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Editor’s note: ‘Funmi Olonisakin is the founding director of the African Leadership Centre, and director of the Conflict, Security and Development Group, at King’s College London.

(CNN) — President Goodluck Jonathan’s response to the Boko Haram insurgency, including his recently declared state of emergency in three northern Nigerian states, is eerily reminiscent of previous approaches to sectarian violence in that region.

The Maitatsine uprising of 1980 is perhaps the single most important precedent-setting example. In December 1980, the confrontation between the Al-Masifu Islamic sect — which advocated purity in the practice of Islam — and the people of Kano came to a head. The Nigerian army and air force mounted a campaign against the sect. In the end, more than 4,000 people were dead with double this number injured alongside massive destruction of property.

Times have certainly changed. Nigeria’s population has doubled since the Maitatsine uprising. Nigeria continues to experience the “youth bulge” — a growing youth population — that was not planned for. The resulting pressure on socio-economic systems is evident in limited education and health and dwindling economic opportunities for young people.

Poor policies and bad planning have produced youth vulnerability and exclusion from mainstream life. This is doubly so in northern Nigeria, where class divides have further created a community of people with nothing to lose.

Read this: Nigerians ask, are we at war?

The global environment has also changed amid growing transnational threats. Al Qaeda continues to lurk in the neighborhood. Excluded groups in the region with affinity for Boko Haram are potential support networks amid an ever-rising flow of illicit weapons into the region.

One thing has hardly changed: elite behavior. Nigeria’s power elite remains far removed from the realities of life experienced by ordinary citizens.

2012: Who are Boko Haram?

Empowering Nigerian youth

Gadhafi’s end unleashes flood of weapons

The ruling elite’s framing of the Boko Haram challenge lends itself easily to just one set of responses — the use of force to rout Boko Haram, although more recently the federal government of Nigeria proposed an amnesty for Boko Haram.

To be certain, a military approach is only part of the solution. It is by no means a panacea. This military campaign, coupled with amnesty, rings hollow. It does not offer much hope for dealing comprehensively with the underlying causes of the Boko Haram phenomenon.

It is no wonder Boko Haram has treated the offer of amnesty by the Jonathan-led government with disdain. For one, it may be worth holding out for a greater prize, knowing that it probably has this regime by the jugular. Besides, how could it trust that the offer of amnesty — which will unveil Boko Haram — is not a ploy by the regime to round them up and execute them? The allegedly extra-judicial killing of the sect’s late leader, Mohammed Yusuf, serves as a constant warning.

Watch this: Who are Boko Haram?

Perhaps more importantly, this military solution and current state of emergency is potentially damaging for the military. The Nigerian military only recently managed to repair its image, winning accolades abroad for its peacekeeping role. Asking it to employ maximum force in internal operations — causing casualties in the process among the very people it is meant to protect — has repercussions. Surely, this will diminish its stature abroad and reduce citizens’ confidence in the military at home, while drawing more support to Boko Haram and weakening troops’ morale.

That said, it is also the case that Nigerians far removed from the locus of the crisis may not see the military’s role in such negative terms.

This crisis will potentially deepen religious and regional cleavages. Perhaps the country’s saving grace is that for the time being, Nigeria’s youth population mostly buys into these divides. They do not yet have a common narrative about who their “real enemy” is. Barring a small number of states, where genuine effort is being made to confront serious governance deficits, the picture of elite marginalization and widening inequality is consistent countrywide.

Spreading the wealth in Nigeria

Workers abducted in northern Nigeria

Boko Haram commands the loyalty of the excluded at several levels. At this moment, Boko Haram is obviously asserting influence, and that assertion of influence is accepted by a significant number of people who see no change in their primary condition.

This factor partly attracted large crowds to the preaching of Boko Haram’s late leader, Yusuf. His narratives about the ills of Western education were enriched by evident gaps in governance. The breakdown of the education system, growing youth unemployment and insecurity amid rampant corruption swelled the ranks of Boko Haram. When the sense of “nothing to lose” is mixed with these strong narratives, the issue is not whether or not they are true but that there are no strong counter-narratives or genuine counter actions.

A lasting solution to the crisis in northern Nigeria might lie in a missing trinity: a meaningful but powerful narrative to counter Boko Haram’s narrative; an action plan akin to a “Marshal Plan” for northern Nigeria; and isolation of what Jonathan has described as Boko Haram sympathizers in the government and security forces.

Developing a powerful counter narrative will demand a measure of sincerity and consistency among the country’s ruling elite. Such a narrative must stand up to the seeming lure of Boko Haram and have the ability to hold a young population captive for the foreseeable future.

An action plan akin to a Marshal Plan for northern Nigeria must be developed to suit the context. The federal government’s investment in regeneration of northern Nigeria, with a focus on youth sensitization, education and development of social and economic entrepreneurship, will be key. This might entail deliberate forms of youth cantonment, census-based planning, community-based programs, and innovative education schemes to kick start regeneration.

To be sure, an action plan for northern Nigeria will not be sustainable in an environment where youth exclusion is a countrywide problem even if it is more chronic in the north. Expressed intention to do this nationally in due course might persuade a captive youth audience.

The question remains as to whether alleged Boko Haram sympathizers among the elite can be dislodged from this process. This might be the single most important obstacle in a situation where retaining political power in 2015 seems more valuable to the regime than the welfare of a few million disposable citizens.

In the immediate term, we can expect the Nigerian military to record successes against the Boko Haram sect. But the victory will be hollow. Without the trinity of measures earlier described, Jonathan’s government risks sacrificing the ordinary people of northern Nigeria, the military’s reputation, and innocent bloodshed.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of ‘Funmi Olonisakin.

Article source: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/24/opinion/nigeria-boko-haram-funmi-olonisakin/index.html?eref=edition

Editor’s note: ‘Funmi Olonisakin is the founding director of the African Leadership Centre, and director of the Conflict, Security and Development Group, at King’s College London.

(CNN) — President Goodluck Jonathan’s response to the Boko Haram insurgency, including his recently declared state of emergency in three northern Nigerian states, is eerily reminiscent of previous approaches to sectarian violence in that region.

The Maitatsine uprising of 1980 is perhaps the single most important precedent-setting example. In December 1980, the confrontation between the Al-Masifu Islamic sect — which advocated purity in the practice of Islam — and the people of Kano came to a head. The Nigerian army and air force mounted a campaign against the sect. In the end, more than 4,000 people were dead with double this number injured alongside massive destruction of property.

Times have certainly changed. Nigeria’s population has doubled since the Maitatsine uprising. Nigeria continues to experience the “youth bulge” — a growing youth population — that was not planned for. The resulting pressure on socio-economic systems is evident in limited education and health and dwindling economic opportunities for young people.

Poor policies and bad planning have produced youth vulnerability and exclusion from mainstream life. This is doubly so in northern Nigeria, where class divides have further created a community of people with nothing to lose.

Read this: Nigerians ask, are we at war?

The global environment has also changed amid growing transnational threats. Al Qaeda continues to lurk in the neighborhood. Excluded groups in the region with affinity for Boko Haram are potential support networks amid an ever-rising flow of illicit weapons into the region.

