Banning religion from violent politics, from war making

Since 2009-2010, Northern Nigeria has been the focus of attention for the Boko Haram conflict, or the jihadist terror in the region. This terror is part of a wider armed conflict between Muslims and Christians in the region that I have been reporting in the media since my own stay there between 2005 and 2007. I interprete the broader problem of the Nigerian conflict as the contribution of radical religious activism to a bloody conflict between peoples, a conflict with political, economic and cultural grounds.

How does violence start? It start with a mutual mistrust.

Regardless of whether the threats of a 'Christian rebellion / crusade' against an 'Islamic jihad' in Nigeria materialize, they are fueling the 100-year-old sentiment among Muslims (especially in the North of Nigeria) that Christianity was introduced in Nigeria in the beginning of the 20th century as an appendage to Western colonial anti-Muslim violence, expressed in armed, political, economic and cultural repression. In the eyes of these Muslims, Christianity in Nigeria is the popular force that will continue with this 'Islamophobic policy' into the 21st century.

Christians, on the other hand, see the Muslims in the north of Nigeria as the product of the 19th century jihad of Usman Dan Fodio (1754-1817) that turned the region into a true Islamic state and aimed to tolerate only the religious lifestyle of the so-called 'pure Muslims'.

Since independence in 1960, religion keeps on being used by the Nigerian leadership to serve the process of political violence. But there are plenty Nigerians who watch with sorrow eyes how religion continues playing a too large role in politics. They distance themselves from the 21st century war story that, in Nigeria, keeps on bloodily opposing Muslims to Christians and vice versa.

by Thierry Limpens