Although for us who live in the, West the threat that Islam and Islamic violence poses to us and our nations is our primary concern, we should not forget that Islam also produces individuals who behave in a bestial manner elsewhere in the world. Whilst many who live in places like the United Kingdom and the United States are aware of the atrocities that Islam inspires in places like Sri Lanka, Pakistan, the Far East, the Middle East and in Nigeria, there are other jihads happening that are equally as murderous.
One such area of the world that is being increasingly afflicted by jihad and by violent Islam is the landlocked African country of Burkina Faso on the West of the continent. In this nation, a former French colony with a religious split of 60.5 Islam to 23.2 Christian (the remainder made up of traditional tribal beliefs), violent Islam has started to impinge on the life of its citizens.
According to a report published on an Indian news site Business Standard (h/t ROP), a Jihadist group attacked a school, murdering six people. The group that carried out this attack may well be one of the two main troubling groups, the Ansarul Islam group and the Group to Support Islam and Muslims (GSIM). These groups have been the main cause of the jihad deaths of about 350 Burkina Faso citizens since 2015.
The Business Standard said that the attacks happened on Friday night when armed men burst into a school and killed five of the school’s teachers. The jihadi savages then went on to kill another person, a local municipal worker, who was murdered nearby.
The targeting of school teachers looks to me to be reminiscent of the sort of tactic that the Boko Haram group has used in Nigeria. The jihadist Boko Haram group have a burning hatred of Western style education and this group’s attacks on schools in Nigeria has seen 57% of schools in Borno state, where Boko Haram are a particular problem, being forced to close. I fear that we may be seeing similar attacks motivated by the usual hate filled Islamic extremism now occurring in Burkina Faso.
If we are seeing targeted attacks on educational institutions and teachers, of the sort that we have seen in Nigeria,then this is an utter tragedy for Burkina Faso (formerly called the Republic of Upper Volta). This very poor nation’s citizens require education in order to pull themselves out of a poverty which has been compounded by decades of political and economic instability. This country that is cursed by geography with poor natural resources and food insecurity, really does not need the additional stress put upon it by attacks by violent Muslims.
Six more innocent people have died at the hands of those who follow an ideology that encourages and rewards savagery. This is both an individual human tragedy for the families of those who have lost loved ones in this attack and a social tragedy as it will no doubt make people nervous about getting an education.
There is a lesson that all should learn from this and other attacks by Islamic terror groups. This is that Islam, no matter where in the world it manifests itself, all too often is a threat to the society as a whole or to aspects of a society such as secular education. Islam does not build, it really only destroys and it has done or has tried to do so in almost every continent with the exception of Antarctica. If the Islamic terror groups in Burkina Faso are not defeated with extreme prejudice by the government, then they will destroy this nation and it will join the list of other nations and cultures that Islam has destroyed over the centuries.
