Terrorism & the new world Order…
EUGENE ABELS·MONDAY, 7 DECEMBER 201578 reads
I wrote down these thoughts August 2014 and it stills make sense..
A couple of weeks ago (in 2014) the $14 billion United States trained Iraq Military fled in the face of a vicious assault by an offshoot of Al Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria group (Isis) and the Terror group seized major parts of Iraq that have necessitated the quasi intervention of the United States through surgical airstrikes to enable the Kurdish army at least provide some safe corridors for endangered non -Muslim Iraqis. The same scenario of a well-oiled and efficient machinery of extremism is also being played out or is playing out in Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, Afghanistan, Mali and North Eastern Nigeria.
The Super Power United States is battle shy and looking inwards due to the economic realities of the times, and the Western Nations that constitute NATO with troubled economies are also foot dragging which is a reflection of current economic realities and the mood at home. They intend to avoid protracted wars laced in deep religious and ethnic divisions that will likely make them lose their positions in their local elections. Russia and China are only concerned about dealing with only local religious extremism and believe that they are isolated from this quagmire that has bedeviled the world, somehow I suspect that maybe their weapons coupled with that from North Korea furnish some of these frontlines.
The aristocratic Arab states are playing a balancing game and hope that if they keep a window open for communication and maybe provide proxy support to these extreme groups coupled with their efficient security system and cash, they can contain extremism beyond their boarders. This was the thinking until the Arab Spring was hijacked and Egypt happened and the activities of the Islamic Brotherhood shook the aristocratic Middle East to its core until Egyptians took back their country in a not too palatable fashion of a military coup. A redefined version of democracy has being instituted and is being legitimized the United States of America.
Once upon a time conflict on national scales were about the fighting for one’s God, acquisition of territory, Trade routes, Slaves, Ego, Race Superiority, Minerals, Colonialism, Superiority of ideologies in form of Capitalism, Jurchen, Socialism & Communism, Superiority of weapons like the Cold War but today a new world order have and is emerging in the form of extremism and it is thriving as legitimate governments have begun meeting with them and even exchanging prisoners. This religio-political movements are called extreme as all the places these people have ruled or held sway have been characterized by gross loss of rights and imposition of only a particular type of religion and way of life.
The form of extremism has become emboldened due to over liberalization of the west and is supported by over civilized acts of countries that in respect of human rights did not deem it right to make the pirates of Somalia axis to ‘walk the plank’ and allowing over $1 billion Ransom money to be contributed to the global economy of Terror. The United Nations and the world did not rise up in unison and attack this scourge of piracy as was done against slavery but most of these powers drew inwards, hoping the ‘cacophony’ will just disappear… pure dreams.
When Northern Mali was overrun by the Tuareg/Al Qaeda collaboration, the Federal Government of Nigeria denounced the action and walked their ‘talk’ with over 3,000 troops and equipment. When the unknown town of Chibok was placed on the global stage with the abduction of 200 plus girls, the world went silent and the officials of the western nations were promising support in the media without substance until the # tag to denigrate Nigeria was born and the western media went berserk fueled by ranting of the political class in Nigeria.
The protagonist on all these ‘fronts’ want an Islamic state where sharia hopefully will reign supreme and insistence that Sharia must be defined entirely in their coloration and they are insistent to enforce their version even when the rights of the other stakeholders are breeched. We must not ignore a reoccurring fact that these extremist exploit local divisions in nations that are steeped in ethnicity and religious divide and these divisions are also accentuated by non-inclusive governments, corruption and non-performance by the governments in most of these places and extreme poverty.
The world planted the seeds of today’s terror groups during the Cold war and theatres like Afghanistan were fuelled by the super powers in their proxy wars. Also the absence of an all-inclusive government and refusal by the west to recognize long standing mutual & sectarian divisive issues in nations have replicated itself as conflicts in Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Mali and even Nigeria. Today these divides are deepened along sectarian lines and all parties are seeking for violent support in the form of Al Qaeda, ISIS and other robust dispenser of violence or pure terror.
In Nigeria a similar scenario is playing out as the deep ethno-religious divide that led to a coup, counter coup, civil war, annual religious riots, militancy, tribal wars and now insurgency (directed at destabilizing a government ran by a minority for the first time in the 54 year history of the nation). While the world only concerns itself with the Chibok girls, there has been an unofficial civil war and gruesome bloodletting that have been going on for the past five years in the middle belt of Nigeria colored as ‘herdsmen versus tribesmen’ or ‘natives versus settlers’.
The ‘Black Hawk Down’ incident and other associated reasons made the United States to pull out of Somalia and the latter hurriedly failed as a state and today have become a staging point and an axis for dispensation of terror, again the rush by the United States to withdraw from a self-inflicted war in Iraq have seen them ignore fundamental nationalistic questions as it concerns the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shiites. These issues went underground and have only recently resurfaced backed by ISIS firepower and a similar scenario is playing out in Syria and the West is yet to have clear strategic policy on the cacophony of violence ravaging the Middle East.
