Don't call me comrade

Ideologies and realities

The spectre of the Communist Party of Britain in front of the Central Library at St Peter’s Square this afternoon after church was one for amusement. Do not get me wrong, there is room for diverse political thought and ideas, though the system might not work here, there is a possibility that good ideas might gain the attention towards being considered for policy.

Anyway, it was the coincidence of events that made for a wry observation of ironic consideration. They were gathered with their many flags applauding someone giving an address, not that I cared to listen. I had a cup of Starbucks latter with a piece of cake, and Starbucks does not come any more multinational bastion of global capitalism than that.

Life is a different story

Whizzing past on their bicycles were Deliveroo couriers, workers with needs that demand the exertion of the physical, facing dangers to earn a crust, most not covered by any employee protections, collectivism, or unionised representation. It is them against a system, yet, to increase productivity some have electric bicycles which means they probably would not tire as early as those who need to muscle it out for each errand.

As a settled down to drink my coffee, watching them and chatting to Brian, a group of people probably Chinese from their appearance, took an interest and stopped to take pictures. We were not that far from Manchester’s Chinatown, but they could have been thinking whether this gathering was an offshoot of their party in government back in China. I could not read their thoughts.

Back and forth they go

Then they marched off towards the war memorial where they stopped for some minutes before marching back past the Central Library towards the Manchester Convention Centre, stopping in the square opposite Barbirolli Square, by which time, I thought they were acting in the spirit of the Grand Old Duke of York, it was just left to them to march back and forth until they stopped somewhere neither here nor there.

For all that amusement, you never know, they might great ideas and democracy is the act of persuasion. Whatever the case, never call me comrade, I am not of that persuasion, not by any stretch of the imagination.

#WhatDoesBHWant Discussion with @ContactSalkida

Ahmad Salkida, a knowledge expert on Boko Haram shared his insights on the Boko Haram ideology, activities, financing and recruiting effort on a Twitter discussion forum with the hashtag #WhatDoesBHWant on Saturday the 1^st of November 2014 for 2 hours.

The session was moderated by Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim and Akin Akintayo, the full timeline of what Ahmad Salkida said appears below and I have added some notes to highlight some of the points he made.

#WhatDoesBHWant? A Q&A with @ContactSalkida about #BokoHaram - 01/11/14 at 8:00PM

#WhatDoesBHWant?

8:00PM on Saturday 1^st November 2014 – Nigerian time.

The plan

Dr. Jibrin Ibrahim and Akin Akintayo have been invited to moderate a Q&A session with Ahmad Salkida about Boko Haram, its ideology, its operations, the violent onslaught and other difficult to understand activities of the sect.

Boko Haram is crudely translated to ‘Western Education is forbidden’ and officially known as Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'Awati Wal-Jihad (People Committed to the Prophet's Teachings for Propagation and Jihad).

To many of us, what Boko Haram does is just purely unfathomable madness, yet, I would suggest that for centuries we never understood what madness was, what caused it, why people were affected and what impact it had on people society would suggest are mad.

Explaining the madness

With the development of psychiatry and psychology, we have a better understanding of madness, or rather mental illness and in some cases medicine and therapy has provided the means to manage it and probably suppress the very lunatic episodes.

With that thinking borne in mind, I want to opine that Ahmad Salkida who has written extensively about Boko Haram is like our psychiatrist, the expert who can explain the madness that appears to drive Boko Haram and bring some understanding to the issues that hopefully would help us contain and probably neutralise the menacing and marauding activities of Boko Haram.

Our frustrations

Going into the 7^th month, the Chibok Girls are still in captivity, the #BringBackOurGirls movement is unrelenting in their protests, carnage has destroyed life and property, states have been under a State of Emergency for over a year and yet, Boko Haram seems to run writ large on Nigerian sovereign territory.

