SO far not mentioned here is the weekend slaughter of hundreds in religious and tribal clashes in Central Nigeria, writes AGW.The final death toll in the Muslim on Christian attacks with machetes, knives and spears could be well over 500. Already 332 have been buried after what was probably a revenge attack for an incident in January.
Some of the suspected killers in a Nigerian police station.
The attacks were on three villages around the city of Jos. It seems to be the end result of the usual religious turmoil, lack of housing, jobs and lost opportunity.
There is a chilling account of it all from the murderer’s viewpoint in The New York Times
There is already the usual metaphorical shrugging of shoulders and “What you expect of savages?” littering the in-box.
There are no fast answers and human rights groups and government are equally shocked.
Nigeria was the first of the emergent ex-colonial African nations to experience civil war. It came within seven years of independence. Lightning speed when compared to the English Civil War (500 or so years) and even faster than the American one which took place after it had been simmering the 84 years from independence.
Others have experienced the savageries of internal conflict and the worst example may well have been the brief terrible flowering and cutting down of Pol Pot’s Kampuchea , formerly and once again Cambodia. Anyone who has seen the based-on-fact film the Killing Fields will have an idea of the horrors there.
Subtle
This sectarianism is not confined to emergent countries. Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Glasgow’s Rangers / Celtic fan fights and Northern Ireland are all rooted in the same vile prejudices.
Editors sometimes make their point very subtly and it may be that the current boss at the Belfast Telegraph has quietly made a very telling statement.
This week the fractious and very widely separate groups which make up the Northern Ireland Assembly agreed by a majority on the new way forward for policing one of the most sectarian, religiously and politically divided places it is possible to visit: Ulster. Already the Ulster Unionists are being accused of cynicism for not signing up to the agreement when the others did on Tuesday, March 9.
The same day the Belfast Telegraph editor ensured this was carried Mass burials for hundreds .
Its prominent coverage must have been deliberate. Even if accidental, it is a great juxtaposition of story and current political events.
Why? Because no-one in Ulster will ever forget or want to return to The Troubles when it became so bad the Europa Hotel, left, in Great Victoria Street, central Belfast, was and still is, the most bombed hotel in the world.
This is not Christian – Muslim conflict. It is ancient Christian division and those differences are just as terrible as they always were.
It is not always a hot and foetid Central African village when Two Tribes Go To War.
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