Je Suis Charlie vs. I am Baga

The Argument for Africa.

“Je suis Charlie”. Three simple words that enlisted the world in showing solidarity in the face of the terror attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, the French satirical magazine. Thousands marched in cities across the globe to deliver a message to the terrorists: that they shall not be successful in their attempts to cow the West.

“Je suis Baga”. “Je suis Borno”. “Je suis Nigeria”. None of these sentences were uttered around the world in defiance of terror. None of these encouraged thousands to march in a show of opposition. And yet, there was another attack that same week as the Paris events. This attack was similar in nature, committed by an Islamist terror group. The only difference? The number of casualties. Paris: 12. Baga, Nigeria: Anywhere between 700 to 2000 dead, an estimate put forward by Amnesty International.

The attack in Baga took place on the 8th of January, the day after the Charlie Hebdo attack. Boko Haram, the militant Islamist group in control of much of North Eastern Nigeria, attacked the town after overrunning the nearby military base. They torched much of it, and killed hundreds of the inhabitants. The population of Baga, previously estimated at 10 000, was described as “virtually non-existent” in the wake of the raid.

The media coverage, however, didn’t paint quite the same picture. It took me several days to hear about the attack, and even then it was not from global media corporations such as the BBC, but from a local African website. Meanwhile, television, radio and the internet were collapsing under the weight of analytical reports, angry or confused comments and detailed narration on the Paris attacks and the perpetrators. Baga featured a few minutes of the daily roundup.

This is not to say that what happened in Paris isn’t hugely significant or alarming to the world. The fact that a gun attack took place in the capital city of a country with a top rate security force and intelligence agency and furthermore that the gunmen managed to escape for a period of time, is extremely worrying and harks back to 9/11 and the 7/7 London bombings. Also, granted, it was much more difficult to report on the Baga massacre (due to kidnapping fears and bad communication in the area) than it was for the Paris events.

‘It happens all the time over there.’

But when some news does get out that up to 2000 people are massacred, their bodies strewn along the streets, killed for the same ideology that was used in Paris, why isn’t the world leaping to show mass support? Because of the old excuse of “Its Africa, and these things happen all the time there.” Unfortunately one does not need to look far for evidence to support this awful statement: Rwanda, Sudan, DRC, CAR, Somalia... the list goes on.

Just as with the extensive media coverage of Syria whilst a deadly war raged in the DRC uncovered, the world has little interest in the motives for such genocides, putting them down to the consequences of post-colonialism, something the West is keen to forget about.

But the world should worry. If not for the 2000 lying dead in Baga, then for the fact that if Boko Haram establishes its goal of creating an independent Caliphate in Western Africa, the consequences for Europe could be far reaching and dangerous. Boko Haram is not a fan of the West, the name itself means “Western Education is forbidden”. So if it succeeds in capturing most of Nigeria, the group is unlikely to stop there and the possibility of a government who use tactics of terror on civilians in the name of religion, to bring down the West could become a scary reality.

The world needs to come to terms with the fact that a European life is not worth more than an African life. We should be as deeply shocked by terror killings in Nigeria as we are by those in Paris, and global media coverage, in the age of all powerful globalisation, should reflect that. Terrorist activity is on a new high, not just in Europe, but the world over: Nigeria, Indonesia, Colombia, Kenya, Canada, and it cannot be ignored in any location, no matter how backward that country may seem.

People need to know about Baga. The media needs to tell them so that around the globe, millions will send a message to Boko Haram: They cannot continue to slaughter thousands of innocents and the world will not stand by if they do. But more importantly, they will send a message to Nigeria and to Africa: The world has not forgotten about you. I am Baga.

Hey - Africa’s over here!

While the world watches Syria, a new world war could develop in Africa.

Syria. That has been the international crisis word for the past two weeks as the superpowers debate what position to take while the global media documents every move. But is the world completely distracted from a decade long situation which is as bad, if not worse, than the issue of Syria? And the bigger question: how long can they continue to ignore the problems in the DRC, which are set to spiral into a major conflict involving more than a few badly armed rebel groups?

The conflict in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo) has been nicknamed ‘Africa’s World War’ and over the last ten years has involved countless rebel groups, as many as nine countries and the largest peacekeeping force the UN has ever had costing 1.5 billion dollars a year. Since 1998, a conservative estimate  puts the death toll due to the conflict at nearly five and half million people and despite many returning home, there are still one and a half million refugees.

Of course we all know that it is the nature of the press to get as much out of a story as possible and then move on and at certain times the DRC conflict has had its international attention, but the coverage has been nothing compared to the Syrian issue which has the world enraptured. Granted, there is an international crisis in Syria and the use of chemical weapons should definitely attract an international response. Yet small arms have accounted for millions of deaths in the DRC but it is unlikely that the President of the USA has ever considered sending rocket attacks to strike at any side in the conflict.

Could this all be about to change? Recently, the fighting has simplified slightly, involving one particular rebel group known as M23 against the DRC government who are backed by a UN force, 3000 strong, with a tough mandate to ‘restore government authority’. However, the UN has declared that it has strong evidence to show that the neighbouring country Rwanda could be backing M23 and has openly accused them of it. Rwanda has denied the charges and in return accused the DRC of backing a Rwandan rebel group.

The situation escalated recently when mortar shells hit a Rwandan town killing two civilians. Rwanda responded with a statement saying that more shelling “would be tantamount to crossing a red line” (sound familiar?) and said it would be “forced to intervene” as it blames the shelling on the DRC and the UN. This brought forward the prospect of a direct conflict between the two nations in which the UN could be put in a precarious position with its offensive force, especially after all the backing it has given to the DRC government.

The prospect of an international conflict involving African governments has huge repercussions for the world. Certainly, Rwanda and DRC would not be the only two involved as other African countries would quickly choose sides. As for the rest of the world, a new Cold War scenario could emerge, similar to the situation in the mid-20^th century involving Israel and the surrounding Arab region in which the US and the USSR chose sides.

The difference is that it would be more likely to be between the West and China. And the incentive for the superpowers to take sides? Firstly, regional dominance and secondly, the mineral wealth that the area around the conflict is rolling in - Cobalt for one which is a major input for cell phones etc. And to add to the confusion, where does this leave the UN force? Either backing a side, running from the war or ‘trying to keep the peace’, something they are not renowned for.

For now, this doomsday scenario is still preventable and tensions have since cooled between the two nations. But it still leaves a situation where the world must either start paying attention to the DRC issue as much as they have to Syria; or accept the possibility of a future involving a war that could spiral to drastic proportions and cause them to rue the day they didn’t open up the Atlas to find out where Goma is.