Danish cartoon protests in the north led to sectarian clashes which have seen dozens of deaths in four cities. On Wednesday, groups of Christian men wielding clubs and machetes rampaged through Onitsha for a second day attacking any members of the Muslim Hausa community they could find, according to witnesses.
Violence like this is both non-Christian and un-Islamic.
3 comments:
Boy, those christians are just like the muslims!
1. Nigerian muslims in the north (who for decades have aggressively oppressed christians, forcing them to observe muslim customs, banning christian customs, and even enslaving christians) kill christians and burn churches in response to an artist in Denmark publishing a cartoon of Mohammad.
2. Nigerian christians (with no recent history of forcing anybody to obey christian customs or banning non-christian customs) kill muslims and burn mosques in response to an artist in Finland publishing a cartoon of Jesus. Oops. Correction: the Nigerian christians were rampaging in response to a deadly and destructive anti-christian muslim rampage. They have never rampaged in response to the many popular worldwide blasphemes of christianity.
That's some case you're building there, Nadir! Now that we finally have some christians who are responding violently and destructively to some action, perhaps you will finally issue an urgent appeal for the perpetrators of the offending action to stop. In this case, instead of getting mad at some cartoonists and editors who have violated a religious superstition, you will be getting mad at some killers and church-burners.
Will you be merely *as* mad as you got at the superstition-violators? Or, say, ten thousand times angrier? That will be hard, because you already used ALL CAPS AND EXCLAMATION POINTS! for the superstiion-violators, and a curse word ("SHIT!"). Thus the only way you could express more anger here is with extra curse words (if indeed you are more angry at killing and church-burning than you are at superstition-violating).
I haven't carefully examined the Nigerian Islamic-Christian dichotomy, but I have read about it somewhat. It seems possible that the christian response here is analagous to Nat Turner's slave rebellion (killing and burning spree in response to killing and enslaving over several generations), whereas the muslim response is analagous to how racist crackers responded to Emmit Till supposedly whistling at a honkey girl (except instead of lynching just the accused whistler, they lynched a few dozen other blacks in another state).
Yes, those christians are certainly "extremists". They demand that nobody kill christians or burn down churches in response to some artist thousands of miles away publishing a cartoon, especailly people who continue generations of oppression of christians, including the banning of christian customs and enforcement of muslim custums.
PS: I do agree that the christian killer-churchburners are wrong. Presumably the muslims and mosques that they attacked are innocent. But it seems that christians in Nigeria have suffered generations of intense abuse, and their response-in-kind is at least logical. Perhaps the maurauding muslims will learn to respond to Mohammad cartoons by publishing their own Jesus cartoons. And of course I hope that citizens of democracies will learn from this to try to stop firing university professors and media broadcasters who "offend" them with stated opinions ("the 911 victims were Eichmans", "gender aptitude disparity may constriube to gender disparity in choosing scientific vocations", "the 911 terrorists weren't cowards", "homosexuality is an illness").
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