What in the World?

   Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas submitted a request for recognition as a full-member state to the United Nations on Friday, September 23. He was encouraged by the heartfelt applause of most of the delegations attending this historic meeting of the General Assembly.


    “I call on the Secretary-General to expedite the transmission of the document to the Security Council and call upon them to vote in favor of full membership,” said Abbas, looking very tense.
    “The goal of the Palestinian people is the realization of their inalienable national rights in their independent State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on all the land of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, which Israel occupied in the June 1967 war,” Abbas told the General Assembly.
 

    Thousands of jubilant, flag-waving Palestinians, watching on outdoor screens across the West Bank, cheered their president on Friday as he submitted his historic request for recognition of a state of Palestine to the UN.
    Abbas’ defiant stance, pushing for UN recognition over strong objections from the US and Israel, has struck a chord with Palestinians increasingly disillusioned after nearly two decades of failed efforts to bring them independence.
    Abbas has said negotiations remain his preference, but that he will not resume talks - frozen since 2008 - unless Israel agrees to the pre-1967 frontier as a baseline and freezes all settlement construction on occupied land. "The American administration did everything in its power to disrupt our project, but we are going through with it despite the obstacles and the pressure because we are asking for our right."
    When this document is received by the Council, it may take many weeks or even months for a decision on this request. Yet it is widely expected that the US will exercise its veto if a majority of the Council does decide favorably.
    Even if this request is approved, it will not change anything on the ground, but it does represent a moral victory for the Palestinians. Israel would remain an occupying force in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and continue to restrict access to Gaza, ruled by Palestinian Hamas militants.
    A state, under international law, generally needs to possess four qualifications: a permanent population; a government; defined territorial boundaries; and the ability to enter into relations with other states.
   The first two clearly exist in the Palestinian territories. And the boundaries were determined already in 1949. But the last point - relations with other states - is fuzzy: Technically, the Palestinian Authority is only responsible for domestic governance, while the Palestine Liberation Organisation deals with foreign relations. The Palestinian legal organisation Al-Haq, though, has argued that the PLO and PA are increasingly one and the same.

 
   Violence is almost a way of life in Nigeria. Riots occur so often that the world generally pays little attention, except when there is major loss of life. Last week there were more bombings and killings again in Jos, the city where I taught for six years, and which I still visit regularly.
   But last week the attention of the world was focused on 9/11, and thus few of the media noticed what happened in Jos after the end of Ramadan.
   I have witnessed violence in Jos first-hand. I have seen truckloads of bodies being dumped in mass graves; the charred remains of churches, mosques and commercial building, as well as the hulks of cars and trucks, served as mute testimony to this violence.


   What are the causes of violence in Nigeria? In order to help explain them, I want to focus on Jos, where much of the violence has been concentrated during the last decade.
   Many journalists blame religion for the violence in the world today. They regard religion as divisive. While religion indeed plays a divisive role in Nigeria, there are other factors as well that are too quickly overlooked: politics and ethnicity, which is another way of saying tribalism.
   Religion, politics and ethnicity are not separate issues in Nigeria. It is difficult to unravel these strands that are so tightly interwoven.
   In Plateau State, in Nigeria’s “Middle Belt,” the central region between the Muslim-majority North and the largely Christian South, various Christian ethnic groups co-exist uneasily with Hausa settlers who are predominantly Muslim.


   Jos is the capital city of the state. This is where these different forces clash most often. There are at least two ways in which these various factors interact.
   First, the successive crises in Plateau State represent a contest for resources, especially access to land. A majority of the indigenous people in this state (called “indigenes” in Nigeria) are Christians. Many of these indigenes are tied to the land, and are either peasant farmers or civil service workers.
   The Muslim minority, many of them Hausa settlers, tend to be dry-season farmers or engage in cattle rearing (the Fulani), although they also engage in business. In Jos, most business is dominated by ethnic groups that come from elsewhere in Nigeria, especially the Igbo, Yoruba, and Hausa.
   Pressures to obtain land were exacerbated after 1986 with the Structural Adjustment Program, which was imposed by the IMF. This led to many public servants, company workers, and military personnel being forced to retire. Many of them returned to the land in order to survive, which exerted great pressure on limited land resources, and made land a highly prized possession.
   One result was that the mostly Christian indigenes refused to accept the land claims of the predominantly Muslim settlers. The ancestors of many of these settlers came to Jos more than a century ago when the tin mines needed workers. But today Muslims claim that they are still not accepted or accorded the same rights as indigenes.
   Second, this issue has become acute because of political rivalry between indigenes and settlers. In Jos the struggle between the Hausa-Fulani and the traditional native tribes (Berom, Anaguata, and Afisare) has become a major factor in the Jos crises as these groups contended for political control.
   The main point that Muslims make is that they are disenfranchised in Plateau State by being excluded from public office through the manipulation of elections. They claim that they constitute the majority in both Jos and Plateau State.
   Christians retort that Muslims are not in the majority in the state, and they are not excluded from the political process. If they do feel disenfranchised, Christians add, this is no different from what Christians from the Middle Belt or the South experience in northern Muslim-controlled states, even though they have lived in the North for many decades.
   Muslims blame Christians for the violence. Again, Christians refute this claim. A careful study of all the conflicts in Nigeria between Christians and Muslims over several decades revealed that Muslims always start these riots and are the first to resort to violence.


