DISFRUTAR DE LAS CUALIDADES POSITIVAS Y LOGROS DE OTRAS PERSONAS

Young militants in Maiduguri or Kano have good reasons to hate the representa- tives of the state. Their rebellion is born out of poverty, illiteracy, and unem- ployment; it is a response to corruption and social neglect. Given the shocking disparities in wealth, analysts in the West have argued that government, in order to stop the violence, has to address the root causes of the crisis. It has to reach out to those it has alienated and offer them employment, better education, and other services to raise the standard of living. A top official in the US State Department, who was calling for political reforms, claimed that “[r]eligion is not driving ex- tremist violence in Nigeria”; instead, he blamed “the underlying political and social economic problems in the north”.9 However, interpreting the rebellion as a protest against deteriorating living conditions is at odds with the statements of Boko Haram leaders, who insist on the religious motives of their insurrection: “[T]his is a war between Muslims and non-[M]uslims. … this is not a tribal war, nor is it … a war for financial gains, it is solely a religious war”.10 Commentators

5

Mazrui, Shariacracy, (chapter ‘Globalization and Islamic revivalism’); Harnischfeger, Democratiza-

tion, 112-54.

6

Zamfara Government Advertorial, “Zamfara State One Year of Purposeful Leadership”, Hotline (print edition), 4 June 2000, 24.

7

Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, “Shari’a: Yarima vs. the Mallams”, Kaduna Weekly Trust, 26 July 2003, in Paden, Muslim Civic Cultures, 166.

8

Maitama Sule. In: N. Ebije, “FG must empower north”, Daily Sun, 11 May 2012.

9

Johnnie Carson, Ass. Secretary of State for African Affairs, in (Anon.), “US Official: Violence in Nigeria isn’t about religion”, Daily Trust (print edition), 6 April 2012, 29.

10

Abubakar Shekau in a video message, in (Anon.), “Jos Bombing: Text of video Statement by Jama’atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda’awati Wal Jihad”, Elombah, 28 December 2010.

in Europe and North America, writing for a secular readership, have sought to make this war comprehensible by identifying poverty and social injustice as the real causes of the rebellion. However, it does not lead to a deeper understanding of Boko Haram (and Muslim resistance to it) when analysts leave aside that the rebels, when responding to the Nigerian crisis, seek a religious solution to it:

The group’s preaching – available on cassettes across the region – concerned almost exclu- sively detailed points of religious doctrine and what actions can and cannot be permitted within Islam. While this did include debates on the relations between democracy and Islam, it would be incorrect to think that Yusuf (the founder of Boko Haram) was a social reformer or was overly concerned with corruption. His concern was a pure interpretation of Islamic texts. (Crisis Group, Northern Nigeria, 38)11

For most Muslims in the North it makes sense to turn to religion in order to liberate themselves from decades of moral and economic decay. Secular institu- tions, which were brought to Africa by white colonisers, have failed, particularly in northern Nigeria, where citizens are disillusioned with Western ways of devel- opment. A vast majority no longer believes that democracy, human rights, and a market economy offer a way out. Nigeria’s Fourth Republic was modelled along the lines of the US Constitution, but its citizens have not been able to make use of its democratic institutions to submit their rulers to public control: “Not a single one of those Northern governors has deemed it his duty to worry about [the] plight of the people”.12 The number of people living on less than 2 USD a day has increased, although the governors in the North (like their counterparts in the South) have received far more revenues from the federation account than in the late 1990s, under General Abacha, when a barrel of oil sold for 10 USD.

Since citizens have never found ways to control their rulers, they can only hope that politicians will submit at least to the authority of God. Theocratic rule is regarded as an alternative to democracy; it derives its attraction from the sense that Western concepts of modernisation have led to a dead end. While party de- mocracy seems to encourage strife and ruthless competition, Shariah is conceived as a force that may check the excesses of the ruling class. The immutable law of God, which is the same all over the world, will be the yardstick by which all segments of the society, rich and poor, must be judged. Thus, the arrogant elite would be integrated into a moral community, in which rulers and ruled are united by a shared culture, as they had been in the mythical beginnings of Islam.

11

A detailed study on sermons, interviews and debates between Boko Haram leaders and some of their Izala critics arrives at a similar conclusion: “misrule and poor governance resulting from the legendary corruption of Nigerian political leaders are not the explicit concerns of these discourses and counter- discourses on Boko Haram …. Yusuf was chiefly concerned with avenging his followers’ injuries ra- ther than raising Nigerian citizens’ objections to the abuse of power by security forces, nor does he voice any criticism against the broader problem of poor governance and misrule by Nigerian political elites that many commentators claim to be the explanation for the Boko Haram insurrection” (Anon.,

Popular Discourses, 119, 130-31).

12

It was rumoured that the Sultan of Sokoto, like many other Muslim dignitaries, was unhappy with Shariah, but he could not openly declare that God’s law should no longer be binding. At the height of the Shariah campaign, most politi- cal and religious leaders in the Far North supported the introduction of harsher Islamic laws, yet made sure that these laws were implemented only in a selective and half-hearted way.13 Boko Haram’s militancy is, in part, a reaction to the cyn- ical game of politicians who mobilised religious sentiments in the interests of their political ambitions. By posing as campaigners of an Islamic renewal, they have discredited themselves. To make matters worse, by declaring that their states must be run according to divine laws, they have empowered religious ex- perts who can speak more competently about the will of God. This counter-elite has turned into a dangerous rival, because imams – especially those who stress their radical distance from the political class – have the capacity to mobilise the masses against the hypocrisy of the big men. One way of putting pressure on pol- iticians is to insist that they abide by the standards of rectitude enshrined in the divine law. All sections of the ummah (the community of the faithful) had com- mitted themselves to these standards when they insisted, against Christian pres- sure, on the necessity of living according to Shariah. Thus Shariah can be used against the same elites who propagated it. No prominent Muslim politician has dared to confront religious leaders by suggesting that the Shariah laws passed between 2000 and 2002 be scrapped. This makes it difficult for the Islamic estab- lishment to denounce militants like Boko Haram, who are simply demanding what politicians promised but failed to deliver.