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11-Jan-18 World View -- Tit-for-tat violence between Nigeria's Muslim herders and Christian farmers becomes more serious


Nigeria searches for solutions to problem of herders vs farmers

** 11-Jan-18 World View -- Tit-for-tat violence between Nigeria's Muslim herders and Christian farmers becomes more serious
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/pg/ ... tm#e180111



Contents:
Tit-for-tat violence between Nigeria's Muslim herders and Christian farmers becomes more serious
Nigeria searches for solutions to problem of herders vs farmers


Keys:
Generational Dynamics, Nigeria, Benue State, Muhammadu Buhari,
Hausa, Faluni tribe, Tiv tribe, Mambila tribe, Bachama tribe,
Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, MACBAN,
Anti-Grazing law, cattle colonies

Territory folks should stick together, territory folks should all be pals.

There's a bright golden haze on the meadow ...

I assume the Biafran War was the last Crisis War. How does this fit in with what is happening now?

Tom Mazanec wrote: > I assume the Biafran War was the last Crisis War. How does this
> fit in with what is happening now?

The cycle is repeating with periods of low-level violence alternating
with periods of "peace," going on for decades. Each period of
violence is worse than the previous one, until a Crisis era regeneracy
is reached, and then it spirals into full-scale civil war.

This brings to mind "Oklahoma", but no one is singing. Gordon MacGrae and Shirley Jones will not ride into the sunset in the surrey with the fringe on top.
The land I imagine the grazers being allotted roughly resembles my neighbor's lawn last summer after the sod web worm attack. Wonder if any tribe will think ahead to food shortages if this generational stupidity continues.
John, how much if this is territorial/economic and how much religious enmity?

sue wrote:This brings to mind "Oklahoma", but no one is singing. Gordon MacGrae and Shirley Jones will not ride into the sunset in the surrey with the fringe on top.
The land I imagine the grazers being allotted roughly resembles my neighbor's lawn last summer after the sod web worm attack. Wonder if any tribe will think ahead to food shortages if this generational stupidity continues.
John, how much if this is territorial/economic and how much religious enmity?

You cannot separate these issues because in the minds of the locals it is all muddled together. Linguistic, ethnic, occupational and linguistic identities go together. Violence and killings are simultaneously an extension of the economic strife and revenge for the acts of the other side.

sue wrote: > This brings to mind "Oklahoma", but no one is singing. Gordon
> MacGrae and Shirley Jones will not ride into the sunset in the
> surrey with the fringe on top. The land I imagine the grazers
> being allotted roughly resembles my neighbor's lawn last summer
> after the sod web worm attack. Wonder if any tribe will think
> ahead to food shortages if this generational stupidity continues.
> John, how much if this is territorial/economic and how much
> religious enmity?

When economic problems get bad, people look for someone to blame. In
a generational Crisis era, this could grow into full-scale xenophobia
targeting another identity group, leading to a generational crisis
war.

Identity groups are defined by fault lines, separating groups by such
things as ethnic group, religion, skin color, geographical location,
language, even lifestyle.

The ethnic fault line is more powerful than the religion fault line
because you can theoretically change your religion, but you can't
change your ethnicity. However, often they coincide, because two
different ethnic groups usually have two different religions.

In the case of the identity groups in Nigeria, they actually coincide
in three ways -- ethnicity (Faluna vs Bachama), religion (Muslim vs
Christian), and lifestyle (herder vs farmer). In this case, it seems
that the lifestyle fault line is really driving things, even more than
religion or ethnicity.

John wrote:

sue wrote: The ethnic fault line is more powerful than the religion fault line
because you can theoretically change your religion, but you can't
change your ethnicity.

This is not always the case. Sometimes the ethnic groups look physically alike enough that people can pass as one or the other without being detected.

During WWII, many German Americans simply hid the fact that they were (or at any rate had been) Germans. Japanese Americans had more difficulty in this endeavour, although some did try to pass as Chinese. Chinese fortune cookies were invented by a Japanese man in the US during WWII.

In the case of Nigerian tribes, my guess is that the ethnic deference is small enough that a member of one tribe could pass for a member of another, if he could get over the linguistic, religious, and cultural issues. This is not likely to happen much, but it is possible.

Nigeria is a real _____hole. Why is none of this surprising?