Azuka Onwuka
| credits: File copy
| credits: File copy
The injustice done to Muslims
September 17, 2013 by Azuka Onwuka (azuka.brand@augustconsulting.biz)
One
thing a Nigerian hates is to hear: “Nigerians are fraudulent” or
“Nigerians are drug traffickers.” Most Nigerians take offence at this
unfair generalisation and stereotyping. Most Nigerians are always quick
to say that it is unfair to use the activities of less than one per cent
of the population to describe 170 million people. That is true.
Ironically, the same people who take
offence when their nation is stereotyped do not think twice before
stereotyping Muslims. To such people, there is a justification for that:
Most suicide bombers are Muslims. But when you point out to them many
Muslims that have never been associated with violence or religious
intolerance, they tell you: “Those ones are different.” You are then
left to wonder: If those ones, who are Muslims, are different, why then
tar all Muslims with the same brush?
But then, many people enjoy stereotyping
and taunting others that have a different culture, religion or race. It
makes them feel superior.
Religion is one sure-fire means through
which a person with only elementary school education can make a
professor commit suicide willingly and happily. The reason is that there
is no nobler act than that which is presumably done to satisfy the
Almighty, thereby attracting the reward of eternal bliss to the
individual.
On November 18, 1978, about 920 people
were killed through a combination of murder and mass suicide, ordered by
Jim Jones, an American who had broken away from the Sommerset Southside
Methodist Church in Indianapolis, to found the Peoples Temple Christian
Church. After ordering the killing of Congressman Leo Ryan, who had
visited his church to investigate claims of abuse, Jones ordered his
members to commit suicide. On the evening of November 18, in Jonestown,
Jones ordered his congregation to drink a concoction of cyanide-laced,
grape-flavoured drink. Parents were instructed to inject their children
with the same drink.
The mass suicide and killings at
Jonestown resulted in the greatest single loss of American civilian life
in a non-natural, non-accidental disaster prior to the al-Qaeda attacks
of September 11, 2001.
In a similar vein, on March 17, 2000,
the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, a
breakaway religious movement from the Roman Catholic Church founded by
Credonia Mwerinde, Joseph Kibweteere and Bee Tait in Uganda,
orchestrated the mass murder of about 778 members because of revolt
about the non-fulfilment of their prophecy that the world would end on
January 1, 2000. Members were made to sell off or give away their
possessions. When the world did not end on January I, they shifted the
date to March 17, and orchestrated an explosion that killed many
members. The corpses of some members were found at other sites with
signs showing that they had been poisoned, stabbed or strangled before
the explosion.
These examples show how religious
leaders can indoctrinate and manipulate their followers to either kill
others or commit suicide in the vain belief that they are executing a
divine assignment.
There is no doubt that there have been
many people who have engaged in terrorism or violence in the name of
Islam. The most notorious of them all is Osama bin Laden. In Nigeria,
such a figure is Abubakar Shekau, who took over the headship of Boko
Haram after the death of the founder, Mohammed Yusuf. One would look at
the blood-thirstiness of such men and ask if they are human beings at
all. What is their mission? Why kill innocent citizens for a cause that
people don’t understand? These and many more questions gnaw at the
hearts of many non-Muslims.
But then when you look at the people who
work with you or have been your friends, you discover that many of them
are devout Muslims who pursue peace and love in all their dealings.
Whenever there is an act of violence involving a Muslim, such
peace-loving Muslims feel as sad and angry as you do, or even more,
because they get condemned and cursed for being Muslims.
Before the declaration of emergency rule
in Borno, Jigawa and Adamawa states, many people in the South believed
that most Northerners supported the violence of the Boko Haram. It did
not matter that many Northern Muslims had been killed by the extremists.
Many Northern leaders were urged to vehemently condemn the activities
of the sect. But it was like a Catch-22: Condemn them and get killed;
keep quiet and be called a sympathiser or sponsor of the sect.
It was only when the army got an upper
hand in the fight against the sect that youths of the North came out in
their hundreds as “Civilian JTF” to fight against the sect. They
complained that Boko Haram had killed their relatives and destroyed
their communities. They mounted roadblocks and also passed information
to the army regarding members of the Boko Haram. A man was even said to
have invited the army to come for his Boko Haram son, and when the son
was killed, the man was said to have expressed happiness that such a
deviant son had been eliminated.
In retaliation, the Boko Haram members
have unleashed their wrath on these youths that had risen against them.
They have killed many of these youths whom they believed had made it
easier for the military to smoke them out and kill them, including their
leader, Shekau, whom the military announced must have died in a
confrontation with the army.
It became clear that it was fear of
being wiped out with one’s family that made many people in the North to
keep quiet about the Boko Haram until now.
Religion is a thing of faith and belief.
It comes with passion. It comes with submission. Most times you are not
meant to question anything. If you ask questions, it could attract dire
consequences, depending on your religion or religious leader.
In addition, most people are adherents
of a particular religion because they were born into it. The percentage
of people who move out of their parents’ religion is low. For example, a
Christian may change from the denomination of his parents to another
Christian denomination but the percentage of Christians who become
Muslims or Buddhists is small, and vice versa.
If one was born to Sokoto parents, one
would most likely be a Muslim. If one was born to Anambra parents, one
would most likely be a Christian. If one was born to Jewish parents in
Israel, one would most likely practise Judaism. Likewise, someone born
to Indian parents has a high chance of being a Hindu. Nobody chose his
or her parents, state or country.
Furthermore, every religion believes
that it is the best: the one ordered by the Almighty. Therefore, it is
futile for you to believe that you can force or cajole others to see the
light and leave their religions for yours. Once in a while, someone
would move to another religion, but it is impossible for all human
beings to convert to one religion.
But even though the minority Muslims who
have guns and bombs tend to overawe other Muslims, the peaceful
majority need to also fight back, not through guns and bombs, but
through a type of demarketing strategy. One key way of doing this is to
mount a persistent campaign of branding the violent and extremist
Muslims as enemies of Islam. The reason these people kill others and
themselves is because they believe they are carrying out a divine
assignment. If increasingly, they are portrayed as those working against
Allah, and those who will end up in hell, it will help to make their
activities less popular and attractive.
There is also a need to always identify
any preacher who directly or indirectly preaches hate, and report him to
the authorities. Such preachers are the ones that sow the seed of
hatred in people and make them think that they have a divine duty to
kill or destroy. No man is born a terrorist or a hate monger. People get
indoctrinated by others.
http://www.punchng.com/opinion/the-injustice-done-to-muslims/
Written by NEWSTRAWL ONLINE UPDATE
Sodiq Oyeleke is a Media, Human Resources, Project Management and Public Relations Practitioner
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