Read Online The Tenth Parallel: Dispatches From the Fault Line Between Christianity and Islam by Eliza Griswold - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Eliza Griswold
Tags: Religión, General, Islam, Political Science, Christianity, Comparative Religion, Religion; Politics & State, Relations, Islam - Relations - Christianity, Christianity and Other Religions - Islam, Christianity and Other Religions
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people killed that day.
“This is about religious intolerance,” he went on. “Our God is different than the Muslim God . . . If he were the same God, we wouldn’tfight.” For Pastor Wuyep, the clash was grounded in Christian scripture. “It’s scriptural, this fight,” he said. “The Bible says in Matthew 24, the time will come when they will pursue us in our churches.” Wuyep and his followers, like many conservative Christians, believed that Jesus Christ wouldreturn to earth after one thousand years of bloodshed and war. This was the doctrine of premillennialismas foretold in Matthew 24. They believed the chaos of the Tribulation would precede the world’s end and herald Christ’s return. Because they believed they were living during last days, the Christians found meaning in their suffering, and in their own violence.
A few hundred yards down the road from the church is a cornfield, and in it a row of mounds: more mass graves. Green-and-white signs tallythe piles of Muslims buried below: 110, 50, 65, 100, 55, 25, 60, 20, 40, 105. Two months after the church was razed, Christian men and boys surrounded Yelwa. Many were bare-chested; others wore shirts on which they had reportedly pinned white name tags from the Christian Association of Nigeria, an umbrella organization founded in the 1970s to give Christians a unified voice as strong as thatof Muslims. Each tag had a number instead of a name: an identification code. They attacked the town. According to Human Rights Watch, 660 Muslims were massacred over the course of the next two days, including the patients in the al-Amin clinic. Twelve mosques and 300 houses went up in flames. Young girls were marched to a nearby Christian town and forced to eat pork and drink alcohol. Many were raped,and 50 were killed. 2
Yelwa was still a ghost town in 2006. In block after burned-out block, people camped where their homes had stood. The road was lined with more than a dozen ruined mosques and churches, the rubble hidden by hip-high elephant grass and canary yellow morning glories climbing the old foundations. When I arrived at the home of Abdullahi Abdullahi, the Muslim human rights lawyer,his street was mostly deserted. He stooped on his way out of a low-ceilinged hut. Behind him, I could see the sour faces of a man and woman sitting on the floor by his desk. “Marital dispute,” he said.
It was the rainy season, so I waited out the noon deluge in another small lean-to on his compound. Finally, Abdullahi ducked inside, a worn accordion file under his arm. His wife followed, carryinga pot of spaghetti, its steam rising against the cold, wet air. In the beginning, he explained, the conflict in Nigeria had nothing whatsoever to do with religion. “Let me give myself as a case study,” Abdullahi said. He went to Christian mission schools and federal college, and never, as a Muslim, had any problem. “Throughout this period, I’d never seen religious segregation, because at thattime the societal value system was intact. We were taughtto respect each other’s beliefs and customs.” But as the population grew and resources shrank, people began to fight over who had come to Yelwa first, and who had arrived more recently as a “settler.” Abdullahi held up an old sheet of newsprint on which an editorial’s headline read, “We Are All Settlers!” Everyone who lived here came fromsomewhere else; everyone had settled.
Both sides had perpetrated atrocities, he admitted. “We could not control our own boys.” Outside in the courtyard, three of the local “boys”—men, actually—sat against the hut shivering against the cold rain of the plateau in thin, well-pressed shirts. I wanted to know if they thought this was really about religion.
“Any Muslim struggling to protect himselfis fighting in a jihad,” Lawal, a thirty-nine-year-old headmaster, said. His cheeks were cut deep with three slashes; they looked like a cat’s whiskers. He was wearing a purple
“This is about religious intolerance,” he went on. “Our God is different than the Muslim God . . . If he were the same God, we wouldn’tfight.” For Pastor Wuyep, the clash was grounded in Christian scripture. “It’s scriptural, this fight,” he said. “The Bible says in Matthew 24, the time will come when they will pursue us in our churches.” Wuyep and his followers, like many conservative Christians, believed that Jesus Christ wouldreturn to earth after one thousand years of bloodshed and war. This was the doctrine of premillennialismas foretold in Matthew 24. They believed the chaos of the Tribulation would precede the world’s end and herald Christ’s return. Because they believed they were living during last days, the Christians found meaning in their suffering, and in their own violence.
A few hundred yards down the road from the church is a cornfield, and in it a row of mounds: more mass graves. Green-and-white signs tallythe piles of Muslims buried below: 110, 50, 65, 100, 55, 25, 60, 20, 40, 105. Two months after the church was razed, Christian men and boys surrounded Yelwa. Many were bare-chested; others wore shirts on which they had reportedly pinned white name tags from the Christian Association of Nigeria, an umbrella organization founded in the 1970s to give Christians a unified voice as strong as thatof Muslims. Each tag had a number instead of a name: an identification code. They attacked the town. According to Human Rights Watch, 660 Muslims were massacred over the course of the next two days, including the patients in the al-Amin clinic. Twelve mosques and 300 houses went up in flames. Young girls were marched to a nearby Christian town and forced to eat pork and drink alcohol. Many were raped,and 50 were killed. 2
Yelwa was still a ghost town in 2006. In block after burned-out block, people camped where their homes had stood. The road was lined with more than a dozen ruined mosques and churches, the rubble hidden by hip-high elephant grass and canary yellow morning glories climbing the old foundations. When I arrived at the home of Abdullahi Abdullahi, the Muslim human rights lawyer,his street was mostly deserted. He stooped on his way out of a low-ceilinged hut. Behind him, I could see the sour faces of a man and woman sitting on the floor by his desk. “Marital dispute,” he said.
It was the rainy season, so I waited out the noon deluge in another small lean-to on his compound. Finally, Abdullahi ducked inside, a worn accordion file under his arm. His wife followed, carryinga pot of spaghetti, its steam rising against the cold, wet air. In the beginning, he explained, the conflict in Nigeria had nothing whatsoever to do with religion. “Let me give myself as a case study,” Abdullahi said. He went to Christian mission schools and federal college, and never, as a Muslim, had any problem. “Throughout this period, I’d never seen religious segregation, because at thattime the societal value system was intact. We were taughtto respect each other’s beliefs and customs.” But as the population grew and resources shrank, people began to fight over who had come to Yelwa first, and who had arrived more recently as a “settler.” Abdullahi held up an old sheet of newsprint on which an editorial’s headline read, “We Are All Settlers!” Everyone who lived here came fromsomewhere else; everyone had settled.
Both sides had perpetrated atrocities, he admitted. “We could not control our own boys.” Outside in the courtyard, three of the local “boys”—men, actually—sat against the hut shivering against the cold rain of the plateau in thin, well-pressed shirts. I wanted to know if they thought this was really about religion.
“Any Muslim struggling to protect himselfis fighting in a jihad,” Lawal, a thirty-nine-year-old headmaster, said. His cheeks were cut deep with three slashes; they looked like a cat’s whiskers. He was wearing a purple
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