End the genocide in Nigeria
America has forsaken its moral authority
President Joe Biden delivered a speech Friday at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, PA. Photo by Stephanie Scarbrough of the AP.
America was the beacon of the world because we defended religious freedom and freedom of conscience that made us the envy of the world.
No more.
These American virtues have been sacrificed on the altar of bizarre bothsiderism and climate change, among other things.
Consider Nigeria, the largest nation on the African continent.
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) produces an annual report that identifies nations that demand scrutiny for violating religious freedom as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC). The USCIRF report goes to the U.S. Secretary of State. Nigeria had been on that list since 2009. Inexplicably, Biden Secretary of State Antony Blinken removed Nigeria as a CPC beginning in fall 2021.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum pedals climate change for causing the violence in Nigeria, defying overwhelming and compelling evidence to the contrary. For them, “rising temperatures” create more conflict over land. Michael Rubin argues climate change also must strangely cause:
2,000 churches being burned.
4 million Nigerian Christians fleeing their communities because of the violence.
It’s supreme intellectual laziness.
Worse, groups that monitor the persecuted church contend a genocide’s unfolding against Nigerian Christians. International Christian Concern President Jeff King told Fox News about 100,000 Nigerian Christians have been killed in the past 20 years. Genocide Watch places the number at 45,644 Christians killed from 2009 to 2022. The Muslim government of Nigeria has done nothing, despite endless pleas by Catholic bishops and other Christian leaders in Nigeria and elsewhere.
While the Secretary of State is the nation’s top ambassador, and he or she sets the tone for how the U.S. responds to international events, American officials have forsaken their moral authority.
This is why 29 religious-rights activists in early December called on Congress to press the Biden Administration to again make Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern.
This photo by Reuters comes from Bokkos, Plateau State, Nigeria following the Christmas killings of Christians. Via Fox News Digital.
Meanwhile, this is how Christmas arrived for more than 24 Nigerian communities. In the evening of December 23 in Plateau State, attacks began as people were having dinner or visiting with friends. By the time the attacks ended on Christmas Day, Fulani herdsmen, one of three groups that have wantonly attacked Nigerian Christians over 20 years, had struck 26 communities killing 140-200 Nigerian followers of Jesus Christ. Hundreds were injured and the death toll is expected to climb. Accounts of events are here, here, and here.
The United Nations has done nothing for 20 years.
Developed western nations, including America, have delivered perfunctory rebukes, but have never followed through with action that resembles saving lives.
The U.S. State Department released this lukewarm statement to Fox News Digital following the Christmas violence in Nigeria:
No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, and we cannot confirm the perpetrators’ motivations. Religious freedom is a key U.S. foreign policy priority and plays a prominent role in our continued engagement with the Nigerian government. We continue to have concerns about religious freedom in Nigeria, and we will continue to work with the Government of Nigeria to address religious freedom issues and to ensure all human rights are protected, including the freedom of religion or belief.
Nigerian Christians no longer view America as a credible partner. The Catholic News Agency reported the following in June 2022:
Despite this (record of violence, emphasis mine), since 2021 the U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, for as-yet-undisclosed reasons, no longer lists Nigeria as a ‘Country of Particular Concern’ on a watchlist of countries with the most egregious violations of religious freedom. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has been recommending the designation of Nigeria as a CPC since 2009. (Stephen) Rasche said many Christian leaders effectively have given up on the U.S. government, saying that the Biden administration is not viewed as ‘serious’ about stopping the persecution.
What an indictment of a nation that has been regarded as the one place that would back up words with actions. America was founded by western Europeans who fled religious persecution.
In my lifetime–55 years–former President Ronald Reagan defeated the Soviet Communist Bloc with the help of Pope John Paul II. All it took was moral clarity and the determination to defeat evil.
Trump didn’t want to be the world’s policeman, despite the obvious evil unfolding in Nigeria. What happened to all of those evangelicals in his inner circle?
Obama assigned a special ambassador to address the violence. It failed. The following comes from a leader in Nigeria:
‘Ambassador Mozena has done nothing to remediate the threat of Boko Haram,’ according to Stephen Enada, head of the International Committee on Nigeria. ‘Mozena served in Nigeria from 2015 to 2016 and maybe is still there, yet his reports have been a disaster. If he is doing something behind the scenes to stop the terrorists, why are we seeing so much killing going on?’
Why do our leaders seem so ignorant, feeble, weak, and impotent?
Why are they indifferent to massacres of people of all ages in Nigeria?
It aches my heart.
The world responded to Rwanda and Darfur.
It must respond to Nigeria too.