One thing has hardly changed: elite behavior. Nigeria’s power elite remains far removed from the realities of life experienced by ordinary citizens.

2012: Who are Boko Haram?

Empowering Nigerian youth

Gadhafi’s end unleashes flood of weapons

The ruling elite’s framing of the Boko Haram challenge lends itself easily to just one set of responses — the use of force to rout Boko Haram, although more recently the federal government of Nigeria proposed an amnesty for Boko Haram.

To be certain, a military approach is only part of the solution. It is by no means a panacea. This military campaign, coupled with amnesty, rings hollow. It does not offer much hope for dealing comprehensively with the underlying causes of the Boko Haram phenomenon.

It is no wonder Boko Haram has treated the offer of amnesty by the Jonathan-led government with disdain. For one, it may be worth holding out for a greater prize, knowing that it probably has this regime by the jugular. Besides, how could it trust that the offer of amnesty — which will unveil Boko Haram — is not a ploy by the regime to round them up and execute them? The allegedly extra-judicial killing of the sect’s late leader, Mohammed Yusuf, serves as a constant warning.

Watch this: Who are Boko Haram?

Perhaps more importantly, this military solution and current state of emergency is potentially damaging for the military. The Nigerian military only recently managed to repair its image, winning accolades abroad for its peacekeeping role. Asking it to employ maximum force in internal operations — causing casualties in the process among the very people it is meant to protect — has repercussions. Surely, this will diminish its stature abroad and reduce citizens’ confidence in the military at home, while drawing more support to Boko Haram and weakening troops’ morale.

That said, it is also the case that Nigerians far removed from the locus of the crisis may not see the military’s role in such negative terms.

This crisis will potentially deepen religious and regional cleavages. Perhaps the country’s saving grace is that for the time being, Nigeria’s youth population mostly buys into these divides. They do not yet have a common narrative about who their “real enemy” is. Barring a small number of states, where genuine effort is being made to confront serious governance deficits, the picture of elite marginalization and widening inequality is consistent countrywide.

Spreading the wealth in Nigeria

Workers abducted in northern Nigeria

Boko Haram commands the loyalty of the excluded at several levels. At this moment, Boko Haram is obviously asserting influence, and that assertion of influence is accepted by a significant number of people who see no change in their primary condition.

This factor partly attracted large crowds to the preaching of Boko Haram’s late leader, Yusuf. His narratives about the ills of Western education were enriched by evident gaps in governance. The breakdown of the education system, growing youth unemployment and insecurity amid rampant corruption swelled the ranks of Boko Haram. When the sense of “nothing to lose” is mixed with these strong narratives, the issue is not whether or not they are true but that there are no strong counter-narratives or genuine counter actions.

A lasting solution to the crisis in northern Nigeria might lie in a missing trinity: a meaningful but powerful narrative to counter Boko Haram’s narrative; an action plan akin to a “Marshal Plan” for northern Nigeria; and isolation of what Jonathan has described as Boko Haram sympathizers in the government and security forces.

Developing a powerful counter narrative will demand a measure of sincerity and consistency among the country’s ruling elite. Such a narrative must stand up to the seeming lure of Boko Haram and have the ability to hold a young population captive for the foreseeable future.

An action plan akin to a Marshal Plan for northern Nigeria must be developed to suit the context. The federal government’s investment in regeneration of northern Nigeria, with a focus on youth sensitization, education and development of social and economic entrepreneurship, will be key. This might entail deliberate forms of youth cantonment, census-based planning, community-based programs, and innovative education schemes to kick start regeneration.

To be sure, an action plan for northern Nigeria will not be sustainable in an environment where youth exclusion is a countrywide problem even if it is more chronic in the north. Expressed intention to do this nationally in due course might persuade a captive youth audience.

The question remains as to whether alleged Boko Haram sympathizers among the elite can be dislodged from this process. This might be the single most important obstacle in a situation where retaining political power in 2015 seems more valuable to the regime than the welfare of a few million disposable citizens.

In the immediate term, we can expect the Nigerian military to record successes against the Boko Haram sect. But the victory will be hollow. Without the trinity of measures earlier described, Jonathan’s government risks sacrificing the ordinary people of northern Nigeria, the military’s reputation, and innocent bloodshed.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of ‘Funmi Olonisakin.

Article source: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/24/opinion/nigeria-boko-haram-funmi-olonisakin/index.html?eref=edition

Editor’s note: ‘Funmi Olonisakin is the founding director of the African Leadership Centre, and director of the Conflict, Security and Development Group, at King’s College London.

(CNN) — President Goodluck Jonathan’s response to the Boko Haram insurgency, including his recently declared state of emergency in three northern Nigerian states, is eerily reminiscent of previous approaches to sectarian violence in that region.

The Maitatsine uprising of 1980 is perhaps the single most important precedent-setting example. In December 1980, the confrontation between the Al-Masifu Islamic sect — which advocated purity in the practice of Islam — and the people of Kano came to a head. The Nigerian army and air force mounted a campaign against the sect. In the end, more than 4,000 people were dead with double this number injured alongside massive destruction of property.

Times have certainly changed. Nigeria’s population has doubled since the Maitatsine uprising. Nigeria continues to experience the “youth bulge” — a growing youth population — that was not planned for. The resulting pressure on socio-economic systems is evident in limited education and health and dwindling economic opportunities for young people.

Poor policies and bad planning have produced youth vulnerability and exclusion from mainstream life. This is doubly so in northern Nigeria, where class divides have further created a community of people with nothing to lose.

Read this: Nigerians ask, are we at war?

The global environment has also changed amid growing transnational threats. Al Qaeda continues to lurk in the neighborhood. Excluded groups in the region with affinity for Boko Haram are potential support networks amid an ever-rising flow of illicit weapons into the region.

One thing has hardly changed: elite behavior. Nigeria’s power elite remains far removed from the realities of life experienced by ordinary citizens.

2012: Who are Boko Haram?

Empowering Nigerian youth

Gadhafi’s end unleashes flood of weapons

The ruling elite’s framing of the Boko Haram challenge lends itself easily to just one set of responses — the use of force to rout Boko Haram, although more recently the federal government of Nigeria proposed an amnesty for Boko Haram.

To be certain, a military approach is only part of the solution. It is by no means a panacea. This military campaign, coupled with amnesty, rings hollow. It does not offer much hope for dealing comprehensively with the underlying causes of the Boko Haram phenomenon.

It is no wonder Boko Haram has treated the offer of amnesty by the Jonathan-led government with disdain. For one, it may be worth holding out for a greater prize, knowing that it probably has this regime by the jugular. Besides, how could it trust that the offer of amnesty — which will unveil Boko Haram — is not a ploy by the regime to round them up and execute them? The allegedly extra-judicial killing of the sect’s late leader, Mohammed Yusuf, serves as a constant warning.

Watch this: Who are Boko Haram?

Perhaps more importantly, this military solution and current state of emergency is potentially damaging for the military. The Nigerian military only recently managed to repair its image, winning accolades abroad for its peacekeeping role. Asking it to employ maximum force in internal operations — causing casualties in the process among the very people it is meant to protect — has repercussions. Surely, this will diminish its stature abroad and reduce citizens’ confidence in the military at home, while drawing more support to Boko Haram and weakening troops’ morale.

