Nowadays, something is happening before our
eyes that is difficult to understand. But we must understand it if we still
want to work for our political vision.
In Nigeria, a big gang
of Islamic fundamentalists, namely Boko Haram, is fighting for a “state of God”,
killing civilians of other faiths, destroying educational institutions and abducting
girls. And the secular state Nigeria – the most populous country and economic
power number one in Africa –is powerless against it. Something similar is happening
in Iraq. A relatively small militia of Islamist jihadists called ISIS (Islamic
State of Iraq and Syria) – according to estimates of Western experts, (along
with allied militant Sunni groups) about ten thousand strong – invaded
northwestern Iraq, and the soldiers of the Iraqi army – in all about two
hundred thousand strong – who were stationed there took flight in a panic,
totally without a fight. They even threw away their uniforms and helmets, and
ran (probably) straight back home. The fact that the units in question were
taken by surprise cannot be the only explanation for the flight. For even on
the following days, the army could not stop the advance of the ISIS-fighters.
This total powerlessness of
the armies of the concerned States is remarkable. In terms of military
equipment too, there is no superiority of the “warriors of God”. The only thing
that comes to mind to explain the different fighting strength of the soldiers
of the two sides, comes from the area of psychology, morale, and character. The
ones, “God’s warriors”, are highly motivated fighters for a cause they have
dedicated their lives to. They know no fear, are always ready to die for their
cause – if necessary, even as suicide bombers. The others are just ordinary
people who have found a job in the army. They gladly take the pay, but they do
not want to risk their lives.
We
have observed this contrast also in Afghanistan and Somalia. The Taliban and
Al-Shabab had easily vanquished the diverse politicians, clan chiefs and
warlords with their soldiers and put them to flight. It required a veritable
invasion of the Americans and the armies of the neighboring states supported by
the Americans to drive out the Taliban and Al-Shabab respectively from the
cities. But the latter are not beaten at all. They continue to fight, now as
guerrillas. Al-Shabab fighters even perpetrate attacks deep in enemy territory,
namely in Kenya.
Undoubtedly, this tenacity and this fighting
power come mainly from the fact that these warriors – at least their leaders –
pursue, in their view, the highest conceivable goal: They strive for nothing
less than the establishment of a "state of God". All those who stand
in the way in their pursuit of this goal are to be destroyed. As against that,
what is demanded of the soldiers of the state armies is only that they fight
against those whom the ruler(s) of the day consider as enemies.
Maliki
cannot make his soldiers believe that he as the national leader is pursuing
some higher goal. Moreover, the Iraqi Shiites did not come to power through something
approximately like an armed uprising of their own in the sense of a liberation struggle,
but only through accepting the American invasion, letting the Yankees put an
end to the Saddam regime, and, lastly, simply by being a large majority of the
population. (The Kurds, of course, collaborated with the Americans, but, before
2003, they had fought for many years for their own Kurdish nation state.). So
it is no wonder that now the ayatollahs and imams appear on the scene and call upon
Shia young men to volunteer go to war for defending their sacred pilgrimage
sites.
In
the two previous years, we have also seen in Syria that neither the
professional state army of Syria was in a position to crush the armed uprising,
nor could the secular soldiers and officers of the Free Syrian Army overthrow
Assad from power. That is why finally, on the one hand, the Shiite warriors of
Hezbollah had to rush to the aid of the Assad regime, and, on the other hand,
the Sunni “holy warriors” of Al Nusra Front and ISIS had to engage themselves
in the struggle against the Assad regime. Both sides were able to achieve
successes. Hezbollah fighters were able to save the Assad regime, and the Al
Nusra and ISIS fighters could liberate large parts of northern Iraq.
We
now know enough about the corrupt ruling elite of Nigeria. It is also known
that the soldiers lack motivation. In 2014, one can read the following about
the state of the Nigerian Army:
"The opposition in
Nigeria accuses … the government and the military of total failure. The army is
in a rotten state. The morale of the soldiers is bad, inter alia, because they
often have to wait for weeks for their pay. The equipment of the military is
neglected and internal communication chaotic. Discipline of the troops is weak.