Extremism using Islam as an excuse is on the rise and gaining recognition from the shores of the West bank to the Taliban negotiating tables in Abu Dhabi. We are aware of their tough organizational capability that is driven by faith and belief that God is been pleased by the shedding of innocent blood. The objective is to seize political power and use the machinery of state to implement a sharia system of government where rights of men, women and children are denied.
There must be people, groups and nations arming these Terror groups outside their traditional sources of funding like Bank robberies, illicit drugs, Kidnapping and of recent stolen or illegal bunkering of crude oil for oiling and sustaining these multinational battles all over the world. These financial supporters believe they are ‘helping’ a divine cause and that success will bring piety, equity, justice and divine blessings but recent examples where these terror groups have held sway only done the opposite. And in some instance their actions are so gruesome that a principal actor like Al Qaeda have distanced itself from some of these acts like happened in Iraq, Syria and in North Eastern Nigeria.
In Nigeria people are romancing with extremism and assuming it is a North versus South or PDP versus APC thing or that it is a campaign matter and that after President Goodluck Jonathan is hopefully booted out of office, the extremist will go to bed and allow them to take over power and things will return to status quo ante. I guess the attempt on the life of the Late Ado Bayero the Emir of Kano, the murder of the late Emir of Gwazo and the fallout of a Cult group in Nasarawa state with the state government that led to the death of 60 policemen while in nearby Mali the Tuaregs/Al Qaeda collaboration successfully ran out the government and Al-Qaeda turned on the people and brought their rule to bear with amputations, forced marriages, abuse of women and other examples are not very palatable for likely converts. Hopefully these few examples will bring some awakening to those romancing, sponsoring, paying protection fee to the extremist.
I have always wondered why the world paid millions of dollars as ransom to Pirates in Somalia and why it took them several years to contend with piracy. I believe those funds are hunting the world today coupled with the illicit consumption of narcotics in the West which funds all sorts of crimes in the globe. I wonder why did the United States agreed to release five top tier operatives of the Taliban who will definitely be reintegrated into the battle field? I wonder why the West is refusing to be emphatic about stopping the scourge of ‘Boat people’ as it is my belief that amongst the genuine refugees will be combatants from the various fronts in the Middle East and these people will become sleeper cells, indoctrinators and the vanguard for insurgency in Europe in the not too distant future.
The question that stares us all in the face is, Can Islamic extremism conquer the world and convert us all to Islam by force? The truth is that extreme Islam have come to stay and is gaining political recognition via the various negotiations that are going on between various parties like the one between the Taliban and the United States and the acquisition of territory as depicted in Gaza, Syria and Iraq. But sooner or later groups like Hamas will insist on being recognized voluntarily or force political recognition through a massive campaign of violence.
These new sectarian groups will control state power from Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia and Yemen and utilize the resources of state to propagate their beliefs and expand their territories to convert the world to Islam and eventually descend on the moderate Gulf States like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Jordan, Israel, Chechnya and Northern China. The question is are moderate Muslims and other faiths ready to afford this rule by an extreme belief and its diverse implications? And if they chose to resist this scourge, then all sides will have to resort to extreme bloodletting to hold on to their territory and eradicate this scourge and this unfortunately includes Nigeria.
The duo of China and Russia must be given due respect by the West and they must be reined in to buy into this program to stop the scourge of extreme Islam. Historical prejudices must be jettisoned for the safety of all by embargo arms sales, provision of logistics, supply of intelligence and funding greater good of all. I doubt if China and Russia that prides themselves as rich will survive if the United States economy crashes because of their financial exposure on the United States dollar.
The West particularly the United States must up the ante against illicit drug consumption within its shores as this is fuelling wars in Mexico, Columbia, Afghanistan and other places. The amount of resources expended in terms of American lives and billions of United States dollars to contain ‘drug trafficking’ is sufficient to turn the battle to ‘drug consumption’. It will be welcome if consumption of illicit drugs is made a capital offence in the United States and the rest of the world.
The United States must also deal with the issue of arms control within its borders that is seeping to other parts of the world, the death duels in Mexico are gradually seeping into the street of America that already has a deep gang culture. In the underworld ruled by crime, a common denominator ‘cash’ unites all irrespective of the product on the table, be it weapons, murder, terror, kidnapping, drugs.
The nation of Israel & Hamas must begin to learn to do things differently by enabling the moderates amongst them to become politically strong to change the current outdated style of ‘provocation &retaliation”. The emerging youths on both sides will not support this old way with time and will not understand the sentiments of the holocaust just as today young South Africans are disconnected with the ‘apartheid’ history of their nation.
