Tuesday 6 May 2014

Boko Haram and the ideological collusion of the left

There's a good article by Nick Cohen [here] at The Observer / Guardian's 'comment is free' column on the subject of the western left's silence in the face of Islamic terrorism in Nigeria and elsewhere on the African continent. He makes some good points, but we could go even further and say that their new selective vision (the old set of blinkers blotted out the enormities of totalitarian communism) is not only, as part of  contemporary left-liberal cultural self-hatred, a refusal to confront the barbarism of radical Islam, but a reluctance to say anything in response to violence directed against those who follow the Christian faith. We have seen exactly the same response to the conflict in Syria.

An abandonment of the Christian legacy of the championing of liberty in favour of the coercive politics of atomised sexual narcissism will almost inevitably have that result. 
"As you can see, English does not lack plain words to describe the foulness of the crimes in Nigeria, and no doubt they would be used in the highly improbable event of western soldiers seizing and selling women.
Yet read parts of the press and you enter a world of euphemism. They have not been enslaved but "abducted" or "kidnapped", as if they will be released unharmed when the parties have negotiated a mutually acceptable ransom. Writers are typing with one eye over their shoulder: watching their backs to make sure that no one can accuse them of "demonising the other".
Turn from today's papers to the theoretical pages of leftwing journals and you find that the grounds for understanding Boko Haram more and condemning it less were prepared last year.
Without fully endorsing Boko Haram, of course, socialists explained that it finds "resonance in the hearts of many poor and dispossessed" people, who are revolted by "the corruption and flamboyant lifestyle of the elites". Islamism is recast as a rational reaction to local corruption and the global oppression of "neoliberalism", one of those conveniently vague labels that can mean just about anything...." 
Read it all ... and pray for the girls abducted and enslaved ....

An eyewitness report of the attack from a survivor [here] - at least parts of the western media appear to be waking up to reality ... 


1 comment:

  1. We prayed for Nigeria, for the families of these abducted girls and for a greater measure of religious liberty in the USA this past Sunday at St. Peter Anglican Church in Frankfort, Kentucky. Boko Haram is evil.

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