Venal officers collaborate with Boko Haram. In May 2014, nine generals were
under criminal investigation on charges of arms sales to Boko Haram. After an
attack on May 13, 2014 on a raiding party of the 7th Infantry Division, during
the subsequent visit of the commanding general to the troops, his car was shot
at by his own soldiers. The soldiers suspect their own commander of
collaborating with Boko Haram. "(Wikipedia - German)
And one can read the following opinions on the
condition of the Iraqi Army:
„Recent assessments by Western officials and military
experts indicate that about a quarter of Iraq’s military forces are ‘combat
ineffective’, its air force is minuscule, morale among troops is low and its
leadership suffers from widespread corruption. ... 60 out of 243 Iraqi Army combat battalions ‘cannot be accounted for, and
all of their equipment is lost’. ... Five of the Iraqi Army’s 14 divisions were
‘combat ineffective’, including the two that were overrun in Mosul. … Iraq's
army is [essentially only a] ‘checkpoint’ army, but …. they do not have the
equipment nor willingness to do even that in the precise and effective way US
troops did while there. …. Iraqi soldiers discounted their future. They were
interested in a paycheck. But the Iraqi civilians were scared to death, … .” (Rubin
& Gordon 2014)
About the ISIS fighters one reads the
following:
“A commander of the Iraqi army said: ‘ISIS are in small numbers, but
they are well trained, … ISIS fighters have a will to die so they don’t show
fear.’ … Western officials describe ISIS as a far tougher enemy than the one
the American military faced when it was battling Al Qaeda in Iraq … . They also
appear dedicated to their cause of vanquishing the forces of the modern world
and returning the territory they take to an earlier form of Islam. … So far the
fighters seem impervious to combat losses, quickly replenishing their ranks
with fighters from Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Chechnya and Europe, who
appear to be drawn by the successes in Iraq.” (ibid)
Two unknown (probably American) readers of the article I have just
quoted from commented as follows:
“I find this amazing given the fact they were trained
by the military of the United States. Why and how did the US allow this happen?
The Iraqis were trained by the best, then they should also be the best. I don't
get it?” And
“What type of training did they
do that caused the Iraqi army to run away faster than a TV cartoon character at
the first sign of fighting?”(ibid.)?
To this I would like to say that these two
commentators have not understood that commitment and morale cannot be injected through
training nor through a pay.
Deeper causes of the rise of Boko Haram and ISIS
But if it has come so far that the ruling elite
of Nigeria cannot even pay the soldiers regularly even though the country is
Africa's economic power number one, then it's no wonder that this army cannot
defeat the fighters of Boko Haram, who are fighting for a cause out of
political-religious conviction.
It
must, however, also be said here that corruption among the ruling elite is not
the only cause of soldiers not getting paid regularly, which is, no doubt, the
most important factor in their declining morale. There are also some deeper,
namely material-economic, causes. In an English newspaper article (Ahmed 2014),
one reads:
„But while
corruption and ageing infrastructure play an important role, the end of cheap oil
is the real elephant in the room. One study by two Nigerian scholars concluded
in 2011 that ‘there is an imminent decline in Nigeria's oil reserve since
peaking could have occurred or just about to occur.’… ‘According to one senior
Shell official, in March this year, crude oil production decline rates are ‘as
high as 15 to 20 per cent.’
The author also refers to ‘Nigeria's
intensifying energy crisis.’ He writes: ‘In recent months, the country has
faced a fuel crisis partly due to the government slashing previously high fuel
subsidies, contributing to increasing public anger and civil
unrest.’ (ibid).
This is a pure economic crisis. If we add
to this the rapid population growth – 159 Million people in 2010 with an annual
growth rate of 3% (Wikipedia–English) – then we understand how bad the economic
situation in Nigeria is.
That is not all. The author of the above
quotes also writes:
“Instability
in Nigeria, however, has been growing steadily over the last decade, and one
reason is climate change. In 2009, a UK Department for International
Development (Dfid) study warned that climate change could contribute to
increasing resource shortages in the country due to land scarcity from
desertification, water shortages, and mounting crop failures.
A more recent study by the … US Institute
for Peace confirmed a ‘basic causal mechanism’ that ‘links climate change with
violence in Nigeria.’ The report concludes: ‘...poor responses to climatic
shifts create shortages of resources such as land and water. Shortages are
followed by negative secondary impacts, such as more sickness, hunger, and
joblessness. Poor responses to these, in turn, open the door to conflict.’
According to the late Prof Sabo Bako of
Ahmadu Bello University, the 1980s ‘forerunner’ to Boko Haram was the
Maitatsine sect in northern Nigeria, whose members included many victims of
ecological disasters leaving them in ‘a chaotic state of absolute poverty and
social dislocation in search of food, water, shelter, jobs, and means of
livelihood.’
A year after the USIP study, Africa Review
reported that many Boko Haram foot soldiers happen to be people displaced by
severe drought and food shortages in neighboring Niger and Chad. Some 200,000
farmers and herdsmen had lost their livelihoods and, facing starvation, crossed
the border to Nigeria. (ibid)
As for the rise of ISIL and other militant
Sunni groups that are now so successfully fighting in Iraq, its cause may not
only be the general rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the whole Islamic world.
