Whatever rough peace exists today, however, comes with a sobering footnote. Most Christians, as well as some Muslims, believe it has been achieved in part because Christians learned to fight fire with fire – in other words, because the Christians answered violence from the Muslim side with violence of their own.“Only when we started reacting did the Muslims see a need for dialogue,” said Saidu Dogo, general secretary for the Christian Association of Nigeria in the north. “They saw that our people have resolve, and that’s when the decision was made to form a consultative forum of religious leaders.”
That conclusion may seem abhorrent to outsiders, but Nigerians say their hard experience bears it out.
During a mid-March lunch at the Abuja residence of Archbishop Renzo Fratini, the papal nuncio in Nigeria, a visiting journalist was asked for impressions of the country. When he summarized what Nigerian Christians had told him, Archbishop Fratini expressed reservations, saying that self-defense in a Christian spirit should be nonviolent. Archbishop Onaiyekan insisted that Christians have the right to disarm an unjust aggressor, with force if necessary. Virtually every Nigerian Catholic head around the table nodded in agreement.
Archbishop Onaiyekan embodies an approach to Islam one might call “tough love.” He’s every inch a man of dialogue, as his session at National Mosque illustrates. Recently, the Catholic church in Abuja and a grass-roots body called the Muslim Consultative Forum cosponsored a panel on the 2007 elections in Nigeria. Yet Archbishop Onaiyekan also told National Catholic Reporter that he feels the church’s approach to Islam has suffered because too many policymakers had their primary experience of Islam in the Middle East, where Christians are a tiny minority, and hence mere tolerance is considered a major achievement. In fact, he said, Christians should push Muslims for much more – specifically, to recognize the legitimacy of a non-confessional state in which all religions are equal before the law.
What has taken shape in Nigeria under his leadership may thus be a model of Muslim/Christian relations well-suited for the “frank and sincere” spirit of Pope Benedict XVI. Nigerian Christians know peaceful coexistence with Muslims is possible, because most have Muslim neighbors, colleagues and friends. At the same time, they believe experience has taught them that in dealing with religious zealots and bullies, strength has to be answered with strength.
This provocative article reviews some of the violent history of Islamic intolerance in Nigeria and therefore suggests a "tough love" approach may be needed to keep Sharia law from becoming an even more oppressive, more unjust tool of Muslim totalitarianism.
This is a troubling read on many levels but the question it raises about the legitimacy of armed defense (a desperately crucial question for the Nigerian Christian whose family and home may be endangered) is one that all Christians should certainly try to answer.