That said, it is also the case that Nigerians far removed from the locus of the crisis may not see the military’s role in such negative terms.

This crisis will potentially deepen religious and regional cleavages. Perhaps the country’s saving grace is that for the time being, Nigeria’s youth population mostly buys into these divides. They do not yet have a common narrative about who their “real enemy” is. Barring a small number of states, where genuine effort is being made to confront serious governance deficits, the picture of elite marginalization and widening inequality is consistent countrywide.

Spreading the wealth in Nigeria

Workers abducted in northern Nigeria

Boko Haram commands the loyalty of the excluded at several levels. At this moment, Boko Haram is obviously asserting influence, and that assertion of influence is accepted by a significant number of people who see no change in their primary condition.

This factor partly attracted large crowds to the preaching of Boko Haram’s late leader, Yusuf. His narratives about the ills of Western education were enriched by evident gaps in governance. The breakdown of the education system, growing youth unemployment and insecurity amid rampant corruption swelled the ranks of Boko Haram. When the sense of “nothing to lose” is mixed with these strong narratives, the issue is not whether or not they are true but that there are no strong counter-narratives or genuine counter actions.

A lasting solution to the crisis in northern Nigeria might lie in a missing trinity: a meaningful but powerful narrative to counter Boko Haram’s narrative; an action plan akin to a “Marshal Plan” for northern Nigeria; and isolation of what Jonathan has described as Boko Haram sympathizers in the government and security forces.

Developing a powerful counter narrative will demand a measure of sincerity and consistency among the country’s ruling elite. Such a narrative must stand up to the seeming lure of Boko Haram and have the ability to hold a young population captive for the foreseeable future.

An action plan akin to a Marshal Plan for northern Nigeria must be developed to suit the context. The federal government’s investment in regeneration of northern Nigeria, with a focus on youth sensitization, education and development of social and economic entrepreneurship, will be key. This might entail deliberate forms of youth cantonment, census-based planning, community-based programs, and innovative education schemes to kick start regeneration.

To be sure, an action plan for northern Nigeria will not be sustainable in an environment where youth exclusion is a countrywide problem even if it is more chronic in the north. Expressed intention to do this nationally in due course might persuade a captive youth audience.

The question remains as to whether alleged Boko Haram sympathizers among the elite can be dislodged from this process. This might be the single most important obstacle in a situation where retaining political power in 2015 seems more valuable to the regime than the welfare of a few million disposable citizens.

In the immediate term, we can expect the Nigerian military to record successes against the Boko Haram sect. But the victory will be hollow. Without the trinity of measures earlier described, Jonathan’s government risks sacrificing the ordinary people of northern Nigeria, the military’s reputation, and innocent bloodshed.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of ‘Funmi Olonisakin.

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/edition_world/~3/vh8hcSk_mSQ/index.html

Editor’s note: ‘Funmi Olonisakin is the founding director of the African Leadership Centre, and director of the Conflict, Security and Development Group, at King’s College London.

(CNN) — President Goodluck Jonathan’s response to the Boko Haram insurgency, including his recently declared state of emergency in three northern Nigerian states, is eerily reminiscent of previous approaches to sectarian violence in that region.

The Maitatsine uprising of 1980 is perhaps the single most important precedent-setting example. In December 1980, the confrontation between the Al-Masifu Islamic sect — which advocated purity in the practice of Islam — and the people of Kano came to a head. The Nigerian army and air force mounted a campaign against the sect. In the end, more than 4,000 people were dead with double this number injured alongside massive destruction of property.

Times have certainly changed. Nigeria’s population has doubled since the Maitatsine uprising. Nigeria continues to experience the “youth bulge” — a growing youth population — that was not planned for. The resulting pressure on socio-economic systems is evident in limited education and health and dwindling economic opportunities for young people.

Poor policies and bad planning have produced youth vulnerability and exclusion from mainstream life. This is doubly so in northern Nigeria, where class divides have further created a community of people with nothing to lose.

Read this: Nigerians ask, are we at war?

The global environment has also changed amid growing transnational threats. Al Qaeda continues to lurk in the neighborhood. Excluded groups in the region with affinity for Boko Haram are potential support networks amid an ever-rising flow of illicit weapons into the region.

One thing has hardly changed: elite behavior. Nigeria’s power elite remains far removed from the realities of life experienced by ordinary citizens.

2012: Who are Boko Haram?

Empowering Nigerian youth

Gadhafi’s end unleashes flood of weapons

The ruling elite’s framing of the Boko Haram challenge lends itself easily to just one set of responses — the use of force to rout Boko Haram, although more recently the federal government of Nigeria proposed an amnesty for Boko Haram.

To be certain, a military approach is only part of the solution. It is by no means a panacea. This military campaign, coupled with amnesty, rings hollow. It does not offer much hope for dealing comprehensively with the underlying causes of the Boko Haram phenomenon.

It is no wonder Boko Haram has treated the offer of amnesty by the Jonathan-led government with disdain. For one, it may be worth holding out for a greater prize, knowing that it probably has this regime by the jugular. Besides, how could it trust that the offer of amnesty — which will unveil Boko Haram — is not a ploy by the regime to round them up and execute them? The allegedly extra-judicial killing of the sect’s late leader, Mohammed Yusuf, serves as a constant warning.

Watch this: Who are Boko Haram?

Perhaps more importantly, this military solution and current state of emergency is potentially damaging for the military. The Nigerian military only recently managed to repair its image, winning accolades abroad for its peacekeeping role. Asking it to employ maximum force in internal operations — causing casualties in the process among the very people it is meant to protect — has repercussions. Surely, this will diminish its stature abroad and reduce citizens’ confidence in the military at home, while drawing more support to Boko Haram and weakening troops’ morale.

That said, it is also the case that Nigerians far removed from the locus of the crisis may not see the military’s role in such negative terms.

This crisis will potentially deepen religious and regional cleavages. Perhaps the country’s saving grace is that for the time being, Nigeria’s youth population mostly buys into these divides. They do not yet have a common narrative about who their “real enemy” is. Barring a small number of states, where genuine effort is being made to confront serious governance deficits, the picture of elite marginalization and widening inequality is consistent countrywide.

Spreading the wealth in Nigeria

Workers abducted in northern Nigeria

Boko Haram commands the loyalty of the excluded at several levels. At this moment, Boko Haram is obviously asserting influence, and that assertion of influence is accepted by a significant number of people who see no change in their primary condition.

This factor partly attracted large crowds to the preaching of Boko Haram’s late leader, Yusuf. His narratives about the ills of Western education were enriched by evident gaps in governance. The breakdown of the education system, growing youth unemployment and insecurity amid rampant corruption swelled the ranks of Boko Haram. When the sense of “nothing to lose” is mixed with these strong narratives, the issue is not whether or not they are true but that there are no strong counter-narratives or genuine counter actions.

A lasting solution to the crisis in northern Nigeria might lie in a missing trinity: a meaningful but powerful narrative to counter Boko Haram’s narrative; an action plan akin to a “Marshal Plan” for northern Nigeria; and isolation of what Jonathan has described as Boko Haram sympathizers in the government and security forces.

