A New War Must Start Today

11 Sep 2011

Simon Kolawole Live!: Email: simonkolawole@thisdayonline.com

In our discussion last week, I proposed that the time has come for us to begin to isolate and treat religious extremists as a different breed of human beings who are a threat to both Christians and Muslims. The war against extremists will be difficult to fight as long as we lump all Muslims together and refuse to acknowledge that many, if not most, of them are genuinely embarrassed by the activities of terrorists who are tarnishing the image of their religion. I argued that every religion has its own “lunatic fringe”—and although Christians are successfully dealing with their own lunatics, making them virtually irrelevant, the words of the Bible are nonetheless subject to manipulation the same way a few Muslims are twisting the Qur’an to justify suicide-bombing and mass murder.

Predictably, while many Muslims said they agreed with my analysis and expressed their disgust at the activities of the extremists, some Christians accused me of trying to play a “balancing game” by not “calling a spade a spade”. Someone wrote: “I seriously thought you needed to read some books from Muslim converts, ‘Unveiling Islam’ by Ergun Mchmet Caner and Emir Fethi Caner, ‘The Unseen face of Islam’ by Bill Musk, ‘Islamic Banking System’ by Shomer Ishmol.” He then added a cheeky parting shot: “It is a pity that we so-called Christians lack wisdom. Well, it is written that ‘my people die of lack of knowledge’.”

Another accused me of trying to be “a true Nigerian” by “compromising”, adding: “The instances you gave of the different acts carried out by some Christians are acts they submitted themselves to willingly; not by force, but by the choices they made as to what they believe in. But not with any intent to hurt or harm people who do not share their beliefs. The Norwegian who took the lives of about 77 people is sick. I say so because if his grudge is or was against Islam and the Islamisation of Europe as he alleges, he ought to have taken his war to the Arab nations. For Jesu Oyingbo, whatever each member or members passed through at the ‘supposed’ church was definitely what they believed in and did out of their own volition. That brings us to the beauty of Christianity—the fact that Christians are able to take criticisms openly from one another and even from non-Christians without the heavens falling down.”

Nevertheless, I was a bit disappointed by some respondents who are unable to rise above certain sentiments. For instance, if anyone argues that followers of Jesu Oyingbo did so voluntarily, are people being forced to join Boko Haram? Of the estimated 60-70 million Muslims in Nigeria , how many are members of Boko Haram or Al Qaeda? On what ground can we conclude that every single Muslim subscribes to the philosophy of terrorism? On what ground can we conclude that because it is very rare to see Christians take to terrorism, then all Christians are “good guys” and do not contribute in any form to fuelling ethno-religious crises in Nigeria ? I don’t think name-calling, stereo-typing and blame-trading can ever resolve any conflict.

By far the most touching and encouraging response I got to my article last week was from a Muslim journalist, whom I will simply call Jummai, who works with an international radio station. She wrote: “I read your article on ‘We are all victims of terrorism’. I wish everybody, whereever they are, would read this article. Do you know my most trusted friend is a Christian? She has a praying mat for me in her house. If we know that God created all of us, black, white, Christians, Moslems, Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Fulani, Kanuri, Nupe etc etc [then] we can understand our differences and live in harmony with one another.”

As we mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks today, I want to expand three critical aspects of Jummai’s email, in the interest of love and harmony. The first is the fact that we all believe we were all created by the same God. This is very key. Muslims and Christians have different beliefs that can never align. Christians say Jesus is the only begotten son of God; Muslims say God does not beget and therefore does not have a son. We can never come to an agreement on that. Christians say Jesus is the only way to God; Muslims say Islam is the true way to God. On this, again, we can never agree. However, even the most extremist Christian and the most fanatical Muslim agree that all human beings were created by the same God, no matter your religion or colour or race. That is a very important fact in this discourse. We were all created by the same God. Even extremists cannot deny it.

The second message from Jummai’s letter is “accommodation” or “tolerance”. Her most trusted friend is a Christian! Extremists will not like this. A Muslim extremist will even quote the Qur’an: “O you who believe, take not the Jew and Christian as friends” (Surah 5:51). But what of several verses from the Qu’ran where Christians and Jews (“people of the book”) are called believers and Muslims are urged to love them? A Christian fanatic will also open the Bible to 2 Corinthians 6:14: “Do not be yoked together with unbelievers… What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?” But what of Bible passages that say we should love our neighbours as ourselves and that we should live in peace with all men?That is what I mean when I say you can quote the Bible or the Qur’an to justify anything. All you need to do is quote verses out of context simply ignore the circumstances, ignore the audience, ignore the intent and ignore the historical background. That is how extremism works. Extremism thrives on proclaiming differences above similarities, hate above love, war above peace and destruction above salvation. Extremists conveniently avoid scriptures that preach that say we were all created by the same God, that we are all brothers and sisters irrespective of our differences. And, sadly, the extremists always have the upper hand. So if 1.2 billion Muslims are ready to live in peace with Christians, it is the one or two million who engage in terrorism that get heard. And it is this tiny minority causing havoc that gets all the publicity.

The third message from Jummai’s email, which is the crux of the matter, is: we can understand our differences and live in harmony with one another! That is the philosophy that drives me in life. We cannot all be Christians; we cannot all be Igbo; we cannot all be white; we cannot all be women; we cannot all be PDP. The diversity we have in the world today was created by God himself. So having differences is not the problem. The real question is: how may we live in peace and harmony in spite of our differences? I’m not interested in being a Muslim; you’re not interested in being a Christian. Should that be the end of the world? Why don’t you stick to your Islam and allow me to stick to my Christianity? Why should we be preaching and promoting bigotry and hate in the name of religion and ethnicity?

Someone told me recently that Muslims are violent by nature. I replied: “But my Muslim cousins are not violent! My Muslim in-laws are not violent!” He replied in a similar manner, saying his own Muslim cousins are not violent too. So if he knew that, why make such a sweeping statement? I was reflecting on the issue of integration recently and it dawned on me that my inner circle of friends is made up of people from different religions and ethnic groups. There are millions of Nigerians with a similar story. I know Muslims who are married to Christians, Igbos married to Yorubas, and so on. How come then that it is the divisive agents that control the public sphere? Are we not yielding too much space to the bigots and ethic chauvinists such that they now appear to be more in number?

We who believe in living peace and harmony must begin to speak out now. We must begin to raise our voices to condemn extremism in any form. We must hijack the airwaves from the bigots. Now is the time for us to start our own war—what I call the “war for peace”—by pushing these lunatic bigots to where they belong: history.