged out of the blue to challenge the revolutionary nationalist and Islamic MNLA in Mali, while in Nigeria, Boko Haram is well funded and armed to wage war against the Nigerian state, bombing Christian churches and killing Muslims who do not adhere to their Salafist doctrine, and all the while shouting Allahu Akhbar. Throughout the continent, Salafism is on the rise, posing a serious threat to the Pan-African struggle for the liberation of Africa and the creation of a United States.

As I write, the Salafist Ansar Dine which is linked to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) are destroying historical religious and cultural artifacts in Timbuktu, on the grounds that they are somehow un-Islamic. An observer aptly referred to them as 'madmen with guns'. Let us be clear, that in order to defeat these enemies of Islam, Africa and humanity, we have to wage war against them on every front, including in the realm of theology and ideas. The battle of ideas is crucial, since it is the hearts and minds of the youth that have been captivated. It is important to understand that these pretenders to Islam are not revolutionaries but are rather reactionaries in the true sense – both racist and fascist; they are not rebels but are actually counter-revolutionaries, with little or no understanding of Islam. For them Islam and Arab culture is one and the same thing. They are religious deviants, preaching a false and misguided theology, in order to achieve their objective, which is to subvert Islam and dominate the Ummah. This is not a new battle but is a battle that has been waged since the time of the Prophet and before. The Salafists' objective is to ensure that Islam is stripped of its revolutionary essence and reduced to a mere ritualistic/legalistic doctrine and practice, which will no longer challenge the existing order. The Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafist parties are no threat to western economic and geo-political interests in the region and globally. Their electoral outfits, wherever they assume political office, will implement neo-liberal economic policies and will manage the 'free market' economy with an 'Islamic' veneer.

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