TIME TO GIVE A DAMN By Emman Usman Shehu The name Patricia Hearst would not make meaning to most Nigerians, and in the same way the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA) would not trigger any sense of familiarity for them. In the early 70s though, a lot of Americans were forced to take note of both entities, in roughly the same context currently confronting Nigerians. The 60 and 70s witnessed a series of societal upheavals in Western Europe and the United States. In America the agitation against the segregation of blacks birthed the Civil Rights Movement which saw Martin Luther King Jnr emerging as one of the leaders, with his non-violent approach inspired by Mahatma Ghandi. Then there were those who preferred something more radical and wanted something that would overturn the general power structure. The Black Panthers chose a path of being militant and utilizing violent tactics, because they did not see anything wrong in using the same approach the system meted on them. But even amongst the whites, leftist ideologies were making some of the youths and intellectuals to challenge the established political leanings and the country’s involvement in Vietnam Thus emerged groups like the Weather Underground Organisation (Weathermen) and the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA). Europe, especially Germany, had its fair share of such urban guerilla movements including the Red Army Faction (RAF) whose core initiators trained in an LA Fatah camp in Jordan. Some of the groups used kidnappings as part of their terror tactics. The SLA kidnapped Patricia Hearst, heiress to the Hearst publishing fortune. For two months she was kept hungry, abused, brutalized and brainwashed with the anti-capitalist ideology of her captors. The resultant effect was that she changed her name, and even issued a derogatory statement against her family. One of the ways the SLA raised funds was through bank robberies. After one of such robberies, a security tape recording showed Hearst and her kidnappers in action. She was eventually arrested with some members of the group. She was arraigned for bank robbery, but her defence lawyer argued that she had committed the crime because of the circumstance of her captivity, whereby her state of mind had been altered. The Hearst case again brought to public attention the issue of captive-bonding, more popularly known as Stockholm syndrome. It is a psychological phenomenon that explains the empathy and sympathy hostages have for their captors, and is considered a form of traumatic bonding. The term was coined after an attempted bank robbery in Stockholm, Sweden in August, 1973. For six days there was a standoff, as two robbers held several bank employees hostage in the bank’s vault, strapping them with explosives. The hostages subsequently fought off the police who tried to rescue them, and blame the police instead of their captors. Even after being freed, one of the hostages funded the legal defence of their captors. Thus the classic captor-prisoner phenomenon finally found a name. For 116 days, 219 school girls from Chibok have remained captives, most likely in Sambisa forest. Unlike Hearst and the Stockholm bankers, the girls’ conditions of captivity are less favourable, far from any urban environment. Thus the classic traits of capture-bonding – uneven power relationship between captor and captive, threats of physical injury or death, and instinctive self-preservation acts by the captive – are bound to highly manifest. In a two day period during the recent Sallah festivities, four bomb blasts occurred in Kano, signaling a new ugly dimension in the Boko Haram insurgency. The suicide bombers were females. For those who have kept close tabs on Boko Haram, this step up is not surprising. It has not only evolved from a rag-tag group of zealots, but it has also shown strategic progression in deploying tactics, a situation that left the Nigerian security agencies on a frustrating back foot. The use of female bombers is known to be a dangerous step up for insurgents. The insurgencies in Lebanon, Palestine, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya, South East Asia, and closer home in Somalia, have taken advantage of this lethal tactical concept. A suicide bomber requires little training and the mobility factor ensures not only maximum efficiency, but the point of attack can be adjusted to fit an immediate challenge. The female factor adds both the element of surprise and the enhanced possibility of evading detection because of several cultural and religious norms. Female suicide bombers are basically of two types. There are the so-called “willing warriors”, whose motives are essentially to avenge a personal loss brought upon by the oppressive tactics of the military. Most women who became suicide bombers from Lebanon to Iraq, were on a mission of revenge. Then there are those who fit into the Hearst paradigm. Those who have been kidnapped but in the period of captivity became sympathetic to the cause of their captors. Unfortunately from the remains of one of the female bombers in Kano, there is a growing feeling that the facial features resemble those of an abducted Chibok girl. There are some worrisome developments from the recent Kano bombings. It could be that Boko Haram is deploying an army of female suicide bombers across the country, in cells that would be activated when the need arises. The group has already shown that it is capable of creating sleeper cells. What happened in Kano could have been a test run, given that despite alerts within the period, the bombers reached their supposed targets with relative ease. It is also a situation that totally alters the security architecture which until now has been more favourable to the elites, especially those in leadership positions. That is about to drastically change. Despite the high security cover at his disposal, a female suicide bomber accounted for the life of India’s former Prime Minister, Rajiv Ghandi, on May 21, 1991, along with fourteen others in his entourage. The efficient deployment of female suicide bombers, and that the insurgency has reached this alarming stage, should be a nightmare in official circles. The safety margin for most Nigerians, especially those in authority, has seriously narrowed making convoys very vulnerable. It is time to give a damn about getting those abducted girls out of the maniacal hands of Boko Haram. There can be no more tenable excuses. The reality is that, as of now, there is no evidence of an ongoing rescue operation. Not even a whisper. A few days ago President Jonathan mentioned, in America, that negotiations are going on through third parties. The statement did not register any conviction with the Americans as evidenced by the weighty editorial in USA Today. As usual, Reuben Abati has taken up the gauntlet in his boss’s defence by saying that only irresponsible people would claim that there is no rescue operation. Both Jonathan and Abati need to be reminded that it is the height of irresponsibility to play politics with the lives of 219 teenage schoolgirls. The mere fact that the identity of the negotiators, at least for the sake of verification, could not be mentioned, confirms the growing notion that nothing is happening by way of a rescue. There is the feeling also that negotiations have been hampered because most of those in government’s custody cannot be legitimately accounted for, so there is nothing to offer for a tangible swap. In this context, the Kano bombings could be a message from Boko Haram that its patience is running out. Every day those girls remain as captives in a highly hostile environment, the possibility of their being unleashed on a country that has failed them mounts. The country failed to protect them as students, and it has also failed them in their greatest hour of need as captives in the hands of heartless terrorists. The authorities should not hope that in some spectacular way, the captives will out of their own desperate design, find a way of escaping. That is not only a misplaced hope, but a cruel way to handle the fate of bona fide citizens. It is time to give a damn about rescuing the girls before Sambisa becomes a new synonym for Stockholm syndrome. It is time to ensure the girls do not come back as mobile explosive devices. newtelegraphonline/time-to-give-a-damn/
Posted on: Fri, 08 Aug 2014 08:26:45 +0000
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