Friday, March 03, 2006

The reality of violence in Nigeria




The burnt body of a Nigerian caught up in Christian-Muslim violence in the southeastern town of Onitsha.

We don't know if the victim was Christian or Muslim, and we shouldn't care. All we know is that we're looking at the body of someone who died in sectarian violence (as part of a larger political struggle in the run-up to a possible term-limit extension by the Christian President of Nigeria, Obasanjo) following the widely publicized, yet couched, language of Archbishop Akinola's response to Muslim violence against Christians in the North. Is it not true that the Anglican Church has a history of peaceful reconciliation? I'm beginning to wonder if that history is now dwarfed by the fight for "orthodoxy," and polluted by the deep sectarianism of post-colonial Africa. (photo credit Time)

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