   For many decades, Christians were rather politically apathetic. They regarded politics as something evil and responded to violence by heeding the biblical injunction to "turn the other cheek." But in the last decade the attitude of Christians has changed. They have become active in politics, no longer allowing Muslims to dominate the political stage.
   With the rising influence of Christians, it is not surprising that Muslims feel excluded in states such as Plateau. But it helps to explain the claims of disenfranchisement by Muslims, who have lost a lot of political strength, not only nationally but also at the state and local level.
   In addition, Muslims feel that, where they are in a majority, they should have a Muslim ruler. Thus it is hard for them to cede the reins of power to Christians, even when they are no longer in the majority.
   In Nigeria there are now more Christians than Muslims, at least according to Operation World, which claims that at the turn of the century more than 50% of the population was Christian, about 40% Muslim, and the balance was traditional religion. Muslims, not surprisingly, dispute such statistics.
   There are no reliable statistics in Nigeria regarding religious adherence, since religion is specifically excluded from the census forms. The most recent census in 2007 again did not list this politically explosive category.
  But in Plateau State, and even in Jos itself, Muslims do not seem to be in the majority, although they are very numerous in Jos North, especially in some areas immediately surrounding the university.
   As part of their change in attitude, Christians have also become proactive in protecting themselves. Now they do retaliate when attacked. And if churches are burnt down, they respond by burning down mosques, although that is not an appropriate biblical response.


   In the various classes that I taught at the University of Jos over past few years, I tried to dissuade my students from resorting to violence, even if only in retaliation for Muslim violence.
  Early in my work at the university, I prepared a discussion paper on active non-violence for a workshop at the Unijos. It was later published and widely used.
   Many of my students were pastors and church leaders, and thus they needed to set a good example for their people. They certainly should not initiate violence or incite others to do so.
   The Bible does not condone violence. Those who do initiate violence or retaliate in violent ways I prefer to describe as “so-called Christians.” Nevertheless, I admit that it is hard for me to say that to people who have lost their churches, businesses, and homes to violence.
   It is important that Nigerians deal seriously with the problem of land ownership, the status of indigenes and settlers, and the consequent disenfranchisement of large sections of the population within their own country.
    They need to take the conversation far beyond the rhetoric of simplistic reporting about religious violence by the media. The fundamental issue is one of human rights that all Nigerians should be able to enjoy by virtue of citizenship.
   The difficult issue of political corruption only exacerbates perceptions of injustice. Yet, if these issues are not addressed adequately, we may well expect the Jos crisis to repeat itself every few years, especially when there are elections.


   I am very thankful that Christians and Muslims have recently started working together to try to quell violence in Plateau State. My colleague at the University of Jos, Professor Danny McCain has played a leading role in initiating these discussions. They are trying to enlist young people, who might otherwise be rioting, in promoting peace in this state.
   Let us fervently pray that another crisis does not happen, either in Jos or anywhere else in Nigeria.
 

    
   "Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated … Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists … This is not, however, just America’s fight. And what is at stake is not just America’s freedom. This is the world’s fight. This is civilisation’s fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom. We ask every nation to join us … An attack on one is an attack on all. The civilised world is rallying to America’s side." President George W. Bush setting the agenda for the "War on Terror" in an address to Congress, September 20, 2001.
   
     
    Probably the greatest legacy of 9/11 is the "War on Terror" (also known as the "Global War on Terror" or the "War on Terrorism"). My intention is not to provide a history of this war (or better a series of wars) but only to describe very briefly the impact it has made on many people around the world. Note: I will not use capitals for the war on terror in the rest of this post.
   The world changed on 9/11, but not for the better. Peace has been the main casualty. The decade since has been marked by war and more war. 
   In a previous posting, I noted the impact of 9/11 on my travel plans, delaying my return to Moscow by five days. But this is minor in comparison with the impact 9/11 had on many other people. The war on terror increased that impact exponentially. 
   The 9/11 attacks killed 2,973 people, including Americans and foreign nationals but excluding the terrorists. About 303 times as many people have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq than in those ghastly attacks.
   More than 130 times as many people have been killed in these wars and occupations than in all terrorist attacks in the world from 1993-2004, according to data compiled by the US State Department.