the monotheistic Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and
Islam, as
based on non-rational conceptions, described as being above reason,
and
one approach to which is to be absorb them in faith, without little
or no
critical reflection." ( Toyin Adepoju)
" based on non-rational conceptions, described as being above reason"?
If this is not unprovoked and unreflected discriminatory and
deliberately disrespectful behaviour of Toyin Adepoju , then what is
truth?
On Apr 21, 2:37 am, toyin adepoju <toyin.adep...@googlemail.com>
wrote:
> * PERSISTENT MOB AND SECTARIAN VIOLENCE *
> *
> *
> * IN*
> *
> *
> * NORTHERN NIGERIA*
>
> *
>
> AND
>
> NIGERIAN SECURITY CULTURE
>
> UNDERSTANDING AND RESOLVING A NATIONAL DILEMMA
>
> *
>
> * Toyin Adepoju
> *
>
> 20/04/11
>
> The eruption of mob and sectarian violence in Northern Nigeria, in protest
> at the victory of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan against retired General Muhammadu
> Buhari in the Presidential Elections of 16 April 2011, leadings to
> killings of civilians and of police personnel, the burning of churches, the
> burning of the palace of an Emir, torching of police stations and of houses
> of leaders of the ruling PDP, as well as offices of the the Independent
> National Electoral Comission, INEC, which conducted the elections, locking
> fifty members of the National Youth Service Cops in a building and setting
> it on fire, a situation from which the corpers escaped, along with other
> acts of destruction of life and property, shares a number of elements in
> common with what has to be described as the culture of mob and sectarian
> violence in Northern Nigeria, a culture that suggests a group of people who
> are convinced that they have a right to inflect violence with impunity on
> other Nigerians .
>
> This culture of mob and sectarian violence is manifest most markedly in the
> consistent horrors of Jos. It also emerges from time to time in other
> outbursts of violence in Northern Nigeria, as in the campaigns of Boko
> Haram. This manifestation of mob and sectarian violence on the news of the
> victory of Goodluck Jonathan is one of the most blatant yet.
>
> During the crisis within the ruling PDP over the abrogation of the party's
> zoning arrangements which might have disqualified Jonathan from running for
> President, Atiku Abubakar, a candidate from the North, who was being
> sidelined, was quoted as prophesying the possibility of violence on
> account of these developments. After that, bomb blasts occurred in public
> places in Northern Nigeria, killing innocent people, one near a PDP rally
> in Abuja, perhaps one where the President spoke.
>
> Why does this culture of mob and sectarian violence in Northern Nigeria
> continued to grow without fundamental challenge, apart from some perhaps
> palliative efforts by the armed forces and the police, and even as I write
> I can read of no comprehensive plan to stop the current crisis in Northern
> Nigeria apart from a curfew in some cities?
>
> Might this be due to the probable domination of the Nigerian security
> apparatus, particularly the army, by people from Northern Nigeria?
>
> Now, this suspicion of mine might have no truth in it. It is not based on
> research or any knowledge of the composition of the Nigerian army and the
> country's security agencies, such as the SSS. It is based, however, on
> deductions made about the militarisation of Nigerian government, largely
> by coup plotters from Northern Nigeria, from Buhari to Babangida and
> Abacha, along with the fact that the country has largely been ruled by
> Northern leaders, who share with other Northerners the dominant ethnic and
> religious roots that wield power in Northern Nigeria.
>
> I suspect that the Nigerian army might be significantly pro-North in its
> composition and leadership after the Nigerian Civil War, in the location of
> arms consignments and the location and relative power and prestige of
> fighting units and commanders, and mechanised fighting equipment . Such
> imbalances might account for the apparent impossibility so far of dealing
> conclusively with the culture of mob and sectarian violence in Northern
> Nigeria.
>
> Other reasons along the same line might be that it is just not thinkable yet
> to work out a comprehensive method of eradicating this problem because it
> would require compromising the interests of leading Northern politicians
> and power brokers, who rely for much of their support on the foot soldiers
> invoked in such violence . It also seems that these foot soldiers are kept
> even more impoverished than poor Nigerians in other parts of Nigeria,
> thereby leading to their availablity as agents of violence.
>
> Another reason relates to the crisis of Islam in the modern world. This
> centres on the authority of Islam, like that of many religions, particularly
> the monotheistic Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, as
> based on non-rational conceptions, described as being above reason, and
> one approach to which is to be absorb them in faith, without little or no
> critical reflection. These non rational ideas and attitudes, particularly in
> the case of the Abrahamic religions, often include discrimination against
> other religions, and particularly against other Abrahamic religions, those
> being their closest rivals. I have seen more of such discrimination with
> Christianity and Islam since they emerged in the context of opposition to
> Judaism, and in terms of mutual opposition between Christianity and Islam.
> This non-rationality often leads to fanaticism and violent behaviour, as
> expressed in the current burning of churches in response to
> Jonathan's victory.
>
> Religions also often thrive in a culture of dogmatic political hegemony, in
> which allegiance to hierarchy is paramount, making it easier to manipulate
> people lower in the hierarchy. Without the active or tacit support of Muslim
> leaders in Northern Nigeria I doubt if this continual mob and sectarian
> violence would exist. Such violence occurs in Southern Nigeria in terms of
> the demonisation of children as witches in Southern Nigeria but does not go
> beyond that in large-scale terms.
