IN his reaction to the abduction of the over 200 Chibok girls in Borno State and the rise in sectarian conflicts across the world, President Barack Obama expressed shock and lamented that humanity has “not extinguished man’s darkest impulses”.
Obama’s comment may have emanated from a sense of utter frustration and disappointment that in spite of the advancement that has been recorded by man in his quest to conquer his environment and truly ‘have dominion’, some humans still remain captive of the bestial or ‘darkest impulses’ of the unregenerate man.
The U.S. President may have been making a veiled reference to the primary factor or tool that has been used by man in the conquest of his environment — education. Through education, man has recorded breakthroughs in areas that were at best left to the imagination in time past, and changed the world in a remarkably radical way. It, therefore, rankles to see a set of beings that refer to themselves as belonging to the human family exhibiting tendencies that are far removed from those associated with the civilized world.
Truth is, education in all its ramifications, including Western and so-called religious education, may be a tool of enlightenment and attainment of power and recognition in the modern world, it cannot ‘extinguish man’s darkest impulses’. Education empowers people for existential purposes but lacks the capacity to eliminate the ‘animal in man.’ Similarly, any set of moral instructions can only at best awake man’s consciousness of right and wrong but cannot hold back a mind set on following the wrong path.
The notion that the emergence of the terrorist group, Boko Haram, is rooted in the high rate of illiteracy and poverty among the population in the North is rather fallacious. Indeed, the modus operandi of this group, particularly its leadership and some of its foot soldiers reveals well co-ordinated actions proceeding from well ‘educated’ minds, albeit twisted. This is not to say that the region is not educationally disadvantaged and requires a radical intervention in this regard.
Boko Haram is a group driven by an ideology, a belief system fed by jaundiced notions of pietism. Although most who profess Islam as their religion have condemned in clear terms the activities of the terrorists, it would amount to playing the ostrich to deny the fact that this is at the core of the current violence being perpetrated by this murderous sect, bizarre as the ideology may appear to them.
A group that condemns Western education yet uses products of that educational system in its campaign of death and destruction is merely displaying the highest degree of insanity, resulting from years of ruthless mind-bending. It is a tragedy of immense proportion that a people opposed to this educational system, have thrust upon them as leaders, men and women who are not only beneficiaries of the same Western education they claim is ‘forbidden’, but are the leading lights of their own society.
Boko Haram is not pursuing any agenda based on reason or aspiration sensible to any rational mind; this is where some who have compared their militancy to that of the Niger Delta youths have missed the point entirely. The demands of the youths in the Niger Delta are considered rational given the years of despoliation of their resources by international oil companies and the attendant destruction of the environment, leaving the people with little or nothing to show for it. Therefore when the militants were finally invited for talks, they had something to bring to the table; and the outcome is evident to all.
One is not surprised, therefore, that Boko Haram has rejected calls for dialogue. The reason for their lack of interest in talks is because the ground for such discussions is non-existent in the first place. For them, the only basis of appeasement is the enforcement of their belief system, a position that attacks and offends every sense of civilized behaviour and the individual’s right to their religious belief. Such can only be an outgrowth of man’s ‘darkest impulses’, a worldview that should only meet with resistance by the civilized global community.
That said, beyond this fight, we must begin to pay attention to much of the mind-twisting that feeds these dark instincts and wakes up this bestial nature, which takes place in some of our schools and religious places. It is this brainwashing that has turned many of our school children into cultists; boys (and girls) who are no longer repulsed by the sight of human blood but rather derive fiendish pleasure from watching fellow humans bleed to death from their wounds.
A recent video, which appeared on YouTube, of a so-called church in South Africa where the members were told to eat grass because Christians are described in the Bible as sheep, is one such outcomes of manipulating the human mind to achieve self-centred and evil intents.
Boko Haram, just like those that manipulate the ignorant ones in other religious settings, must be called by what they are – evil; a people in the full grip of dark spiritual forces and used as tools in the mortal fight for human destiny. It is for this reason that many who identify with Islam — which the group claims to be fighting for — but who still retain some sense of decency, are quick to dissociate themselves from the activities of these marauding sadists.
This article was first published in The Guardian newspaper