Boko Haram: Christmas hit in Nigeria
Most of us feel sorry for those who have to work over Christmas, so spare a thought this morning for all those dedicated Sons of Allah who set off bombs across Nigeria on Christmas day – three targeting churches – including one that killed at least 27 people. Claiming responsibility with a certain pop-eyed glee was the Boko Haram Islamist sect. It aims to impose Sharia law across the country, which it hopes will put a stop to such outrages and return the country to correct Muslim order. Boka Haram did the same thing last year, so it is obviously trying hard to become part of the African Nativity tradition. The organisation has come a long way in show business since that wonderful hit from 1967, A Lighter shard of Nail.
Meanwhile, on Boxing Day in Iraq the Islamic unity that is such a magnetic part of its attraction to followers showed itself to be in fine fettle as seven people were killed by a suicide car bomber outside the interior ministry. A crisis has erupted between the Shi’ite-led government and Sunni leaders after Shi’ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki sought the arrest of the Sunni vice president last Monday, and asked parliament to fire his own Sunni deputy.
As this was beginning to look like a trend to the Sunnis, they resorted to the Islamic method of choice when trying to settle a disagreement. It’s just eight days since the Americans left, by the way, so we’re already beginning to grasp with some finality just how important it was for Tony Blair to pervert the UK constitution in order to invade the country all those long years ago. Time for peace envoy Moral Tone to go back in there and sort it all out. (Older readers will also remember Sunni & Shi’ite for their 1965 Number One, I hate you Babe).
Syria is divided on a slightly different basis: between the Government led by President Bashar al-Assad, and everyone else. Everyone else wants there to be an Arab Spring soon, as things are obviously running late, but Basher is less keen on the idea. The people of Egypt also want the Spring they thought they’d got, but the military is being careful to ensure that it should be springtime for them too. Particularly upset about it being springtime for anyone but them in most of the new improved Arab countries are the Muslim Brotherhood, so I would imagine that, as they seem to be in the majority pretty well everywhere, this time next year there will be lots of rounding ups and arrests of all those Christians and ordinary Muslims who couldn’t give a shoe-bombers toes either way.
It’s a man’s life being an Arab, but at the end of the day what all these warring factions need to do is remember what they have in common: a desire to wipe Israel from the map, and thus end once and for all the Zionist conspiracy to make life miserable for Arabs and peace flotillas everywhere. As the vast majority of Left-leaning Parties in Europe want as near as damn it the same result, in the long run the triumph of Islam is assured. Using the good offices of Recep Erdogan, various Useful Idiots in Brussels, the New York Times, and correct British multiculturalism, pretty much everything from Bradford to Brazzeville will be under Sharia Law by 2030.
It is an exciting prospect for progressives everywhere, especially those feminists with little use for the genital regions, beyond a hankering to be baby machines dressed in black. I look forward to the eternal harmony all this will surely bring.
The Slog 