Political change can drive out Boko Haram
The impressive “Bring Our Girls Home” social media campaign has succeeded in drawing attention to the audacious and cruel abduction of 276 schoolgirls by the Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram. The actions of the nihilistic group, who view the girls’ lives as more-or-less expendable (no more than their value in ransom), have rightly been condemned. But we need to discuss the political conditions in which such an organisation takes root. Some on the socialist left have been more concerned to expose the (undoubted) hypocrisy of the west’s offers of help to find the girls (e.g. Green Left Weekly )...