AT PENPOINT
The US attack on Nigeria may have seemed another example of how Christianity is being used merely to justify an attack on others, but its failure to act against India, which saw a wide spread of attacks on Christmas celebrations, shows that religion is just a stick to be used, not a genuine driver of US policy.
US President Donald Trump’s role as the protector of Christians is new, even by the standards of his first term, and may be marked as starting when he accused Nigeria of allowing the persecution of Christians by Muslim extremists. It brought to mind the French and Russian rivalry of the 19th century over who was the genuine protector of the Christians of the Ottoman Empire. Both claimed the role by virtue of their citizens travelling to the Holy Land for pilgrimage. One was Roman Catholic, the other Russian Orthodox.
Trump has clearly gone beyond this, for Nigeria is no place of pilgrimage. However, it is a place for missionary activity. One of the most enthusiastic missionary enterprises is that carried out by missionary societies from the USA, which have been active in Nigeria among other African and Muslim countries.
Interestingly, Trump’s original remarks were the cause of consternation within the Nigerian government, for being a violation of its sovereignty, but the actual attack was explained away by the Foreign Minister as part of an ongoing joint operation. The attack was not on Boko Haram forces, who have been carrying out the largest operations, but on Islamic State elements.
Though the Nigerian government backed the operation, there was some preceding arm-twisting so that they would accept what was essentially an egregious violation of sovereignty. However, the attack was on the Islamic State West African Province.
African countries have been coming under the radar more frequently than before. One example is Sudan, where there has been increasing attention paid to the fighting in Darfur, where the civil war there has been increasing in recent times, especially after the recent capture of the town of El Fasher by the Rapid Support Forces, which are supposed to receive arms from the UAE. There are a number of strands to this situation, not least the involvement of the RSF in Darfur. It is also of importance that Sudan has recognized Israel and acceded to the Abraham Accords.
Trump has shown that he wears his Christianity lightly. So long as Evangelicals support him, and as long as he can weaponize it for his own racist purposes, it seems he will be happy. It was fateful enough that this Christmas saw him tested not just in Nigeria, but also in India.
Another point of interest in Africa because of the Abraham Accords is the Republic of Somaliland, which consists of the old British Somalia and (Somalia came into existence in 1960 as the result of the merger of British Somaliland and Italian Somaliland). It has won recognition from Israel because of its readiness to join the Abraham Accords. So far, the USA has not accorded the Somaliland state recognition, but with such a tunnel visioned pro-Israel President as Donald Trump in office, even without that recognition, the disputed republic can count on the USA going lightly on it.
It may be remembered that Trump has reserved particular ire for Somalis, who seem to have replaced Mexicans in his personal pantheon of criminals, of (as Kipling put it) ‘lesser breeds without the Law’, about whom he drew a word picture as forming gangs and terrorising Minnesota. He has a particular animus against Rep Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who is from Somalia.
It is not entirely a coincidence that US attention is focused on Black African countries which are Muslim. Is it entirely a coincidence that much of the USA’s black population, against whom Trump seems to bear an animus, is descended from Yorubas, Ibos and Hausas from Nigeria? Darfur has a prominent place in the history of the slave trade, as does Sudan as a whole. Indeed, the name Sudan comes from the Arabic word for the colour black.
However, while Trump shows much concern about the fate of Christians in Nigeria, he does not show any about that of their co-religionists in India, where there seems to have been a deliberate attempt by the Sangh Parivar to disrupt Christmas celebrations. This is even though Trump seems to be distancing himself from India, and it would have seemed that Trump would have relished the opportunity to take potshots against India.
The target was not yet Chistians, but Christmas decorations. From the decorations on a Mall in Raipur, Chhattisgarh, after a bandh called by the Sarva Hindu Samaj tp those on shops in Nalbari, Assam, where the Bajrang Dal was in action, one type of target was commercial. However, the protesters who gathered outside a church in Rae Bareilly, and raised slogans of ‘Jai Shree Ram’, seemed willing to take it up a notch higher. Within all of this, the Kerala Education Minister, a CPI(L) legislator who belongs to an anti-BJP government, felt obliged to write to all schools advising against Christmas celebrations. This might seem harsh in Kerala, which has a substantial number of missionary schools, often in places not well-served by the government.
The BJP does not seem to have finished dealing with their main target, the Muslims, and now to be going after the Christians. It should be mentioned that India is also the scene of considerable missionary activity. Not only do missionaries minister to the substantial existing population (28 million according to the 2023 census), but they also find a fertile field among Dalits, who are looking to find some other religion to elevate their social status. It is as if the BJP does not want Dalits escaping their untouchable status by changing to a religion that they will share with the citizens of the sole superpower. Another danger that the BJP sees is not just the substantial populations in Kerala, Goa and Tamil Nadu, but the Christian majorities in Nagaland, Mizoram and Meghalaya. That makes them the only states, along with Held Kashmir and East Punjab, which have non-Hindu majorities.
The Muslim majority in Kashmir has been tackled by making it a Union Territory, and having off Ladakh, making for a Hindu-majority union territory. But what to do about East Punjab? It was carved out as a Sikh-majority state, for the old East Punjab included today’s Haryana state as well as the Chandigarh union territory.
The USA has already sought a special role in defending Christians. Its State Department prepares an annual country-wise report on religious freedom, which has regard to the Christian Evangelicals who had the report instituted. Though the USA is supposed to be a secular country, this report is still supposed to determine whether the country concerned is eligible for aid.
It seems to deal with non-Christian majorities dealing with Christian minorities. Of course, it has waxed eloquent about the mistreatment of Muslim minorities, specifically the Uighurs, in China. How Muslim majorities have been treated in Palestine by the Jewish minority has not been dealt with.
Trump has shown that he wears his Christianity lightly. So long as Evangelicals support him, and as long as he can weaponize it for his own racist purposes, it seems he will be happy. It was fateful enough that this Christmas saw him tested not just in Nigeria, but also in India.