The new world order has made it obvious that the western nations cannot afford to solely fund security as shown by the rush by them to extricate themselves from various theatres of conflict The world particularly the developing nations will have to fund the security operations of the United States and NATO no matter how unpalatable it might sound. I believe the way forward in the new world order is a concerted effort to battle this scourge with all of the world’s resources and ferocity. It is time to rejig the United Nations and give it some bite as the days of being a platform for jaw-jaw as the indices of the world have drastically changed in form and character.
The new world order tells us that the United Nations will become financially handicapped as the global recession, gross financial mismanagement of states will make it near impossible for nation to meet their financial obligations to the world body. The United States also with its current economic realities will no longer want to carry the financial burden of the body and thus it will call for a review of privileges and voting power as financial right standing will or should eventually influence the appointment of permanent members and membership of the Security Council. This change will also affect the way global issues are viewed, debated and voted for in the United Nations as in the analysis of world issues, the attendant cost in human lives and financial resources must be counted where habitual nay Sayers will be made to bear some cost or be reminded of what their decisions have cost the world.
The future lies with the World’s will to exterminate extremism or learn to live with them bearing in mind that their legitimization will eventually turn against Israel. Whatever happens after Iraq, the world will never be the same again as a new order is emerging. If the West ducks the responsibility to frontally confront extreme Islam, the world might go cap in hand and beg Israel to lead the charge against global terrorism also for its long term survival.
The new world order as it affects Nigeria has commenced as the ethnic and religious divides are becoming enhanced due to the absence of an ideology. The various interest groups have come to the realization that no group have a monopoly of violence and their insistent on their rights as ethno-nationalists are the only guaranteed means of getting their entitlement from Nigeria .
The generalization of regions as north, east and south have been consigned to the rubbish heaps as supposedly minority groups are insistent on self-determination and entitlement to the highest offices in the land. These insistence is revealed in the veiled conflicts in the middle belt and the southern Christian parts of the north. The era of one north is over and the hegemony of the Fulani over the rest of the country is over. The option for them is either to explore a worn out practice of a military take but the outcome cannot be clearly determined due to the general mistrust amongst the ethnic groups. Also the absence of the traditional support of the middle belt in such activities have made a military takeover unattractive for the middle belt people who are so close to having power themselves, I doubt if the old fashion of followership in the venture of military takeover will be preferred to clear democratically political power obtained through brinkmanship, zoning and the ballot.
The way forward is for the core north to begin to look inward and address the fallouts of mis-governance of the years that have seen them abandon developmental policies in the north despite controlling state power for over 40 years. The future is for the core north to deepen its handshake across the Niger as General Mohamadu Buhari (Rtd) is trying to do with a crop of young northern elites in the opposition. But all these indices will change dramatically, maybe violently if hydro carbon is eventually found in commercial quantities in the Benue trough, Sokoto or the Chad basin after all oil is being found in unusual places like Cuba, Brazil, Vietnam, Uganda and Kenya.
For the Easterners, they control retail and commerce but all their businesses are stuck in key commercial centers of Lagos, Port Harcourt and of recent Abuja while their core commercial cities of Onitsha and Aba are a shadow of themselves and impossible for a decent middle class Nigerian to prefer to live in them. The environmental challenges of lack of portable water and erosion coupled with massive corruption, lack of infrastructure and the absence any form of regulation except for revenue purposes is playing out negatively with the perennial increase in crimes of kidnapping, robberies and high rate of school drop outs from these communities.
The West who rule the corporate and bureaucratic Nigeria will need to reform their political pattern that is deeply steeped in ethnicity as the current reality has shown that this has given way to the hijacking of the resources of the region by individuals who profess to be democrats. The recent elections in Ekiti is a case in point that people are tired with the status quo and desire real change beyond mouthing democratic rhetoric.
The Niger Deltans’ need to come to the realization that having occupied the number position for a period that they have lost the ‘victim’ status they enjoyed globally. It is time to plug the gross mismanagement of billions of dollars that pour into the region either through the states or intervention agencies. The time have come for the people to join the political process and kick out those who since 1998 have being handling their affairs. It is time to begin to revert the concept of development to its original meaning beyond ‘building things only’ and throwing away the aspects of governance that concerns prudent management and administration of state resources. It is time to begin to review and plan for the work force of the future and deliver them from the current ‘compensation syndrome’ or ‘rent mentality’ that is rife in the region. It is time for them to learn to begin to resolve political problems locally without expending the resources of the region in Lagos or Abuja in search of support from a godfather. It is time to begin to deal with the scourge of cultism and gangs that taint the fabric of the region’s communities and begin to promote equity, fairness, handwork. It is time to realize that one day ‘oil might no longer be needed’ due to alternative energy sources or a glut caused by the activities of buyer nations to grow domestic production capacity and peg their energy bills.
Finally the Nigerian political class must begin to reform its modus operandi and ventilate the political space or find themselves hounded out, this move will enable them to invite non politicians to participate actively in the political process and increase their longevity. The practice of hereditary of political machinery is fast waning out as we deliberately endeavor to improve our political process,