Tackling Boko Haram

A GLIMMER of hope has been shone on the fate of more than 200 missing Nigerian schoolgirls following the release of a video this morning. The video, which was obtained by the French News Agency AFP, shows about 130 of the girls wearing full length abayas and apparently praying. Speaking for 17 minutes the leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, claims that the girls, the majority of whom were Christian, have converted to Islam.
The plight of these girls has gripped the world. In a rare break from tradition the American First Lady, Michelle Obama, took the weekly Presidential address to appeal for help. The hashtag bringbackourgirls has become an international phenomena, with British Prime Minister David Cameron promoting it on national television.
The video released by Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is forbidden" has helped to galvanize the campaign. Already teams from the UK and USA are on the ground helping with the search for the girls, who were kidnapped on April 14th, and an Israeli counter-terrorism unit is reportedly on its way.
A number of observers have warned, however, that this international agenda has detracted from the larger scale threat posed by the group. Since January Boko Haram has been responsible for more than 1500 deaths in the area. In February they were reportedly responsible for the deaths of a 59 boys in a school in the northeast Nigerian town of Bama.
The French government has offered to host a summit with Nigeria and its neighbours to combat the threat which Boko Haram poses to the stability of the region. Speaking during a visit to the Azeri capital Baku on Saturday French President Hollande said: "With Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathon,  I have proposed to hold a meeting with the countries bordering Nigeria."
Nigerian Interior Minister Abba Moro has dismissed the terrorist group's video demands for a prisoner exchange, stating that it was "absurd" for them to set demands.
With the world now watching a meaningful solution to tackling Boko Haram is firmly on the agenda. By releasing the video, however, it appears as though they are prepared to use emotional blackmail to distract from their attempts to destabilise the region.
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The fall of a superpower

Has America’s role as the global moderator of all that is right been compromised beyond repair? That is the question which must surely be asked in the wake of recent events involving the world’s foremost superpower.

Rather than demonstrating its power America’s announcement on Tuesday that it would send a team to help find more than 200 missing Nigerian schoolgirls proved that it no longer has the teeth to act when needed.

The world has known since April 14th that the terrorist group Boko Haram kidnapped the girls from their school. The group, whose name translates loosely as “Western education is a sin”, was known to have been trading the girls into marriage and shipping them across the border. Yet the world, and in particular America, sat back and did nothing.

Nigeria’s own government, ostensibly fearful of reprisal from this increasingly powerful group, did little to take action, preferring to hope that the loss of so many young women would go unnoticed. They are fighting a rear guard action against extremism though. They are under constant fear of what the next atrocity will be. If allowing more than 200 young girls to be taken could be seen as a price to keep things from escalating then apparently it was a price they were willing to pay.

The West, however, is under no such constraints. America has time and again pledged its strength to root out extremism and fight for a moral cause. Why is it therefore that it did nothing until its hand was forced by a statement released by the group?

The same story has been repeated time and again. With Syria President Obama clearly stated that chemical weapons were a red line which could not be crossed. To do so would bring the wrath of the world down upon the Syrian government like so much biblical thunder. Chemical weapons have been used though and America and the West have done nothing. Refugees flood across the borders and many more are trapped inside besieged cities, waiting for the next dose of chemicals to fall upon them, and the West does nothing.

In Ukraine America made it clear that they would support the newly formed government and would take strong action if Russia was seen to be instigating aggression. Pro-separatist groups roam the streets, many equipped with Russian weaponry. Reports come in on a near daily basis of supposed Russian interference in the region. Crimea fell with Russian support and its people left Ukraine. Yet the West does nothing more than threaten sanctions which have already been demonstrated beyond a doubt not to work.

America, Britain, France, Germany et al cannot wage war on every country which they deem to have gone against their moral principles. The West cannot be the world’s police force. Imposing a different culture and identity on a people through force has already been proven to fail in Afghanistan and Iraq. To keep pretending, however, that the world has not changed, that the threat of force without the will to back it up and that the ability to do so even exists undermines any hope that a more rational approach to tackling increasing global unrest can ever be found.