scrubbedexpat141

130m girls missing out on school, education forum warns | GulfNews.com

So, my Mrs is at this (yesterday and today). Said the bit with the two girls who escaped from Boko Haram was nothing short of traumatic to hear, let alone go through.

276 were taken, 195 are still missing after almost 3 full years.

Irishbeekeeper

This far in, tbh, most of them would have had kids and have been brainwashed beyond repair unfortunately. Their version of Islam mixed with the inherent violent nature of the Africans in that area has really created a very nasty tumor which is not going away anytime soon

scrubbedexpat141

Quite.
The few who have been released through the years have apparently turned up with a couple of children.

Miss Ann Thrope

Really?

Irishbeekeeper

Yes really. Really really.

DXBtoDOH

And here comes Miss Anne Thrope

*Calculating odds on how many pages this thread will turn into*

Shall I add oil to the fire?

Humans, by nature, are inherently violent.

Civilisation goes a long way in tempering that violence, although it never quite disappears and often manifests itself in more insidious forms such as British sarcasm Even so, every now and then in civilised society the violence can erupt, reminding us that at the end of the day we are still senseless human beings. Nonetheless, civilisation mostly functions well enough in restraining that capacity of violence to allow us to live in a state of stability most of the time (note - I said stability, not peace. The two are not quite the same).

Areas that are still largely tribal and operate with a tribal mindset are more likely to resort to violence as a legitimate form of expression, making large-scale actions of violence among differing groups of people more commonplace occurrences. Stability is practically unknown.

Anyone with a basic understanding of anthropology and history knows this.

Miss Ann Thrope

It's the word "inherent" that I have a problem with. Perhaps you meant it differently but as expressed it sounds flat-out racist. I raised it because, from your other posts, I am doubting that was really your intention.

Having been to that part of Africa, my experience is that in general, most of the people are warm and friendly and funny (so funny) and incredibly generous even when they have little to offer. Perhaps, if I may venture, much like the people in many parts of, for example, Pakistan, that are afflicted by widespread violence.

But, it is a harsh - very harsh - dog-eat-dog environment where every day is a struggle for most people to feed their families. Specifically there is a history of conflict in the northern Nigerian Sahel between nomads, who want to maintain their centuries old practice of herding their animals around to graze freely and more recently established pastoralists who want to work the land without rampaging herds of cattle showing up unannounced every few months. Of course that has an added ethnic dimension. The rule of law is weak, corruption is rife and arms are easily available from unscrupulous (normally much lighter skinned) suppliers. Again, remarkably similar to other areas afflicted by violence regardless of the ethnicities involved. Therefore the bullies thrive and violence is rewarded, not because the people from there are inherently more prone to violence than any other members of our species, but because violence is a more successful strategy in that environment.

Interestingly the testimonies of the indigenous people of West Africa from the time that the Portuguese and Dutch and later British came to establish their commercial ventures is fairly consistently about how unbelievably savage the invaders were, not least their technologies for killing and maiming. It was the Belgian colonialists who fomented so much conflict in the Congo basin by introducing such modern techniques as cutting off the hands of the workers who failed to reach their rubber production quotas.

So who is inherently violent?

Miss Ann Thrope

Apart from the (sadly characteristic) snide last sentence, I agree with this.

Millhouse

Pretty much anyone promoting a religious agenda or seeking governance and control. The worst are those who do both at the same time.

jam25mack

Yet so far you're the only one who has mentioned anything about skin colour in this thread....

Miss Ann Thrope

This exchange has been prompted by the use of this phrase: "inherent violent nature of the Africans". Pretty disingenuous to claim not to recognise a direct allusion to skin-colour there...

Miss Ann Thrope

I agree with the first sentence of course. But I think many of the worst examples of violence have also been perpetrated by those motivated by commercial interests and greed: mass industrialised slavery, colonial exploitation of the Congo in particular as the worst case but almost anywhere else, Spanish conquistadors in search of El Dorado, pirates and "privateers", so much land all around the world stolen from indigenous people...

Genghis Khan may be the exception: violence for the sake of violence, conquest was incidental other than as a brute expression of ruthless power, so much of immense value destroyed for no reason.

Boomhauer

Don't think that all humans are inherently violent , if by that you mean all cultures are more or less equally violent. Very Patriarchal cultures are very violent, others not remotely as much. There is violence in all culture, but the difference is the degree of violence and there is a huge difference between cultures.

Wahhabism is like adding water to a grease fire.

There isn't a difference between tribal violence in Africa and wars waged by countries, the only difference is the sophistication of weaponry, diplomatic excuses / public relations and degree of organization. One can say: China, US, Britain, Israel, Pakistan, India, Iraq, Syria, Saudi are all just as violent or more violent , especially if number of people affected are taken into consideration but people always give powerful nations a pass .

Boomhauer

2+2 = 4
It doesn't take any more dots to figure out that Africans in that part of the world are black.

Millhouse

What about the albinos