Juan Cole: Nigeria's Boko Haram is about Vengeance, not Islam

Gregory Alonso Pirio writes that Nigeria's Boko Haram is about Vengeance, not Islam.

So many people are scratching their heads as they search for an explanation for the extreme acts of violence meted out by such groups as the Nigerian jihadist organization, Boko Haram, and its now allied Middle Eastern Islamic State or ISIS.

Often in normal conversation, people will pull out an explanation, seemingly out of the air, that Islam as a religion lends itself to violence. The facile reasoning does not synch with historic fact certainly for Violent Extremist Organizations (VEOs) that I am familiar with in sub-Saharan Africa. My research on Boko Haram, for instance, shows that the driver of jihadist violence is a narrative of vengeance that was adopted in response to state violence. Historically, this may be true of several other VEOs in sub-Saharan Africa whose radicalization followed a massacre committed by government security forces against peaceful reform-oriented Islamist movements. Such has been the case in Somalia, Uganda and Tanzania.

Emphasis Mine

Admitting the state role in creating these VEOs runs counter to the dominant discourse that the state is defending us against the existential threat of Radical Islam.

The existence of a state is for the protection of the interests of the ruling class. The state is the only legal organ of violence. The state will do whatever it takes to survive.

Because of this, there will be no peacefull transfer of power from the Capitalists to the Workers.