The CNN report quotes a video in which the leader of the Islamist militia states that 'Allah' tells him to sell the girls, but doesn't bother to explain why he thinks that is the case. In fact, he's probably right about this as a point of Islamic law: the captured girls are almost all Christians.
Boko Haram has been abducting Christian girls and women for some time as part of its battle to establish an Islamic state in Northern Nigeria. The group appears to be putting into practice Quranic verses that grant Muslims the right to take, as spoils of war, female slaves, over whom they have sexual rights.There were a few Muslim girls captured in the last raid. What will happen to them could be better or worse, depending on how Boko Haram views Muslims who study at Christian schools. My guess is that their fate will be worse. If they are viewed as apostates, they will probably be killed (after a forced 'marriage,' since you aren't supposed to execute virgins).
As I was just saying to Eric, there's a sense in which we're always in the 6th Century -- or, in this case, the 7th. These people are following the law, an ancient law that dates to the very origin of their faith. We can't even begin to understand the problem as long as, like CNN, we don't appreciate that truth about them. What they are doing is not improper by the lights of their system. It is their system. They don't see themselves as villains, but as the enforcer's of God's law upon an unrighteous people: upon infidels whose children, at least, shall be purified by being brought within the fold.
10 comments:
" They don't see themselves as villains"
As it ever was. That is why reason will not solve this. Sooner or later the West will need to re-awaken the killer instinct if we are to survive.
Just so. We need to listen to Sun Tzu, and come to know both our enemies and ourselves. Without changing some things about ourselves, we will not likely have the victory -- but all the less will we have it if we won't even be honest with ourselves.
There are a great many people who just don't care. It's all too much for them. They've never heard of Boko Haram because they never listen or read or watch anything where such things are mentioned. They can tell you who won American Idol. They know who won the Academy Awards for Best Actress - and what she wore to the ceremony. They know what singer is a lesbian and who her partner is. But they can't tell you who their Senators are or who their Representative is, and they probably can't name more than one Supreme Court justice - if that.
People like that simply don't care. Real life is icky, and we shouldn't worry about it.
Islam does have justifications for such behavior, but is not unique in that. In fact, the treatment of captured others has been horrifying in just about every society until quite recently. Islam does not make primitive tribalists any worse. But it doesn't make them any better.
That is exactly true. Which why sometimes you have to get all Roman on them and as it was said of (I think) Tiberius' campaigns against the Thracians;
"They made a desert and called it peace."
Sometimes you gotta go kill a bunch of them so that the rest get it in their heads that it isn't a good idea to do stuff like this.
I don't see the Nigerians being able to deal with this short of doing what they did in the Biafran war.
Islam does not make primitive tribalists any worse. But it doesn't make them any better.
I dissent from that latter; I think it does make them better. We still have some substantial disagreements that have to be sorted out in the old way, as Eric says.
Consider, though, this article on forced marriage in tribal Pakistan:
"Islam doesn't condone the practice. Under Islamic law, punishment is meant to target the perpetrator, not a related woman or child.... When Ms. Khan intervenes in swara cases, she said she uses Islam to encourage people to accept a different way of settling disputes."
That was often true in Iraq, too. The way to get people to settle a blood feud was often to bring in an imam, who could talk to them in the language of Islam.
If I have to deal with primitive tribals, as you put it, I'd rather they be Muslims than some other situations. Of course, it'd be better still if they were Christians.
I wonder how many A-10's are sitting in mothballs at Davis Monthan? Maybe the Nigerians could use them.
I see that man on TV and I find myself hoping that his head will disappear in a pink mist right there on camera. I don't honestly care why he thinks what he's doing is OK. If he can't figure out his mistake, he needs to be removed from the planet.
That sentiment is understandable, but it needs to be backed up with something more. Sun Tzu isn't advising that you understand your enemy out of a desire to join with him in multicultural delight, after all!
You must also be cold-blooded in analyzing your own limitations. My sense is that we have more limitations than powers in this particular case, as in Ukraine and elsewhere. Chiefly that is because of a combination of the political class we have elected, and the cultural rot that RonF is quite right about.
I'd just assumed that Boko Haram considered the girls to be the "women thy right had has captured" and planned to disburse them as lawfully-acquired loot.
LittleRed1
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