Boko Haram Style Violence is an Import

It is important to understand that the carnage in Borno state is not a status quo African phenomenon.  It is not native to Nigerian culture.  Boko Haram’s world view has its roots in the Muslim Brotherhood and the export of the global jihad.  In the same way that Communism devalued human life in Cambodia during the nineteen seventies which led to children slaughtering their grandparents under the Khmer Rouge, the violence of Boko Haram finds it’s origins in a system of ideas that is very specific.

The Muslim Brotherhood political movement had spread to Nigeria by the nineteen eighties and was then led by Ibrahim Zakzaky.  Zakzaky, who was greatly inspired by the Iranian revolution, began to move toward the Shia tradition and even aspired to import Iranian culture.  This caused Salifist purists to splinter.  Mohammed Yusuf, who was the regional emir of a group called Jama’atul Tajdid Islam (Movement for the Revival of Islam) then began Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (“Group Committed to the Propagation of the Traditions of the Prophet and Jihad”).

The Group Committed to the Propagation of the Traditions of the Prophet and Jihad is the proper name for what we know now as Boko Haram.  In addition to finding its origins in the global jihadist movement, Boko Haram’s brand of violence is hardwired into the the groups who are manifesting the same Muslim Brotherhood program on other parts of the continent.

According to reports, Boko Haram maintains ties with other Islamic terrorist groups abroad. In addition to allegedly receiving some of the $3 Million distributed to North African Salafi groups by Osama Bin Laden in 2002, State Department documents have asserted alleged connections between Boko Haram and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Al Qaeda in the Arabian Penisula, and the AQ-affiliate Al Shabaab in Somalia.  Al Shabaab in particular is reported to have assisted Boko Haram with terrorist training, and has expressed support for Boko Haram in the wake of the kidnapping of the 300 girls from the Chibok area.  The similarities in the disgusting treatment of human life among these groups stems from the same globally organized political organization.

It is a policy cop-out to dismiss Boko Haram as a group with merely regional interests. It is a racist cop-out to dismiss the horrors of Boko Haram as an African phenomenon.  National Journal reported in 2012 a very telling picture of this administrations attitudes toward Africa policy.

“…during a meeting at the U.N. mission of France, after the French ambassador told Rice that the U.N. needed to do more to intervene in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rice was said to have replied: “It’s the eastern DRC. If it’s not M23, it’s going to be some other group,”

Boko Haram is part of a global strategic threat.  The failure to address the issues with the Nigerian military assertively in order to move forward is a failure to acknowledge both the strategic part Boko Haram plays in the global jihad and the strategic significance of Nigeria.