Suspected Nigeria Sect Gunmen Kill Islamic Scholar

[Valin]

NY Times/Reuters:

10/9/10

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) - Gunmen in northern Nigeria shot dead an Islamic scholar Saturday after he had been openly critical of a radical sect behind a spate of recent killings, witnesses and police officials said.

Sheikh Bashir Mustapha had just returned from a wedding when he was shot inside his home in the northern city of Maiduguri a day after taking part in a radio discussion in which he condemned the radical Boko Haram sect, witnesses said.

(Snip)

Recent killings of police officers, traditional leaders and politicians in and around Maiduguri have raised fears that Boko Haram, which wants sharia (Islamic law) applied more widely across Africa's most populous nation, is staging a comeback.

(snip)

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What we see here is one reason we don't see a lot of Muslim leaders standing up to the Islamists.

[Sanguine]

What we see here is one reason we don't see a lot of Muslim leaders standing up to the Islamists.

 

No, they don't. They do continue to proselytize and support islam and islamists though.

[Valin]

What we see here is one reason we don't see a lot of Muslim leaders standing up to the Islamists.

 

No, they don't. They do continue to proselytize and support islam and islamists though.

 

 

They do?

[Sanguine]

What we see here is one reason we don't see a lot of Muslim leaders standing up to the Islamists.

 

No, they don't. They do continue to proselytize and support islam and islamists though.

 

 

They do?

 

Yes, they do. From refusing to speak against them to actively supporting them. (Am I answering the right question? No coffee yet, so I may be misunderstanding your point.)

[Valin]

What we see here is one reason we don't see a lot of Muslim leaders standing up to the Islamists.

 

No, they don't. They do continue to proselytize and support islam and islamists though.

 

 

They do?

 

Yes, they do. From refusing to speak against them to actively supporting them. (Am I answering the right question? No coffee yet, so I may be misunderstanding your point.)

 

 

Given the history of Islamism and where they live I can't say that I blame them for keeping a low profile.

 

 

A very good (long) article. It has influenced my thinking a good deal....

The Radical Loser

 

(Snip)

 

To date, few loser-collectives have operated on a global scale, even if they were able to count on international flows of cash and weapon supplies. But the world is teeming with local groupings whose leaders are referred to as warlords or guerrilla chiefs. Their self-appointed militias and paramilitary gangs like to adorn themselves with the title of a liberation organization or other revolutionary attributes. In some media, they are referred to as rebels, a euphemism that probably flatters them. Shining Path, MLC, RCD, SPLA, ELA, LTTE, LRA, FNL, IRA, LIT, KACH, DHKP, FSLN, UVF, JKLF, ELN, FARC, PLF, GSPC, MILF, NPA, PKK, MODEL, JI, NPA, AUC, CPNML, UDA, GIA, RUF, LVF, SNM, ETA, NLA, PFLP, SPM, LET, ONLF, SSDF, PIJ, JEM, SLA, ANO, SPLMA, RAF, AUM, PGA, ADF, IBDA, ULFA, PLFM, ULFBV, ISYF, LURD, KLO, UPDS, NLFT, ATTF ...

 

"Left" or "Right", it makes no odds. Each of these armed rabbles calls itself an army, boasts of brigades and commandos, self-importantly issuing bureaucratic communiqués and boastful claims of responsibility, acting as if they were the representatives of "the masses". Being convinced, as radical losers, of the worthlessness of their own lives, they do not care about the lives of anyone else either; any concern for survival is foreign to them. And this applies equally to their opponents, to their own followers, and to those with no involvement whatsoever. They have a penchant for kidnapping and murdering people who are trying to relieve the misery of the region they are terrorizing, shooting aid workers and doctors and burning down every last hospital in the area with a bed or a scalpel – for they have trouble distinguishing between mutilation and self-mutilation.

 

But none of these mobs has been able to keep up with globalization. In cases where their ideological exploitation focuses on national and ethnic conflicts, this is only natural. But since the collapse of the Soviet Union, groups seeing themselves in the tradition of internationalism have forfeited the support of a superpower in terms of propaganda and logistics. Under the pressure of global capital, they have abandoned their fantasies of world domination and now claim only to represent the interests of their local clientele.

 

(Snip)

 

Contrary to what the West appears to believe, the destructive energy of Islamist actions is directed mainly against Muslims. This is not a tactical error, not a case of "collateral damage". In Algeria alone, Islamist terror has cost the lives of at least 50,000 fellow Algerians. Other sources speak of as many as 150,000 murders, although the military and the secret services were also involved. In Iraq and Afghanistan, too, the number of Muslim victims far outstrips the death toll among foreigners. Furthermore, terrorism has been highly detrimental not only to the image of Islam but also to the living conditions of Muslims around the world.

 

The Islamists are as unconcerned about this as the Nazis were about the downfall of Germany. As the avant-garde of death, they have no regard for the lives of their fellow believers. In the eyes of the Islamists, the fact that most Muslims have no desire to blow themselves and others sky high only goes to show that they deserve no better than to be liquidated themselves. After all, the aim of the radical loser is to make as many other people into losers as possible. As the Islamists see it, the fact that they are in the minority can only be because they are the chosen few.

 

(Snip)