Developing a powerful counter narrative will demand a measure of sincerity and consistency among the country’s ruling elite. Such a narrative must stand up to the seeming lure of Boko Haram and have the ability to hold a young population captive for the foreseeable future.

An action plan akin to a Marshal Plan for northern Nigeria must be developed to suit the context. The federal government’s investment in regeneration of northern Nigeria, with a focus on youth sensitization, education and development of social and economic entrepreneurship, will be key. This might entail deliberate forms of youth cantonment, census-based planning, community-based programs, and innovative education schemes to kick start regeneration.

To be sure, an action plan for northern Nigeria will not be sustainable in an environment where youth exclusion is a countrywide problem even if it is more chronic in the north. Expressed intention to do this nationally in due course might persuade a captive youth audience.

The question remains as to whether alleged Boko Haram sympathizers among the elite can be dislodged from this process. This might be the single most important obstacle in a situation where retaining political power in 2015 seems more valuable to the regime than the welfare of a few million disposable citizens.

In the immediate term, we can expect the Nigerian military to record successes against the Boko Haram sect. But the victory will be hollow. Without the trinity of measures earlier described, Jonathan’s government risks sacrificing the ordinary people of northern Nigeria, the military’s reputation, and innocent bloodshed.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of ‘Funmi Olonisakin.

Article source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/edition_world/~3/vh8hcSk_mSQ/index.html

Editor’s note: ‘Funmi Olonisakin is the founding director of the African Leadership Centre, and director of the Conflict, Security and Development Group, at King’s College London.

(CNN) — President Goodluck Jonathan’s response to the Boko Haram insurgency, including his recently declared state of emergency in three northern Nigerian states, is eerily reminiscent of previous approaches to sectarian violence in that region.

The Maitatsine uprising of 1980 is perhaps the single most important precedent-setting example. In December 1980, the confrontation between the Al-Masifu Islamic sect — which advocated purity in the practice of Islam — and the people of Kano came to a head. The Nigerian army and air force mounted a campaign against the sect. In the end, more than 4,000 people were dead with double this number injured alongside massive destruction of property.

Times have certainly changed. Nigeria’s population has doubled since the Maitatsine uprising. Nigeria continues to experience the “youth bulge” — a growing youth population — that was not planned for. The resulting pressure on socio-economic systems is evident in limited education and health and dwindling economic opportunities for young people.

Poor policies and bad planning have produced youth vulnerability and exclusion from mainstream life. This is doubly so in northern Nigeria, where class divides have further created a community of people with nothing to lose.

Read this: Nigerians ask, are we at war?

The global environment has also changed amid growing transnational threats. Al Qaeda continues to lurk in the neighborhood. Excluded groups in the region with affinity for Boko Haram are potential support networks amid an ever-rising flow of illicit weapons into the region.

One thing has hardly changed: elite behavior. Nigeria’s power elite remains far removed from the realities of life experienced by ordinary citizens.

2012: Who are Boko Haram?

Empowering Nigerian youth

Gadhafi’s end unleashes flood of weapons

The ruling elite’s framing of the Boko Haram challenge lends itself easily to just one set of responses — the use of force to rout Boko Haram, although more recently the federal government of Nigeria proposed an amnesty for Boko Haram.

To be certain, a military approach is only part of the solution. It is by no means a panacea. This military campaign, coupled with amnesty, rings hollow. It does not offer much hope for dealing comprehensively with the underlying causes of the Boko Haram phenomenon.

It is no wonder Boko Haram has treated the offer of amnesty by the Jonathan-led government with disdain. For one, it may be worth holding out for a greater prize, knowing that it probably has this regime by the jugular. Besides, how could it trust that the offer of amnesty — which will unveil Boko Haram — is not a ploy by the regime to round them up and execute them? The allegedly extra-judicial killing of the sect’s late leader, Mohammed Yusuf, serves as a constant warning.

Watch this: Who are Boko Haram?

Perhaps more importantly, this military solution and current state of emergency is potentially damaging for the military. The Nigerian military only recently managed to repair its image, winning accolades abroad for its peacekeeping role. Asking it to employ maximum force in internal operations — causing casualties in the process among the very people it is meant to protect — has repercussions. Surely, this will diminish its stature abroad and reduce citizens’ confidence in the military at home, while drawing more support to Boko Haram and weakening troops’ morale.

That said, it is also the case that Nigerians far removed from the locus of the crisis may not see the military’s role in such negative terms.

This crisis will potentially deepen religious and regional cleavages. Perhaps the country’s saving grace is that for the time being, Nigeria’s youth population mostly buys into these divides. They do not yet have a common narrative about who their “real enemy” is. Barring a small number of states, where genuine effort is being made to confront serious governance deficits, the picture of elite marginalization and widening inequality is consistent countrywide.

Spreading the wealth in Nigeria

Workers abducted in northern Nigeria

Boko Haram commands the loyalty of the excluded at several levels. At this moment, Boko Haram is obviously asserting influence, and that assertion of influence is accepted by a significant number of people who see no change in their primary condition.

This factor partly attracted large crowds to the preaching of Boko Haram’s late leader, Yusuf. His narratives about the ills of Western education were enriched by evident gaps in governance. The breakdown of the education system, growing youth unemployment and insecurity amid rampant corruption swelled the ranks of Boko Haram. When the sense of “nothing to lose” is mixed with these strong narratives, the issue is not whether or not they are true but that there are no strong counter-narratives or genuine counter actions.

A lasting solution to the crisis in northern Nigeria might lie in a missing trinity: a meaningful but powerful narrative to counter Boko Haram’s narrative; an action plan akin to a “Marshal Plan” for northern Nigeria; and isolation of what Jonathan has described as Boko Haram sympathizers in the government and security forces.

Developing a powerful counter narrative will demand a measure of sincerity and consistency among the country’s ruling elite. Such a narrative must stand up to the seeming lure of Boko Haram and have the ability to hold a young population captive for the foreseeable future.

An action plan akin to a Marshal Plan for northern Nigeria must be developed to suit the context. The federal government’s investment in regeneration of northern Nigeria, with a focus on youth sensitization, education and development of social and economic entrepreneurship, will be key. This might entail deliberate forms of youth cantonment, census-based planning, community-based programs, and innovative education schemes to kick start regeneration.

To be sure, an action plan for northern Nigeria will not be sustainable in an environment where youth exclusion is a countrywide problem even if it is more chronic in the north. Expressed intention to do this nationally in due course might persuade a captive youth audience.

The question remains as to whether alleged Boko Haram sympathizers among the elite can be dislodged from this process. This might be the single most important obstacle in a situation where retaining political power in 2015 seems more valuable to the regime than the welfare of a few million disposable citizens.

In the immediate term, we can expect the Nigerian military to record successes against the Boko Haram sect. But the victory will be hollow. Without the trinity of measures earlier described, Jonathan’s government risks sacrificing the ordinary people of northern Nigeria, the military’s reputation, and innocent bloodshed.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of ‘Funmi Olonisakin.

Article source: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/24/opinion/nigeria-boko-haram-funmi-olonisakin/index.html?eref=edition

Editor’s note: ‘Funmi Olonisakin is the founding director of the African Leadership Centre, and director of the Conflict, Security and Development Group, at King’s College London.

