{"id":122202,"date":"2014-05-07T09:00:34","date_gmt":"2014-05-07T13:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/?p=122202"},"modified":"2014-08-29T13:32:25","modified_gmt":"2014-08-29T17:32:25","slug":"boko-haram-leaders-profile-chilling-but-incomplete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2014\/05\/boko-haram-leaders-profile-chilling-but-incomplete\/","title":{"rendered":"Boko Haram leader’s profile: chilling but incomplete"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

<\/iframe><\/p>\n\u201cHis name is Abubakar Shekau. He is the leader of Boko Haram. And he has your girls.\u201d<\/p>\nSo begins a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/morning-mix\/wp\/2014\/05\/06\/the-man-behind-the-nigerian-girls-kidnappings-and-his-death-defying-mystique\/?wpisrc=nl_headlines%20\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">chilling profile<\/a> in the Washington Post<\/em> on the leader of Boko Haram, the Islamist gang that abducted more than 300 girls in mid-April. It\u2019s a great start, but it isn\u2019t sustained.<\/p>\nUnder Shekau, Boko Haram has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-africa-18496285\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">bombed churches<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2013\/11\/29\/nigeria-boko-haram-abducts-women-recruits-children\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">massacred people<\/a> by the hundreds \u2014 and it <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/world\/boko-haram-nigeria-schoolgirl-abductions-8-more-taken-1.2633178\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">abducted eight more girls<\/a> on Monday night. Victims include not only Christians but also Muslims who don\u2019t want his ruthless version of Sharia.<\/p>\nThe article fills in absorbing details on the man the writer calls \u201cboth an intellectualizing theologian and a ruthless killer.\u201d But like much other secular coverage, the profile doesn\u2019t quite get to the bottom of Shekau\u2019s reasons for his brutality \u2014 including the mutant breed of radical Islam his group pushes. This despite saying that \u201cone of the few unifying factors is extremist ideology.\u201d<\/p>\nNot that religious references are lacking, largely in Shekau\u2019s own words:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\u201cIt is Allah that instructed us,\u201d Shekau said in the video released Monday. \u201cUntil we soak the ground of Nigeria with Christian blood and so-called Muslims contradicting Islam. After we have killed, killed, killed, and get fatigue and wondering what to do with their corpses \u2014 smelling of [Barack] Obama, [George] Bush and [Goodluck] Jonathan \u2014 will open prison and be imprison the rest. Infidels have no value.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\nYet this horrendous paragraph is chased with a hand-wringing \u201cwhy\u201d question: \u201cWhere does such vengeance come from? What does he want? Who is he?\u201d As if some terrible injustice must have driven this poor man to terrorism and kidnapping. Incredibly, the story actually offers an excuse. More on that later.<\/p>\nWe get long but spotty background. The story says Shekau was \u201craised Muslim\u201d without saying which branch of Islam. (Yes, it matters.) It says he was raised \u201cin the heart of the former Sokoto caliphate,\u201d an unwitting clue on the aims of Boko Haram. As <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-africa-13809501\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">the BBC<\/a> says, the Sokoto caliphate once ruled parts of what is now northern Nigeria, Niger and southern Cameroon.<\/p>\nThe profile says he became a follower of a leader named Muhammad Yusuf, but it gives no details on Yusuf \u2014 although such details are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=muhammad+yusuf&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">readily available<\/a> online.<\/p>\nStill, that\u2019s further than many accounts go in the religiophobic mainstream media. An <a href=\"http:\/\/bigstory.ap.org\/article\/nigerian-girl-describes-kidnap-276-still-missing\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">AP story<\/a> the same day tells a gripping story of how some of the girls escaped their kidnappers. But beyond saying three times that the group is made of Islamic extremists, AP doesn\u2019t dwell on reasons for Boko Haram\u2019s violence.<\/p>\nTmatt <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2014\/05\/its-not-hard-wpost-offers-some-crucial-facts-on-boko-haram\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\">has discussed<\/a> this selective blindness often on GetReligion. He <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/getreligion\/2014\/05\/mystery-solved-has-nytimes-seen-light-on-boko-haram\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\">recently called out <\/a> the New York Times<\/em> for saying Boko Haram wants to \u201cdestabilize\u201d Nigeria without saying why it\u2019s trying to do so.<\/p>\n \nTerry praised a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/morning-mix\/wp\/2014\/04\/28\/the-group-that-kidnapped-234-nigerian-school-girls-and-its-murderous-campaign-against-education\/\/?print=1\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">previous Washington Post<\/em> article<\/a> for saying that Muhammad Yusuf \u201cintroduced a Taliban-inspired model of teaching that rejected Darwin, among other thinkers, in favor of so-called Koranic sciences.\u201d The writer of the May 6 Post <\/em>article should have looked it up.<\/p>\nInstead, Shekau is painted there as quiet and bookish, then turning \u201cincreasingly unmanageable\u201d during battles with the Nigerian army. Yusuf is captured and dies in jail, and Shekau takes over.<\/p>\nHe starts talking about how he enjoys killing on command from God. How did he grow such brutality? No clue. Except, just maybe, for the last paragraph:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\u201cWhy is he so violent? I think because Shekau was almost killed,\u201d Martin Ewi, a senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, told France 24. \u201cImagine coming back from the dead. He knows he doesn\u2019t have a second chance if he\u2019s caught by the security forces. \u2026 He was in the mouth of the crocodile, now he\u2019s coming back to kill the crocodile.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\nSay what?<\/em> Shekau massacres the innocent as revenge on the government? Defenseless girls represent \u201cthe crocodile\u201d? We don\u2019t know. The reporter apparently didn\u2019t ask.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cHis name is Abubakar Shekau. He is the leader of Boko Haram. And he has your girls.\u201d So begins a chilling profile in the Washington Post on the leader of Boko Haram, the Islamist gang that abducted more than 300 girls in mid-April. It\u2019s a great start, but it isn\u2019t sustained. Under Shekau, Boko Haram […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1568,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,7,106,1],"tags":[804,678,326,146,215],"class_list":["post-122202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-islam","category-journalism","category-religious-liberty","category-uncategorized","tag-bbc","tag-boko-haram","tag-new-york-times","tag-terrorism","tag-washington-post"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>Boko Haram leader's profile: chilling but incomplete<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\""His name is Abubakar Shekau. He is the leader of Boko Haram. And he has your girls." 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