Boko Haram massacre 2000 in France… oh, sorry, Nigeria (1)! Panic over! There are a sizeable number of people on Facebook (no quantitative analysis supplied) who care about world issues, or at least appearing to care about world issues: #bringbackourgirls, #JosephKony2012. However, Archbishop Kaigama commented on the double standards between when people in Western countries will act (2). News media coverage of #jesuicharlie has been fairly overwhelming, as opposed to this massacre that took place in… CAR (3)? Paris may be more beloved (the “city of love” versus Another Country Proudly Supported by World Vision?) and culturally closer than Nigeria, although Google Maps informed me Nigeria is actually about 3,000km close to NZ than France (but Nigeria is still 16,000km away). Still, if Joseph Kony can be as notorious as Sarah Palin (who compared waterboarding to baptism, 4), Boko Haram can be given at least as much attention as Rupert Murdoch (who suggested all Muslims should share responsibility for the actions of extremists, 5). Those killed by Boko Haram were probably not extraordinary people like the editors of Charlie Hebdo, who may have, depending on your view, used satire to criticise extremism. They were ordinary civilians, like you and me. Why aren’t we talking about the victims of Baka (the village where this massacre occurred)? Because we’re on holiday? Because we’ve become accustomed to massacres in Africa? Because we haven’t heard of that village before? Because the media hasn’t swamped us in #bokoharam or #iambaka? I haven’t looked at the arguments for/against social media being effective at creating political change in politically distant areas, but if we are going to be so quick to talk about Charlie, we should talk about Boko Haram, before it becomes another ISIS (6).
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 22:55:31 +0000
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