Jihad in Africa

The danger in the desert


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Oy. I have to say I was pretty turned off by the attempt in this analysis to map out a fault line of conflict between Islam and Christianity in northern Africa. While religion does play a role, it's very odd to see Chad's wars mentioned strictly in these terms, with no mention of the military invasions by Qaddafi's Libya, or the military intervention of Sudan. It's also very strange to see "protests against the Christian-led government" in Ethiopia shoehorned into this point of view. The government, if I understand correctly, is not strictly a "Christian" one: if anything, the ruling party is still rather Marxist, albeit made up from the traditionally Christian Tigrayans. Protests in Ethiopia have more to do with opposition to the government than to the supposed religions of the rulers there.

The danger of such arm-chair geostrategic analysis is that it over-simplifies the conflicts endemic in this region, and supplies pat answers that ignore (among many other things) foreign military interventions, black markets in drugs and immigrants to Europe, terrible literacy and education levels, political repression and corruption, and massive environmental problems.

More people have been killed and displaced in the still-ongoing Darfur War in this region than in all the other recent conflicts combined, but since it is a conflict between Muslim populations, it has been totally airbrushed out of this piece. There are much bigger issues at play in Northern Africa.


..The Tuareg people in the north of the country have a long history of rebelling against their rulers in the south,..'

JIHAD. is the Ultimate Duty of ANY FREE (WO)MAN!
FREE People (Everywhere), have a "LONG History" of Rebelling against FALSE Rulers in the East, West, North & South!!
JIHAD, is ALSO a Life-Long Way of Life, that Exemplifies Defiance to EMPIRE!!!
JIHAD, has NO-Thing to Do with Religion!!!!

"...The Sahara looks in some ways more like a last resort than a springboard to worldwide mayhem....."

This SAHARA & SAHEL, is the LAST-LINE in the SAND!!!!!
Now that the LINE has been CROSSED, get ready for..................

Peaxe, Love & Respect


Islam jihadism is a cover label for a deeper rebellion provoked by frustrations. Poor Africans see now by media online the life that African rulers live, in comfortable mansions. Algerian Tuaregs and Kabyles know that rulers in Algiers sped lavishly to build summer houses in mountains where the fresh climate please them while poor inhabitanbts grill under the sun elsewhere. Children of African rulers are sent to Western universities to prepare high status careers on return home and perpetue the continuation of priviledged maffias . Etc. Begging Americans and Canadians alone to train poor African peoples to raise their standards of life is a vain wish. Europeans abandonned Africa since mid 20C with the excuse of “giving” independences. China and India may do the work; at least they are starting.(

Rocksaldt in reply to rivenx

This strikes me as more insightful than much of what we read in the mainstream media. The "real" roots of extremism are at once, more complicated than "good vs. evil", but much more simple than overdone analyses of Islam and the like.

Rocksaldt in reply to rivenx


Rocksaldt in reply to Rocksaldt

I tried to edit this comment to make it clearer but instead posted it 2x. The gist of it is, war + oppression = extremism. Why is this so difficult for people to understand? 50 yrs ago, this would have been a communist rebellion.

goat in the living room

Neoliberal extremists, who inhabit mostly Europe and the United States, after stimulating the financial spree that broke economies worldwide, after defending embargoes and wars against poor countries from false reasons, again associate Islam with terrorism, in a such simplistic and prejudiced usual way. However, now they are nervous as ever. Nobody believes more in their hypocrisy and they lose more and more influence over global decisions.


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