With every engagement with the Nigerian armed forces, we are left us none the wiser about who is winning, who is losing, what agreements have been reached if a ceasefire exists and whether there is any justice or peace at the end of all this.

Ahmad Salkida will bring some insight and hopefully some enlightenment in this objective forum, and this is something we need within the turmoil of confusion and uncertainty about terrorism in Nigeria.

The discussion is embedded below, within the blog.

The Rules

In offering to moderate this Q&A session, these are the ground rules.

1.   The Q&A session will kick off at 20:00 hours on Saturday the 1^st of November 2014 – Nigerian time, which is 19:00 GMT.

2.   All questions should be in clear and plain English and must use the hashtag #WhatDoesBHWant

3.    Every enquirer must exercise the best of manners - be civil, be polite, be respectful and be friendly.

4.    Every Question must be in the context of learning and understanding #WhatDoesBHWant, we will not digress from that mandate to tackle distractions.

5.   Questions that attempt to excite passions and display personal animus will be ignored, the Q&A is NOT a forum to score points or settle scores.

6.   We all have every reason to direct our anger at Boko Haram, however, Ahmad Salkida is NOT a member of Boko Haram, he is a knowledge expert and he has offered to share his knowledge and insights with us out of good faith.

7.    No abuse or aggression will be tolerated during this Q&A session, all frustrations must be tempered with the utmost self-control.

8.   We would try to have as many questions answered as possible, there can be follow on questions, but we would not revisit questions that have already been answered. At the end of the Q&A session, the conversation will be Storified and published for people to review for posterity.

We hope that all well-meaning Nigerians would participate in this discussion in patriotic good faith and we can all come away wiser and more understanding of what we need to do to end the problems that Boko Haram exacerbates on Nigeria and its neighbours.

Thank you.

Further Reading

“I am not a member of Boko Haram” – Ahmed Salkida speaks on ‘Conversations with Abang Mercy’ [Mercy Abang – April 2013]

Nigerian reporter threatened over Boko Haram coverage [Committee to Protect Journalists – March 2012]

Another Look At The Boko Haram Philosophy- Ahmad Salkida [Peace and Collaborative Development Network – November 2012]

Boko Haram Ceasefire? Do Not Be Fooled, Nigerians By Ahmad Salkida [Sahara Reporters – February 2013]

Ahmad Salkida’s Articles about Boko Haram [Premium Times 2012 -2013]

THE DISPLACED - A Documentary About Nigerians Turned Into Refugees Inside Their Country By Boko Haram [SaharaTV on YouTube courtesy of P. D Braide – October 2014]

Editorial: Israel's legislative nadir

A rotten law

The passing of a law by the Israeli Knesset giving the right of vexatious civil prosecution to petitioners from parts of the Israeli State who have suffered boycotts marks a nadir in the democratic life of Israel.

There might be very little objective reason to boycott the substantive and legally constituted state of Israel; however, there is every reason by conscience, law and legality to boycott the settlements which are viewed by international law to be illegal.

What makes the law egregious, very bad and a departure from common-sense and reason is that petitioner does not even have to prove “economic, cultural or academic damage” was caused, as long as the petitioner can suggest, assume or imply that a boycott can be reasonably expected to cause damage no matter how contrived.

This law as much as it abridges the freedom of expression and choice of the Israelis by inference confers undue legitimacy on these outposts of the law where already too much is squandered in maintaining an uneasy calm on illegally annexed lands of the Palestinians.

Israel wants no peace

Religionists might for their ulterior purposes suggest that modern Israel which is a fraction of the promised Canaan of antiquity to Abraham and his seed is the ancestral land of the Jews; it is without doubt that the imposition of ancient literality over what must for global interests of today be figurative at best is unfortunate.

However, the biggest signal from the leaning of the current Israeli parliament and government of Israel is not of a state seeking peace with its neighbours but one of a belligerent hegemony whose concept of peace is really that of security borne of being superiorly equipped as a threat and menace whilst depriving its closest neighbour of any means of its own defence and military projection if that course of action becomes necessary.