(CNN) — President Goodluck Jonathan’s response to the Boko Haram insurgency, including his recently declared state of emergency in three northern Nigerian states, is eerily reminiscent of previous approaches to sectarian violence in that region.

The Maitatsine uprising of 1980 is perhaps the single most important precedent-setting example. In December 1980, the confrontation between the Al-Masifu Islamic sect — which advocated purity in the practice of Islam — and the people of Kano came to a head. The Nigerian army and air force mounted a campaign against the sect. In the end, more than 4,000 people were dead with double this number injured alongside massive destruction of property.

Times have certainly changed. Nigeria’s population has doubled since the Maitatsine uprising. Nigeria continues to experience the “youth bulge” — a growing youth population — that was not planned for. The resulting pressure on socio-economic systems is evident in limited education and health and dwindling economic opportunities for young people.

Poor policies and bad planning have produced youth vulnerability and exclusion from mainstream life. This is doubly so in northern Nigeria, where class divides have further created a community of people with nothing to lose.

Read this: Nigerians ask, are we at war?

The global environment has also changed amid growing transnational threats. Al Qaeda continues to lurk in the neighborhood. Excluded groups in the region with affinity for Boko Haram are potential support networks amid an ever-rising flow of illicit weapons into the region.

One thing has hardly changed: elite behavior. Nigeria’s power elite remains far removed from the realities of life experienced by ordinary citizens.

2012: Who are Boko Haram?

Empowering Nigerian youth

Gadhafi’s end unleashes flood of weapons

The ruling elite’s framing of the Boko Haram challenge lends itself easily to just one set of responses — the use of force to rout Boko Haram, although more recently the federal government of Nigeria proposed an amnesty for Boko Haram.

To be certain, a military approach is only part of the solution. It is by no means a panacea. This military campaign, coupled with amnesty, rings hollow. It does not offer much hope for dealing comprehensively with the underlying causes of the Boko Haram phenomenon.

It is no wonder Boko Haram has treated the offer of amnesty by the Jonathan-led government with disdain. For one, it may be worth holding out for a greater prize, knowing that it probably has this regime by the jugular. Besides, how could it trust that the offer of amnesty — which will unveil Boko Haram — is not a ploy by the regime to round them up and execute them? The allegedly extra-judicial killing of the sect’s late leader, Mohammed Yusuf, serves as a constant warning.

Watch this: Who are Boko Haram?

Perhaps more importantly, this military solution and current state of emergency is potentially damaging for the military. The Nigerian military only recently managed to repair its image, winning accolades abroad for its peacekeeping role. Asking it to employ maximum force in internal operations — causing casualties in the process among the very people it is meant to protect — has repercussions. Surely, this will diminish its stature abroad and reduce citizens’ confidence in the military at home, while drawing more support to Boko Haram and weakening troops’ morale.

That said, it is also the case that Nigerians far removed from the locus of the crisis may not see the military’s role in such negative terms.

This crisis will potentially deepen religious and regional cleavages. Perhaps the country’s saving grace is that for the time being, Nigeria’s youth population mostly buys into these divides. They do not yet have a common narrative about who their “real enemy” is. Barring a small number of states, where genuine effort is being made to confront serious governance deficits, the picture of elite marginalization and widening inequality is consistent countrywide.

Spreading the wealth in Nigeria

Workers abducted in northern Nigeria

Boko Haram commands the loyalty of the excluded at several levels. At this moment, Boko Haram is obviously asserting influence, and that assertion of influence is accepted by a significant number of people who see no change in their primary condition.

This factor partly attracted large crowds to the preaching of Boko Haram’s late leader, Yusuf. His narratives about the ills of Western education were enriched by evident gaps in governance. The breakdown of the education system, growing youth unemployment and insecurity amid rampant corruption swelled the ranks of Boko Haram. When the sense of “nothing to lose” is mixed with these strong narratives, the issue is not whether or not they are true but that there are no strong counter-narratives or genuine counter actions.

A lasting solution to the crisis in northern Nigeria might lie in a missing trinity: a meaningful but powerful narrative to counter Boko Haram’s narrative; an action plan akin to a “Marshal Plan” for northern Nigeria; and isolation of what Jonathan has described as Boko Haram sympathizers in the government and security forces.

Developing a powerful counter narrative will demand a measure of sincerity and consistency among the country’s ruling elite. Such a narrative must stand up to the seeming lure of Boko Haram and have the ability to hold a young population captive for the foreseeable future.

An action plan akin to a Marshal Plan for northern Nigeria must be developed to suit the context. The federal government’s investment in regeneration of northern Nigeria, with a focus on youth sensitization, education and development of social and economic entrepreneurship, will be key. This might entail deliberate forms of youth cantonment, census-based planning, community-based programs, and innovative education schemes to kick start regeneration.

To be sure, an action plan for northern Nigeria will not be sustainable in an environment where youth exclusion is a countrywide problem even if it is more chronic in the north. Expressed intention to do this nationally in due course might persuade a captive youth audience.

The question remains as to whether alleged Boko Haram sympathizers among the elite can be dislodged from this process. This might be the single most important obstacle in a situation where retaining political power in 2015 seems more valuable to the regime than the welfare of a few million disposable citizens.

In the immediate term, we can expect the Nigerian military to record successes against the Boko Haram sect. But the victory will be hollow. Without the trinity of measures earlier described, Jonathan’s government risks sacrificing the ordinary people of northern Nigeria, the military’s reputation, and innocent bloodshed.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of ‘Funmi Olonisakin.

Article source: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/24/opinion/nigeria-boko-haram-funmi-olonisakin/index.html?eref=edition

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Syrian political cartoonist Ali Ferzat, shown earlier this month at the Oslo Freedom Forum, says pens have the power to topple dictators. The self-taught artist has mocked authority since he was a young boy.

Ferzat was attacked in Damascus in 2011. His hands were broken so that he wouldn’t be able to draw again, he said. The cartoonist left the country to get needed medical treatment.

The artist, who now lives outside Syria, protests the violence in April 2012. He remains optimistic about the torn nation’s future.

Initially, Ferzat’s cartoons depicted nameless people. Over time, he started drawing identifiable images of Syrian leaders to mock them directly.

Ferzat began drawing at a relatively young age. His cartoons have been published internationally. He’s convinced he will return to his country one day.

Ferzat said this image led to him being attacked in Syria in 2011. It shows Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad trying to hitchhike out of the country with Libya’s former leader, Moammar Gadhafi.

Syrian artist Ali Farzat at an exhibition of his cartoon paintings. Protesters and rebels alike have carried printouts of his work.

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Editor’s note: John D. Sutter is a columnist at CNN Opinion, covering human rights. E-mail him at CTL@CNN.com or follow him on Twitter (@jdsutter), Facebook or Google+.

Oslo, Norway (CNN) — The masked henchmen grabbed three fingers on each of the Syrian political cartoonist’s hands and pulled them back all the way — so far that they cracked.

“Break his arms so that he doesn’t ever draw again,” one said.