It also has something to do with the economic situation in Iraq. Oil extraction
in the OPEC’s second largest producer country has largely recovered from the
setbacks suffered in the previous decade. But apart from crude oil export and
some oil related industries, that are the mainstay of the country’s economy, there
are not enough other employment opportunities to absorb the growing number of
young people seeking gainful employment. Iraq’s population – 31.234 Million in
2009 – is growing at the annual rate of 2.29 percent (2013 figure). 25 percent
of the country’s work force are unemployed, and 25 percent live below the
poverty line (cf. Wikipedia–English). Maliki’s Shia-dominated government has
also not done enough to assuage the feelings of the Sunni youth that they are
being discriminated against in economy and politics. This is also a reason that many Sunnis who are not fundamentalists
support the Sunni “holy warriors” led by the fundamentalist ISIS.
Outlook
I remember TV reports from the Congo, when the
country was still called Zaire and its ruler Mobutu. The soldiers often did not
get any pay from the kleptocratic rulers of the minerals-rich country. They
therefore now and then mutinied and looted the shops and residents of the
capital, so as to collect their pay in an alternative way. We know that in the
following years Zaire sank in chaos. The eastern part of the country soon
became the hunting ground of resource robbers. Currently, chaos also prevails in
Iraq, although it is a somewhat different kind of chaos. It is likely that the country
will fall apart. And then on its territory will originate three new states that
will be fiercely fighting for the rich oil resources of the region. The oil
fields of Kirkuk are already objects of serious dispute.
It is possible that at some point Nigeria too
will be overtaken by the same fate. Just as the Iraqi people are divided into
religious and ethnic groups, so also the Nigerian (Muslims, Christians, Ogonis,
Adonis etc.). In Iraq, the Kurds have already achieved a high degree of
autonomy; they now want to create a real state of their own. In Nigeria, the
Ogonis are demanding political and economic autonomy as well as environmental
protection, all connected with oil extraction in their region. So there are
religious conflicts in Nigeria – Muslims (Boko Haram) against Christians – but
also ethnic ones. In1993, a violent conflict flared up between the Ogonis and the
Adonis, as a result of which about 1000 Ogonis were killed and 30,000 were forced
to flee.
I am afraid wherever
such a constellation exists – different religious and/or ethnic and/or
linguistic groups living in one country – there, potential for more or less
serious conflict also exists. It may be a poor country or a (potentially) rich
one, it may be an overpopulated country or not, the potential is there. Three
examples occur to me immediately: Sudan and then South Sudan (different religious
and ethnic groups, poor but oil-rich), Belgium (two major linguistic groups,
rich, and same religion with insignificant denominational difference), and the
Ukraine (two linguistic groups, relatively poor, two denominations of
Christianity, different histories).
Of course, in Nigeria as
well as in Iraq, conflict over power and wealth distribution has been playing a
major role. But the long-term, that is, the real goal of ISIS, Boko Haram and
other fundamentalist-Islamist groups is to establish a "a state of God” on
the basis of the Sharia and their particular interpretation of Islam. Will they
be successful? In the medium term, they could win, at least in the Muslim
majority countries. Because they are devotedly fighting for an ideal, but not
their opponents. Theo van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker, who was murdered by a
fanatical Islamist in 2004 because he had insulted Islam, gave another reason: There
is a promise in Islam that he who dies as a martyr would directly ascend to
heaven and enjoy there a most beautiful life. The “holy warriors” of Islam firmly
believe it. For their opponents and for fighters of other faiths, there is no
such promise; actually, nowadays most of them do not really believe fully in their
respective religion.
In Afghanistan, before
the American invasion of 2001, they were already successful. Their moderate
brothers, elected by the people, are today ruling in Turkey. Until a year ago, also
elected by the people, they ruled for a short time in Egypt. In Gaza-strip they
could very easily drive away their secular opponents.
In the long term, however,
they too will fail. For, firstly, there is no God who could help them when the
earthly problems would become more acute. These are already acute and are
becoming ever more acute. This was concretely demonstrated one year ago in
Egypt, where the Muslim Brotherhood failed. And secondly, faith and Sharia
alone cannot satisfy the growing material needs and desires of a growing
population. Turkey is a special case. It was already a relatively developed
country, when the AKP party came to power.
The
Western model of a democratic secular state is in the retreat – generally in
the whole world, and particularly in the Islamic countries. In the long term,
it will also fail. We could again make this model attractive, if, and only if,
we could free it from its current liaison with capitalism. In conjunction with
eco-socialism it could again become an attractive model, and a goal, for which
to fight with dedication would be worthwhile. This goal could take the wind out
of the Islamists’ sails.
Literature
Ahmed, Nafeez
(2014) ”Behind the Rise of Boko Haram – Ecological Disaster, Oil Crisis, Spy Games.”
In: The Guardian. Com 9.05.2014.
Rubin. Alissa
J. & Michael R. Gordon (2014) “Iraq’s Military Seen as Unlikely to Turn the
Tide”. In: The New York Times (online),
22.06 2014.
PS. In this context, I also
recommend the following reading: The Power of the Religions and the Helplessness
of the Leftists, by Saral Sarkar.
http://eco-socialist.blogspot.de/search?q=religions
