The comparison between the massacres in Nigeria and the terror attacks in Paris is indeed striking, says Peter Fabricius.
Pretoria - African social media is buzzing with anger and indignation at what they see as the world’s indifference to the horrendous massacres by the Nigerian jihadist group Boko Haram in Borno state, compared to the huge attention that has been given to the terror attacks by other Islamists in Paris.
About 40 world leaders joined French President Francois Hollande for Sunday’s huge “March of Unity” in Paris in solidarity and sympathy with the cartoonists and journalists of the French satirical journal Charlie Hebdo, and other victims of the attacks in Paris by jihadists apparently linked to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and to Islamic State.
The hashtag #JeSuisCharlie (“I am Charlie”) has gone viral, and sympathy demonstrations were held around the world, including in Johannesburg and Cape Town, at the weekend.
Meanwhile, Boko Haram killed as many as 2 000 people in terror attacks in towns and villages of Nigeria’s north-eastern state of Borno over the last week.
On Saturday, a bomb strapped to a suicide bomber, reportedly a 10-year-old girl, exploded in a crowded market in the Borno capital of Maiduguri, killing about 20 people.
“Has the world even taken notice?” tweeted Levi Kabwato after the atrocity. “Where are the African hashtags? The outrage? African media response?”
And Clayson Monyela, spokesman for the Department of International Relations and Co-operation, tweeted: “The situation in #Nigeria though… fellow Africans dying daily in numbers. I don’t see any emergency UNSC meetings.”
The comparison between the two situations is indeed striking. The death toll in the Paris attacks seems to have been 17, versus the apparent thousands in Borno state over roughly the same period.
And as journalist Tolu Ogunlesi pointed out in an article last week in Theafricareport.com, Boko Haram now controls just about as much territory as Islamic State (IS) does in Syria and Iraq as both expand the hardline Islamist “caliphates” they are creating. “Boko Haram is as critical a threat to world peace as IS is and by not treating it as such, the world is doing itself a grievous disservice.”
The opinion of most of the commentators on social media is that it’s the old story of African lives being valued less than French (or other Western) lives and Africa generally not being considered as important as Europe.
There are other factors. One is the comparative novelty and, therefore, newsworthiness of an Islamist attack on journalists for lampooning the Prophet Muhammad. And importantly, what Africa itself is doing to raise awareness of the Boko Haram menace. “Has anyone seen a #Nigerian Gov statement on this?” tweeted Monyela.
But as with the Ebola epidemic and some other security crises, such as that in Mali, it looks as though institutional Africa is again leading from behind.
* Peter Fabricius is Independent Media’s foreign editor.