Ali Ferzat — the cartoonist who described the 2011 attack to me in a recent interview — soon found himself bleeding and left for dead near the Damascus airport. His assailants, who he believes were acting on behalf of the Syrian regime, dragged him alongside a moving car. His head and shoulder bounced on the pavement and then the men shoved him out of the vehicle, dumping him on the side of the road.

Ferzat wondered if he would live, let alone draw again.

It would be months before he would learn the second answer.

Before I’d heard these and the other horrifying details of this attack against one of the Arab world’s most notable artists, I asked Ferzat — an Arab-Santa-looking character with a smile that could cheer up Tilda Swinton — if he was sure his hands were broken to stop him from drawing cartoons critical of Syria’s leader, Bashar al-Assad.

His answer made me laugh.

“Obviously,” he said. “What do I look like to you, a chef?”

Syrian forces pound rebel stronghold

Al-Assad: I’ll consider talks, but …

Saving Syria’s heart

I met Ferzat in at the Oslo Freedom Forum, a gathering of dissidents and human rights activists, where he received the Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent. Being in his presence was the human-rights nerd version of a basketball fan meeting LeBron. But what impressed me most about Ferzat is that he’s maintained his wit and cheer despite the darkness that has fallen on him and on his country, which is in the grips of an intractable two-year war that’s killed an estimated 80,000 people.

He is almost naively optimistic about Syria’s future. And it’s infectious. The rest of Syria’s opposition should take note. As his story shows, the true strength of a revolution is in its ideas — in nonviolent actions such as drawing truth to power.

Dictators do have reason to be scared of cartoons.

That’s why Ferzat’s hands became some of the most feared objects in Syria.

“They came after me,” he said. “Obviously (cartooning) has power.”

The self-taught artist, who’s in his early 60s, has been using them to mock authority since he was a young boy — first imitating cartoons he admired and then creating satire of his own. He went pro in the 1970s, gaining notoriety for publishing cartoons domestically and internationally. Back then, before the current war, Ferzat never dared to depict specific people in his cartoons. He drew autocrats and dictators, but they never looked like real, identifiable people. He did it to avoid censorship or retaliation.

But that was before the war — before reports emerged, in May 2011, that a 13-year-old had been tortured and killed in Daraa, Syria. Stories like those of Hamza Ali al-Khateeb’s death, which reportedly involved his genitals being mutilated, pushed Ferzat across a threshold. He started to draw exact likeness of al-Assad in his satire. Enough was enough.

His pen would hold no punches.

Ferzat drew al-Assad standing on the side of the road with his thumb in the air, ready to hitchhike out of Syria. A crazed Moammar Gadhafi, who was still alive at the time but later would be killed in Libya’s uprising, was driving a getaway car.

The message was clear: Syria’s leader had to go.

That was the image, he told me, that led to his attack on August 25, 2011. Ferzat’s animated demeanor — his eyebrows bounce when he talks and his hands, now unbandaged, gesture wildly — flattened as he told me the story.

That day, a white car with darkly tinted windows followed him out of the studio before dawn. He’s been working there by candlelight to avoid detection. Frightened by the car, he drove to the center of Damascus, to a square he knew to be home to government buildings and the president’s palace. The car followed and crashed into him at the square, he said, forcing him stop. Three men emerged and yanked off the doors of Ferzat’s car. They pulled him from it, beat him with crowd-control batons and then yanked plastic handcuffs around his wrists.

“They handcuffed me so tightly I felt that one of my wrists was going to break,” he said.

SANA, the Syrian state news agency, reported Ferzat “was attacked by veiled people” and that “authorities concerned are conducting an investigation.” My e-mail requesting further information, however, was not responded to. And the U.S. State Department condemned the attack, saying in a statement that the al-Assad regime was sending “a clear message that (Ferzat) should stop drawing.”

They beat him so badly that his vision failed for days in one eye, Farzat told me, and he could barely see out of the other. Confused, Ferzat asked what was happening to him.

“Don’t you ever dare to cross your bosses and to cross your leaders, because Bashar al-Assad’s shoe is on your face and on your head.” (For evidence of the severity of that insult, recall the Bush and Ahmadinejad shoe-throwing incidents).

They drove 30 minutes to a road near the Damascus airport. That’s where they threw him from the car.

“My white shirt was completely, totally, red from the blood,” he said.

He thought he surely would bleed to death there. Cars wouldn’t stop, perhaps afraid to pick up a person targeted by the regime or by police. But then the first of three miracles happened: A truck’s tire burst, forcing it to stop exactly in front of Ferzat.

“This is like something out of a freakin’ movie,” Amir Ahmad Nasr, a blogger-author friend who was translating the conversation from Arabic, said to me.

Ferzat threw himself into the bed of the pickup and begged the three men who drove it to take him back to the city. They agreed to drop him at the gates of Damascus, but wouldn’t take him further — definitely not to a hospital — for fear of being targeted themselves. Still bleeding and barely able to see because of the beatings to his head, Ferzat wandered up to a house and asked its guard for help.

Then the second miracle: The guard agreed to give him a ride to a nearby clinic, where (here’s the third) doctors recognized the cartoonist and were sympathetic to his cause.

They treated him at his house to avoid detection. But there was always the worry: his hands. Would he draw again?

“My hands became stuck like this,” he told me, tensing up his digits into a wooden, claw-like shape. “The doctors told me I needed to get treatment overseas.”

Fate, again, would intervene. Using a newspaper contact in Kuwait, Ferzat arranged to leave Syria and seek treatment in a hospital there. After six months of surgery and physical therapy, he was able to put pen to paper.

The first cartoon he created after the attack was not diluted by fear. He drew al-Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin walking side by side, their legs intertwined to make the shape of a Nazi swastika.

Ferzat is still living in exile. But the revolution needs him. It needs his art. He’s seen images of protesters and rebels carrying printouts of his drawings. So he contributes art from outside the country.

The outcome of the war in Syria is anything but sure. But talk to Ferzat and his optimism will rub off on you. He’s convinced he will live and draw in Syria again — that people in his country, a cradle of civilization that invented one of the world’s first alphabets, are no longer afraid and eventually will triumph over the regime that would crush their spirits and their art.

After hearing his story, I’m hard-pressed not to believe him.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of John D. Sutter.

Article source: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/21/opinion/sutter-syrian-cartoonist-ferzat/index.html?eref=edition

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Syrian political cartoonist Ali Ferzat, shown earlier this month at the Oslo Freedom Forum, says pens have the power to topple dictators. The self-taught artist has mocked authority since he was a young boy.

Ferzat was attacked in Damascus in 2011. His hands were broken so that he wouldn’t be able to draw again, he said. The cartoonist left the country to get needed medical treatment.

The artist, who now lives outside Syria, protests the violence in April 2012. He remains optimistic about the torn nation’s future.

Initially, Ferzat’s cartoons depicted nameless people. Over time, he started drawing identifiable images of Syrian leaders to mock them directly.

Ferzat began drawing at a relatively young age. His cartoons have been published internationally. He’s convinced he will return to his country one day.

Ferzat said this image led to him being attacked in Syria in 2011. It shows Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad trying to hitchhike out of the country with Libya’s former leader, Moammar Gadhafi.

