IRAN – Open Letter to Nigerian Liberals
By: Deji Yesufu
All wars are waged with a certain idea as the driving force. It was St. Augustine who taught our world the “Just War” theory. This theory posits that while wars are generally considered ungodly, there are instances where wars are deemed necessary and beneficial. They must be waged to stage off a greater evil that could befall our world. When soldiers are armed with weapons and then directed to kill other men, the driving force behind their action must be a well-constructed argument that has the general good of society at its helm. If this is not done, soldiers emerge from wars scarred for life. Psychologists call it Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Therefore, my liberal friends should understand that the war that the United States of America and Israel are waging against the Islamic Republic of Iran is not only a Just War, but a necessary action to prevent greater evil in the days to come. Liberal ideas have not done the world a great deal of good. While the holy books surmise that justice demands that those who take the life of another should also be killed, liberal thinkers have succeeded in removing the death sentence from the judicial systems of many countries. It is this same ideology that kicks against every kind of war. This essay is an open letter to Nigerian liberals.
I will not be mentioning names in this article, and so I will labour very hard to describe the group of persons I am directing my essay to. Nigerian liberals are generally very well-informed individuals; you find them in all walks of life – particularly in academia, journalism, politics and more importantly, social media. These individuals are opinion molders and they determine the direction that a society moves. They also determine what the moral compass of society should be. So, they can succeed at calling good evil, and evil good. Nigerian liberals obtain a lot of the information they share with other Nigerians from Western media outlets like CNN, MSNBC, CBS, and the BBC. Many of them have either been schooled abroad, live abroad, or have strong connections to Western media houses. These connections, many times financial in nature, dictate the position these individuals take on social issues. Another thing about these Nigerian liberal thinkers is that they are generally irreligious. Some of them are outright atheists, while others prefer the safe margin of agnosticism. They scoff at religion generally, but they have a particular disdain for the Bible and Christianity. Their numbers are not that many in the Nigerian social space, but they are growing and they are influencing a lot of young thinkers. These Nigerian liberals have a rabid hatred of Donald Trump. In fact, some of them are suffering from TDS – Trump Derangement Syndrome. One of them described Trump as “Almighty” recently. An obvious reference to disparage the American leader as God so as to vilify him the more. But the greater challenge with these liberals is their sympathy for Islam. I will explain more.
Islam and Christianity have had an age-old rivalry. Christians have never gotten over the fact that hitherto Christian nations like Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and most of the Middle East in general are now Muslim countries. It was this rivalry that informed Christian missionary endeavours in the 19th century in Africa, when it was discovered that Muslim Jihadists were conquering communities in the African Sahel. This is how the gospel came to the geographical space that would eventually be called Nigeria. The rivalry between Christianity and Islam has not only been expressed on the mission field, but it has also been thrashed out in wars. The crusades of medieval times quickly come to mind. Now, in the 17th and 18th centuries, liberal thinking began to be developed in Europe. Men like Voltaire and others made it clear that religion should not determine the basis of societal orders. It was these thoughts that led to the French Revolution and the emergence of Napoleon Bonaparte. As the liberals slugged it out with Christians, they found ready allies in Muslims – “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. The greatest manifestation of the association between Muslims and liberal thinkers was the 1979 Iranian revolution that deposed the constitutional monarchy in that country, and brought Shia Islam and communist liberal thinkers to power. In less than a year, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had either sent all the liberals into exile or murdered them. This is what usually happens to liberals: they enter into association with Muslims, but the moment the Muslims have power, they kill the liberals and change the state to an Islamic one. We are already seeing this playing out in Britain and other parts of Europe. And the latest on the American continent is Zoran Mamdani’s mayorship of New York. Muslims have the liberty to practice taqiya. It is the idea of entering into an association with others deceptively, as long as the long-term goal is to establish Islam in the land. Islam is a political system, and the goal of every Muslim is to establish every system they operate in under Islam. The liberals will disagree, but there are too many historical examples to support this assertion.
I make this position clear enough so that readers can understand the situation around America’s war with Iran. Please take note of the fact that Nigeria has been fighting Islamic insurgency since 2009, with thousands of lives lost and properties destroyed. In the last week alone, our country has lost no less than 100 soldiers to terrorist attacks on barracks in Maiduguri. Gallant soldiers have been killed. There have been no protest matches from Muslims either in the north or in the south of this country. Till this moment, we have had no condemnation of the activities of Boko Haram and ISWAP from Muslim organizations like MURIC and the rest. But the moment the United States of America and Israel killed Ayatollah Khamenei, we began to hear the usual refrain “…death to America… death to Israel…” I have long posited that many Muslims give tacit support to Boko Haram and ISWAP. I hold the position that if this country is overrun by Islamic insurgents, many Muslims would be content with this, since in the long run, their desire is that Islam would rule Nigeria. The greater culprit in this matter is not just the Muslims but the liberal Nigerians who spend all their waking moments attacking Donald Trump but see nothing wrong with what the Muslims are turning the country into. Like it was in 1979, liberal Nigerian thinkers would not mind teaming up with Muslims to drive Christianity out of Nigeria. They do not realize however that the end result of such an association is the death of their own ideology: Islam will not share a space with other ideas.
What is the way forward?
Liberal Nigerian thinkers must understand Islam. Study the Muslim histories and watch their trends in society. Then understand that when Donald Trump joins forces with Israel, they are doing it not just for the security of those two countries, but for the security of the whole world. Many Muslim countries in the Middle East do not have a space for radical Islam anymore. The Muslim Brotherhood has been banned in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and many other countries in the Middle East. They understand that there are certain extreme Islamic ideas that are incompatible with modern societal ideals. So, they simply abrogate these organizations and ensure that they have no space in their country. Second. Liberal Nigerian thinkers must understand that Israel has knowledge of radical Islam like no other country in the world. They have battled it since 1948. A lot of the measures that the country is carrying out to destroy nations that are inimical to them are products of years of fighting insurgency on their soil. Today, Israel is the only democratic country in the Middle East. She is the most developed country there. She possesses a security system that has reduced insurgency on her soil to near zero. This is besides the superb military establishment they have. Rather than criticize these people, liberal Nigerians can learn one or two things from Israel – perhaps, to defeat the radical Muslims breathing down our necks. Because America has experienced Islamic terrorism on its soil in the past, they know that the only way to prevent a future terrorist attack on its country is to prevent rogue nations like Iran from owning nuclear weapons. This is the idea behind the present war in the Middle East. I sincerely hope that Nigerian liberals would learn something from what I have written here. If you do not think what I have written makes much sense, we have the record of 1,400 years of radical Islamic activities around the world. Do the study and come to your own conclusions.
Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached at [email protected]
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