The problem isn’t an excess of his religion, but the relative helplessness of good and decent men like him, and communities he represents, to restrain what is obviously, as he points out, organised violence. The evil that Genesis warns us lies crouching at the door will out — Europe has its own stories of Bosnian mineshafts full of bodies. However the agony of Africa over the past forty years (Darfur, Burundi, DRC, etc.) and the comparative incomprehension of us all, goes marching on. How long?
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3 comments:
This area has suffered violence with both Christians and Muslims instigating it. An earlier story in The Atlantic shows Abp Akinola deep in the incitement to violence unlike those clerics who have tried to be mediators. Episcopal Café commented here in 2008
Thanks Ann for the Nigeria link. I remember Abp Akinola (who doesn't figure in the Atlantic artcle) saying a rather sinister thing a few years ago about Muslims not having a monopoly of violence. The Jos bishop seems more authentic and genuinely puzzled about what is going on. Certainly I'd agree with most of the interviewees in the tlantic article that the root of the probem is corruption, bad governance and tribalism. I suppose the British not allowing missionaries in gave the Muslims a head start, but nw it's 50 years since the British left (longer in fact than they were there!) blaming everything on the British is probably part of the problem not the solution. Until they develop a viable civil society it looks as though there'll be violence aplemty, often lined up along religious fault lines... However note the Abp of Jos's engagement with local Muslims. It plainly isn't all Muslims or all Christians. So who is organizing the violence?
Thanks for the reminder of the content of the Atlantic article. Seems that there are those who use tribalism and religion for political ends - hmm sounds just like the US
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