Syrian artist Ali Farzat at an exhibition of his cartoon paintings. Protesters and rebels alike have carried printouts of his work.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Editor’s note: John D. Sutter is a columnist at CNN Opinion, covering human rights. E-mail him at CTL@CNN.com or follow him on Twitter (@jdsutter), Facebook or Google+.

Oslo, Norway (CNN) — The masked henchmen grabbed three fingers on each of the Syrian political cartoonist’s hands and pulled them back all the way — so far that they cracked.

“Break his arms so that he doesn’t ever draw again,” one said.

Ali Ferzat — the cartoonist who described the 2011 attack to me in a recent interview — soon found himself bleeding and left for dead near the Damascus airport. His assailants, who he believes were acting on behalf of the Syrian regime, dragged him alongside a moving car. His head and shoulder bounced on the pavement and then the men shoved him out of the vehicle, dumping him on the side of the road.

Ferzat wondered if he would live, let alone draw again.

It would be months before he would learn the second answer.

Before I’d heard these and the other horrifying details of this attack against one of the Arab world’s most notable artists, I asked Ferzat — an Arab-Santa-looking character with a smile that could cheer up Tilda Swinton — if he was sure his hands were broken to stop him from drawing cartoons critical of Syria’s leader, Bashar al-Assad.

His answer made me laugh.

“Obviously,” he said. “What do I look like to you, a chef?”

Syrian forces pound rebel stronghold

Al-Assad: I’ll consider talks, but …

Saving Syria’s heart

I met Ferzat in at the Oslo Freedom Forum, a gathering of dissidents and human rights activists, where he received the Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent. Being in his presence was the human-rights nerd version of a basketball fan meeting LeBron. But what impressed me most about Ferzat is that he’s maintained his wit and cheer despite the darkness that has fallen on him and on his country, which is in the grips of an intractable two-year war that’s killed an estimated 80,000 people.

He is almost naively optimistic about Syria’s future. And it’s infectious. The rest of Syria’s opposition should take note. As his story shows, the true strength of a revolution is in its ideas — in nonviolent actions such as drawing truth to power.

Dictators do have reason to be scared of cartoons.

That’s why Ferzat’s hands became some of the most feared objects in Syria.

“They came after me,” he said. “Obviously (cartooning) has power.”

The self-taught artist, who’s in his early 60s, has been using them to mock authority since he was a young boy — first imitating cartoons he admired and then creating satire of his own. He went pro in the 1970s, gaining notoriety for publishing cartoons domestically and internationally. Back then, before the current war, Ferzat never dared to depict specific people in his cartoons. He drew autocrats and dictators, but they never looked like real, identifiable people. He did it to avoid censorship or retaliation.

But that was before the war — before reports emerged, in May 2011, that a 13-year-old had been tortured and killed in Daraa, Syria. Stories like those of Hamza Ali al-Khateeb’s death, which reportedly involved his genitals being mutilated, pushed Ferzat across a threshold. He started to draw exact likeness of al-Assad in his satire. Enough was enough.

His pen would hold no punches.

Ferzat drew al-Assad standing on the side of the road with his thumb in the air, ready to hitchhike out of Syria. A crazed Moammar Gadhafi, who was still alive at the time but later would be killed in Libya’s uprising, was driving a getaway car.

The message was clear: Syria’s leader had to go.

That was the image, he told me, that led to his attack on August 25, 2011. Ferzat’s animated demeanor — his eyebrows bounce when he talks and his hands, now unbandaged, gesture wildly — flattened as he told me the story.

That day, a white car with darkly tinted windows followed him out of the studio before dawn. He’s been working there by candlelight to avoid detection. Frightened by the car, he drove to the center of Damascus, to a square he knew to be home to government buildings and the president’s palace. The car followed and crashed into him at the square, he said, forcing him stop. Three men emerged and yanked off the doors of Ferzat’s car. They pulled him from it, beat him with crowd-control batons and then yanked plastic handcuffs around his wrists.

“They handcuffed me so tightly I felt that one of my wrists was going to break,” he said.

SANA, the Syrian state news agency, reported Ferzat “was attacked by veiled people” and that “authorities concerned are conducting an investigation.” My e-mail requesting further information, however, was not responded to. And the U.S. State Department condemned the attack, saying in a statement that the al-Assad regime was sending “a clear message that (Ferzat) should stop drawing.”

They beat him so badly that his vision failed for days in one eye, Farzat told me, and he could barely see out of the other. Confused, Ferzat asked what was happening to him.

“Don’t you ever dare to cross your bosses and to cross your leaders, because Bashar al-Assad’s shoe is on your face and on your head.” (For evidence of the severity of that insult, recall the Bush and Ahmadinejad shoe-throwing incidents).

They drove 30 minutes to a road near the Damascus airport. That’s where they threw him from the car.

“My white shirt was completely, totally, red from the blood,” he said.

He thought he surely would bleed to death there. Cars wouldn’t stop, perhaps afraid to pick up a person targeted by the regime or by police. But then the first of three miracles happened: A truck’s tire burst, forcing it to stop exactly in front of Ferzat.

“This is like something out of a freakin’ movie,” Amir Ahmad Nasr, a blogger-author friend who was translating the conversation from Arabic, said to me.

Ferzat threw himself into the bed of the pickup and begged the three men who drove it to take him back to the city. They agreed to drop him at the gates of Damascus, but wouldn’t take him further — definitely not to a hospital — for fear of being targeted themselves. Still bleeding and barely able to see because of the beatings to his head, Ferzat wandered up to a house and asked its guard for help.

Then the second miracle: The guard agreed to give him a ride to a nearby clinic, where (here’s the third) doctors recognized the cartoonist and were sympathetic to his cause.

They treated him at his house to avoid detection. But there was always the worry: his hands. Would he draw again?

“My hands became stuck like this,” he told me, tensing up his digits into a wooden, claw-like shape. “The doctors told me I needed to get treatment overseas.”

Fate, again, would intervene. Using a newspaper contact in Kuwait, Ferzat arranged to leave Syria and seek treatment in a hospital there. After six months of surgery and physical therapy, he was able to put pen to paper.

The first cartoon he created after the attack was not diluted by fear. He drew al-Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin walking side by side, their legs intertwined to make the shape of a Nazi swastika.

Ferzat is still living in exile. But the revolution needs him. It needs his art. He’s seen images of protesters and rebels carrying printouts of his drawings. So he contributes art from outside the country.

The outcome of the war in Syria is anything but sure. But talk to Ferzat and his optimism will rub off on you. He’s convinced he will live and draw in Syria again — that people in his country, a cradle of civilization that invented one of the world’s first alphabets, are no longer afraid and eventually will triumph over the regime that would crush their spirits and their art.

After hearing his story, I’m hard-pressed not to believe him.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of John D. Sutter.

Article source: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/21/opinion/sutter-syrian-cartoonist-ferzat/index.html?eref=edition

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Syrian political cartoonist Ali Ferzat, shown earlier this month at the Oslo Freedom Forum, says pens have the power to topple dictators. The self-taught artist has mocked authority since he was a young boy.

Ferzat was attacked in Damascus in 2011. His hands were broken so that he wouldn’t be able to draw again, he said. The cartoonist left the country to get needed medical treatment.

