The Nigerian government believes that Boko Hiram will keep their end of the recent cease fire agreement, but many people are skeptical.
This terror group is responsible for murdering more than 5,000 Nigerians at schools, churches, mosques, highways, bus stations, police stations, and at military checkpoints over the past 5 years all because they saw these people as pro-government.
Boko Hiram’s supposed mission is to return Nigeria back to a pre-colonial Muslim state, but by killing and kidnapping people, they have only proven that it is not in the name of Allah that they serve, but only in their own twisted and sadistic self-interest.
It is to gain recognition and possibly riches (from fundraising and looting). But definitely not to bring the overarching message of love, peace, forgiveness, charity, acceptance, and equality mentioned in the Koran. The same Koran that honorably references Jesus Christ numerous times throughout. I state this fact for Christians who don’t know this and continue to spread misinformation about Islam and Muslims.
To take this a step farther, beyond the extremism and violence, I make the statement that this terror group (and others like them) couldn’t genuinely be doing this in the name of Allah is because they freely killed people at mosques, while these people were praying to Allah. They weren’t praying to Satan. They weren’t praying to some pagan image or an animal. They were praying to Allah.
These innocent people died for what exactly?
They were murdered for being pro-government. What does that have to do with religion? Any religion?
So even in one’s ability to admonish this terror group, and others like them, by declaring that they go against the Koran. The most effective point of proving that this group is less concerned about honoring Allah, and more concerned with attacking governments and people (and taking pleasure and credit for it), is the fact that they have killed numerous Muslims–worshippers of Allah– the same Allah that Boko Hiram dishonorably mention as they spew hate and kill at their house of worship.
How could you bring violence to a known place of peace and love? How could Allah ever condone that behavior? If you have ever been inside of a mosque you could never visualize violence taking place there. But it’s happened countless times all around the world.
Boko Hiram aren’t religious extremists. They are socio-political extremists and opportunists masquerading as religious purists, just to have a niche footing in the battle.
You can stir up more fear when you leverage religion.
I bet if you sat them down and had an honest and open dialogue about what they are for, and not just what they think they are against, everyone at the table would be shocked, including them. It’s amazing how a principle initially fought for can be brutally mutilated into something totally different over time. Sometimes a noble argument can morph into a dangerous battle.
How does what you want now the same, similar, or different than what you wanted several years ago when your gang was just a member of one to three people?
Boko Hiram means “Western education is sinful” yet where are their schools or funding proposals for schools that peacefully teach their view on how children should grow and participate not only within their villages, towns, cities, and countries, but in other countries around the world?
Where are their schools where they are teaching love, acceptance, charity, respect for self and others, inclusion, equality, dignity, honor, and healthy pride?
They don’t have any because they are too busy spewing hate, killing people, and kidnapping innocent girls and holding them hostage for six months. They are too busy recruiting and brainwashing vulnerable people to be soldiers in a fight that they are clueless about.
If you want a greater Muslim influence and to see more mosques and schools teaching and practicing the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, then build them. Go home to home, town to town, lovingly teaching the words eloquently written in the Koran.
Maybe western education is sinful. But you don’t kill the sinner, you pray for them and you work to help them help themselves. This is the sin of many religions around the world. We don’t practice what we preach in houses of worship.
Ironically, the military weapons Boko Hiram, ISIL, and other terror groups use are designed from original western thought and first used by western military pioneers. Mass murder is entertainment in our movies and tv shows. We sing about it in songs. We’re fascinated by gangsters and drug lords. But terror groups can’t chastise the western world for creating the monster, and then use the monster for their own twisted benefit. By using western guns to kill people, they are just as guilty as the people they want to persecute.
You can’t be outraged by what someone is doing to you (or you think they are doing) and then you turn around and do the same thing—and 99% of the time not even against the actual people you hold responsible, but the thousands and millions of innocent people who have done absolutely nothing but live their lives.
This behavior is hypocritical. It’s cowardly and anything but honorable.
Western culture is now easily depicted and stereotyped by reality tv shows where women are seen as plastic surgery addicts, human Barbie dolls, whores and gold diggers, and both men and women are shown as self-centered, self-absorbed, obsessed with sex, addicted to drugs and alcohol, money hungry and greedy.
Maybe this is all sinful. But where in any religious text do you read that you have the right to kill these sinners? In all religious texts that I have read, God (by whatever name) has made it clear that it will be His responsibility to deal with the sinners.
So killing in His name is actually an even bigger sin!
Instead of killing why don’t you just teach children and young adults a better, more dignified way of living, that would honor God?
Boko Hiram, ISIL/ISIS, and other terror groups want to be heard, recognized, acknowledged, respected, and desire change. But no one hears, respects, or wants to work with anyone pointing a gun at them, shooting at them, stabbing and disfiguring them, kidnapping them, raping and torturing them, or killing their loved ones.
Without stopping the violence the only thing that will happen is the ultimate death of each member in the terror group.
What did that resolve? What was the learned lesson? What was gained? How did you get more people to read, study, and appreciate the Koran? How did you get more people to embrace and accept Islam? How did you get more people to convert? How did you get more people to be loving, charitable, and forgiving?
It’s not possible with hate in your heart, message, and mission.
This isn’t about God or religion. This is about some pissed off people who took their desire for positive change and allowed it to be contaminated, poisoned, and destroyed. When it’s all over, each member of these hate groups will have to answer to a Higher Power, their Creator, and at that moment it won’t matter what they think someone did to them, the Creator is going to focus on what this terrorist did to innocent men, women, and children— in His name.
Copyright 2014. Natasha Foreman Bryant. The Paradigm Life. All Rights Reserved.
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