>
> There are a number of reasons why mob and sectarian violence are not
> a feature of the largely Christianised social worlds of Southern Nigeria.
> One of these involves the contrastive relationships between Christianity,
> Islam and modernity. Modernity may be understood as the integration of
> social forces compelling a fundamental realignment of values, perceptions
> and of means and outcomes of production, leading to social systems
> significantly different in outlook and organisation from their historical
> origins. In that light light, Islam is still caught between the currently
> globally dominant mode of modernity, largely of Western origin and emerging
> from fundamental changes in the relationship between religion, public
> consciousness and social organisation marked by the Reformation, and the
> Industrial and Scientific Revolutions and the more dogmatic elements of
> Islam which seem to be the most prominent globally, as suggested by what
> seems to the overshadowing of politics and philosophy by religion in Islamic
> cultures.
>
> Christianity, on the other hand, has integrated Western modernity, creating
> a context in which even though superstition is, in my view central to the
> massive influence of Pentecostal Christianity in Nigeria, this culture of
> superstition goes hand in hand with an understanding of the good life in
> terms of a secular, often materialistic culture which idealises Western
> civilisation, including a delight in material well being, perceptions at
> odds with large scale violence and destruction, contributing to creating a
> populace more urbane in their outlook than what seems to obtain in Northern
> Nigeria.
>
> Another reason is the ethnic consciousness and the settler/indigene
> dichotomy. I get the impression that a strong current of opinion in Northern
> Nigeria is resentful of the presence of non-Northerners in Northern states
> and conflates Christianity and ethnic alienness, leading to communal
> violence on ethnic and religious lines against people non-Northerners and
> Christians.
>
> I wish I could suggest a comprehensive solution to this culture of mob and
> secvtarian violence in Northern Nigeria. The solution is likely to involve
> concurrent work on a number of of interrelated aspects of the Nigerian
> polity. The scope, volume and quality of formal education, economic
> empowerment, and general quality of life need to grow dramatically in
> Northern Nigeria. Education needs to integrate both Islamic and Western
> approaches, distilling the best of both, and certainly including the
> critical thinking and disciplinary scope of Western education at its best
> and, ideally, the sophistication, breadth and depth of the best of Islamic
> and Arab civilisation. Women should be allowed maximum education both for
> their own sakes and because the mother is vital to the upbringing of the
> child and the upkeep of the home, influencing the family hugely, even in
> patriarchal societies. Child marriages, described as common in Northern
> Nigeria, are not in the interests of society. Female children are
> sometimes married as early as 13 and divorced in their teens, according to
> this very sad BBC report on youth in Northern Nigeria, particularly girls:http://www. bbc. co. uk/news/world-africa-11427409. What kind of children
> will such children give birth to and bring up?
>
> The Nigerian state as well as the Northern political and economic elite
> need to address Northern development as a matter of the utmost urgency. This
> elite needs to refocus their power base on the empowerment of their
> people. One of the world's richest people, Aliko Dangote, is from Northern
> Nigeria and built his fortune through a social base in that locality. Yet,
> in sheer comparative productivity levels, income and general quality of
> life, the impression is emerging that the same environment that produced a
> Dangote, even in the context of the limitations of Nigeria and Africa
> generally, cannot compete with Southern Nigeria. But then, what is the
> social impact of Dangote's business compared with Mike Adenuga, his
> billionaire counterpart from Southern Nigeria?What is the relative impact on
> their environments of the business concerns of these two men on their
> immediate geographical constituencies? What is the relative impact on
> quality of life of telecommunications of Mike Adenuga, who pioneered the
> Glo 1 cable link that impacts broad information technology penetration in
> Africa to Dangote's cement business, multinational in scope though that is
> ? Perhaps this consideration is irrelevant since both men operate nationally
> and internationally.
>
> Underlying all these issues is the question of the character of the nation
> as a political entity and social framework composed of diverse ethnicities,
> and potential nationalities, welded together by an arrangement that was not
> designed with the interests of a self sustaining nation in mind but created
> to serve an external power, while the country is largely beholden to
> external interests, particularly in relation to energy-oil and electricity.
>
> Genuine self determination needs to emerge from the commitment, particularly
> from the elite, to work together to create a unified, self sustaining
> nation.
>
> Blogger<http://ifastudent-cognitivediary.blogspot.com/2011/04/persistent-mob-...>
>
> Scribd(PDF) <http://www.scribd.com/doc/53420888/Persistent-Mob-and-Sectarian-Viole...>
>
> Twitter <http://twitter.com/danteadinkra>
>
> Facebook<http://www.facebook.com/note.php?created&¬e_id=10150158288034103>
>
> __._,_.___
>
> Attachment(s) from toyin adepoju
>
> 2 of 2 File(s)
> PERSISTENT MOB AND SECTARIAN VIOLENCE IN NORTHERN
> NIGERIA.doc<http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/18350907/211336941/name/PERSISTENT%20MOB...>
> PERSISTENT MOB AND SECTARIAN VIOLENCE IN NORTHERN
> NIGERIA.pdf<http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/18350907/555404868/name/PERSISTENT%20MOB...>
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