One can so easily conclude that Israel probably enjoys its continual projection of pseudo-victim within a hostile Middle-Eastern neighbourhood; and as long as we are always distracted and confronted with the spectre of an existential threat to Israel the need to force the issue for peace never assumes the needed priority because any useful peace settlement might well make Israel pale into relative regional insignificance.

Justice needs to prevail

It goes without saying that codifying such atrocious laws into their statute books and by so doing conferring legality on an illegality does make the reasonable, fair and just begin to question the legitimacy of Israel – for whilst representative democracy might well be purposeful, it can yet be abused by the tyranny of ideology.

One would hope that the legality of this law gets tested in the highest courts of the land and the bench will with boldness contemn the intent, purpose, process and enactment of this law whilst striking it down with a stinging rebuke to all those who gave support to this travesty.

Nigeria: Juvenile Party Shopping and Hopping

Party hop-scotch

It is almost a waste of time reading about political carpet-crossings [1] in Nigerian politics. It was hardly two days ago that I told a friend that Nigerian political party structures are weak and peopled by persons without principles, ideology, allegiance or common loyalty.

I have predicted that the next president of Nigeria would be the aspirant running on the platform of the ruling party and that is really where the contest for federal leadership is.

This is because the ruling party has a broader network within Nigeria than all the other parties which appear to be regional in where they exercise power.

When other parties contested the results of the 2007 elections, they put forward the weakest case possible; the ruling party had 70% of the votes and the gubernatorial elections gave them 26 out of 36 states – the prosecution based their case on evidence from 4 states which could in no way overturn or annul the election even if the courts found in their favour.

Expediency of incumbency

The issue of political immaturity is made with news that so close to elections there are mass movements by malcontents between parties, all to the end of emerging in control of the situation.

For instance, the erstwhile Minister of Information, as both the propaganda mouthpiece of the government and in some cases speaking in the name of the ruling party, has now decided to run for the Senate but the party in government in her home state is not the ruling party.

In effect, she has defected to the party that offers her the best chance of taking office rather than fight on the platform of the party that she was a political mouthpiece of for over 3 years.

It is opportunistic and the politics of expediency and that is how our politicians play the game.

The politics of egos

The politics we have are not those of persuasion, policy or ideas, they are vehicles for egomaniacal influence, if a personality does not get their way in their party they look for other parties ready to give them the opportunity to usurp positions that would naturally have gone to those who have loyally pledged their allegiances breeding a new set of disaffected people who seek other platforms to launch from. A kind of Last In - First Considered ploy.

In essence, a whole new set of dictums materialise; patience is a virtue as long as it is the other man; compromise is reached as long as it is my view; consensus is agreed upon if I can lead – failing all that, we’ll throw all our toys out the pram and wail till another party pacifies us with the dummy of being in charge.

Where our politics is lacking

This is where our democracy fails us woefully, there is no clear indication of political inclination as to whether parties are of the right, the left, social-democrat, conservative, liberal, socialist or anything. Even the so-called Labour Party only bears that in name, the workings are down to personalities, the power and influence they can wield and their prowess in one-upmanship or brinkmanship.

It is a shame that despite that seeming maturity in age of the contenders their affectations are juvenile and worthy of serious derisive condemnation; one can only wonder if the constant flux of allegiances would eventually yield reliable, responsible and accountable government but people who have left one party for another should not automatically assume commensurate authority and supposed leadership in their new parties.

If they have not been able to persuade their old parties of their views, ideas, purposes and concerns surely they cannot suddenly become the best faces for the new parties they have joined, if anything, giving them power simply creates a disruptive influence in the new party helping the party they have left coalesce with the personalities they left behind.

Sources

[1] » Exodus as Saraki, Shagaya, Ladoja, Akume, Bwari leave PDP - Vanguard (Nigeria)