What is genocide? The Necro-Calculus of Black Life (2)
Abnormal psychology exists, among other reasons, because we cannot assume rationality, nor can we establish clear cause-and-effect relationships among certain individuals and groups. The criteria of scale and intent, along with other nonsensical standards for determining genocide, are ineffective when evaluating contemporary terror groups.
Most available data from individuals, groups, and think tanks affirm what is happening to northern Nigerian Christians. Over two decades ago, when everything my parents worked for was burnt to ashes by religious fundamentalist groups, we fled to North Central. For many Christian minorities, when their ancestral home becomes unsafe, where should people flee to?
Again, I asked, what is genocide? You are waiting for it to reach you before you start singing a different tune. Someone says genocide is defined by scale and intent. How do you define intent for a group that is irrational and bent on annihilation of those they consider unworthy of life? If death were to eradicate four generations of your family, would you agree with someone who suggests we should wait to understand death's intent and certain other parameters while it is destroying your descendants and heritage before we name it? People are having mass burials and mass graves every market day, and people are on social media minimizing their pain.
As I mentioned in my previous post, while we may have reservations about certain groups and individuals warning us of a fire in our backyard—especially those with problematic views toward people who resemble me across the ocean—it should not diminish the seriousness of the situation in northern Nigeria.
People who claimed that nobody died at the Lekki Toll Gates, despite widespread knowledge of the event, will never provide you truthful information regarding the situation with northern Nigeria's Christian communities.
That said, the worry that certain Christian groups and denominations can weaponize these events to promote Islamophobia is real, but it should not cancel out reality on the ground. It is possible for two things to hold true simultaneously. It is reported that the senate president wants to send a lobbyist group to America. How many of them have visited the carnage in our backyard?
In a class I taught on international terrorism nearly five years ago, one discussion we had was whether the reintegration of terrorists into society was the right strategy, given that we are still undetermined whether terrorism was a "crime of evil or crime of illness."
Given the current state of Nigeria, individuals who cause irreparable harm to others may soon receive clemency. To be clear, I am not against redemption, but the perversion of it under the cloak of giving a second chance to people who never showed their victim mercy is anathema.
Are we okay in this country?
Where are the bishops in cassocks the other time?
Some Daddy GOs recognize their vulnerability in this current administration, and I can relate even if I cannot justify their seeming silence on the experience of minority Christians in the north.
Which way, Nigeria?