The artist, who now lives outside Syria, protests the violence in April 2012. He remains optimistic about the torn nation’s future.

Initially, Ferzat’s cartoons depicted nameless people. Over time, he started drawing identifiable images of Syrian leaders to mock them directly.

Ferzat began drawing at a relatively young age. His cartoons have been published internationally. He’s convinced he will return to his country one day.

Ferzat said this image led to him being attacked in Syria in 2011. It shows Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad trying to hitchhike out of the country with Libya’s former leader, Moammar Gadhafi.

Syrian artist Ali Farzat at an exhibition of his cartoon paintings. Protesters and rebels alike have carried printouts of his work.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

Editor’s note: John D. Sutter is a columnist at CNN Opinion, covering human rights. E-mail him at CTL@CNN.com or follow him on Twitter (@jdsutter), Facebook or Google+.

Oslo, Norway (CNN) — The masked henchmen grabbed three fingers on each of the Syrian political cartoonist’s hands and pulled them back all the way — so far that they cracked.

“Break his arms so that he doesn’t ever draw again,” one said.

Ali Ferzat — the cartoonist who described the 2011 attack to me in a recent interview — soon found himself bleeding and left for dead near the Damascus airport. His assailants, who he believes were acting on behalf of the Syrian regime, dragged him alongside a moving car. His head and shoulder bounced on the pavement and then the men shoved him out of the vehicle, dumping him on the side of the road.

Ferzat wondered if he would live, let alone draw again.

It would be months before he would learn the second answer.

Before I’d heard these and the other horrifying details of this attack against one of the Arab world’s most notable artists, I asked Ferzat — an Arab-Santa-looking character with a smile that could cheer up Tilda Swinton — if he was sure his hands were broken to stop him from drawing cartoons critical of Syria’s leader, Bashar al-Assad.

His answer made me laugh.

“Obviously,” he said. “What do I look like to you, a chef?”

Syrian forces pound rebel stronghold

Al-Assad: I’ll consider talks, but …

Saving Syria’s heart

I met Ferzat in at the Oslo Freedom Forum, a gathering of dissidents and human rights activists, where he received the Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent. Being in his presence was the human-rights nerd version of a basketball fan meeting LeBron. But what impressed me most about Ferzat is that he’s maintained his wit and cheer despite the darkness that has fallen on him and on his country, which is in the grips of an intractable two-year war that’s killed an estimated 80,000 people.

He is almost naively optimistic about Syria’s future. And it’s infectious. The rest of Syria’s opposition should take note. As his story shows, the true strength of a revolution is in its ideas — in nonviolent actions such as drawing truth to power.

Dictators do have reason to be scared of cartoons.

That’s why Ferzat’s hands became some of the most feared objects in Syria.

“They came after me,” he said. “Obviously (cartooning) has power.”

The self-taught artist, who’s in his early 60s, has been using them to mock authority since he was a young boy — first imitating cartoons he admired and then creating satire of his own. He went pro in the 1970s, gaining notoriety for publishing cartoons domestically and internationally. Back then, before the current war, Ferzat never dared to depict specific people in his cartoons. He drew autocrats and dictators, but they never looked like real, identifiable people. He did it to avoid censorship or retaliation.

But that was before the war — before reports emerged, in May 2011, that a 13-year-old had been tortured and killed in Daraa, Syria. Stories like those of Hamza Ali al-Khateeb’s death, which reportedly involved his genitals being mutilated, pushed Ferzat across a threshold. He started to draw exact likeness of al-Assad in his satire. Enough was enough.

His pen would hold no punches.

Ferzat drew al-Assad standing on the side of the road with his thumb in the air, ready to hitchhike out of Syria. A crazed Moammar Gadhafi, who was still alive at the time but later would be killed in Libya’s uprising, was driving a getaway car.

The message was clear: Syria’s leader had to go.

That was the image, he told me, that led to his attack on August 25, 2011. Ferzat’s animated demeanor — his eyebrows bounce when he talks and his hands, now unbandaged, gesture wildly — flattened as he told me the story.

That day, a white car with darkly tinted windows followed him out of the studio before dawn. He’s been working there by candlelight to avoid detection. Frightened by the car, he drove to the center of Damascus, to a square he knew to be home to government buildings and the president’s palace. The car followed and crashed into him at the square, he said, forcing him stop. Three men emerged and yanked off the doors of Ferzat’s car. They pulled him from it, beat him with crowd-control batons and then yanked plastic handcuffs around his wrists.

“They handcuffed me so tightly I felt that one of my wrists was going to break,” he said.

SANA, the Syrian state news agency, reported Ferzat “was attacked by veiled people” and that “authorities concerned are conducting an investigation.” My e-mail requesting further information, however, was not responded to. And the U.S. State Department condemned the attack, saying in a statement that the al-Assad regime was sending “a clear message that (Ferzat) should stop drawing.”

They beat him so badly that his vision failed for days in one eye, Farzat told me, and he could barely see out of the other. Confused, Ferzat asked what was happening to him.

“Don’t you ever dare to cross your bosses and to cross your leaders, because Bashar al-Assad’s shoe is on your face and on your head.” (For evidence of the severity of that insult, recall the Bush and Ahmadinejad shoe-throwing incidents).

They drove 30 minutes to a road near the Damascus airport. That’s where they threw him from the car.

“My white shirt was completely, totally, red from the blood,” he said.

He thought he surely would bleed to death there. Cars wouldn’t stop, perhaps afraid to pick up a person targeted by the regime or by police. But then the first of three miracles happened: A truck’s tire burst, forcing it to stop exactly in front of Ferzat.

“This is like something out of a freakin’ movie,” Amir Ahmad Nasr, a blogger-author friend who was translating the conversation from Arabic, said to me.

Ferzat threw himself into the bed of the pickup and begged the three men who drove it to take him back to the city. They agreed to drop him at the gates of Damascus, but wouldn’t take him further — definitely not to a hospital — for fear of being targeted themselves. Still bleeding and barely able to see because of the beatings to his head, Ferzat wandered up to a house and asked its guard for help.

Then the second miracle: The guard agreed to give him a ride to a nearby clinic, where (here’s the third) doctors recognized the cartoonist and were sympathetic to his cause.

They treated him at his house to avoid detection. But there was always the worry: his hands. Would he draw again?

“My hands became stuck like this,” he told me, tensing up his digits into a wooden, claw-like shape. “The doctors told me I needed to get treatment overseas.”

Fate, again, would intervene. Using a newspaper contact in Kuwait, Ferzat arranged to leave Syria and seek treatment in a hospital there. After six months of surgery and physical therapy, he was able to put pen to paper.

The first cartoon he created after the attack was not diluted by fear. He drew al-Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin walking side by side, their legs intertwined to make the shape of a Nazi swastika.

Ferzat is still living in exile. But the revolution needs him. It needs his art. He’s seen images of protesters and rebels carrying printouts of his drawings. So he contributes art from outside the country.

The outcome of the war in Syria is anything but sure. But talk to Ferzat and his optimism will rub off on you. He’s convinced he will live and draw in Syria again — that people in his country, a cradle of civilization that invented one of the world’s first alphabets, are no longer afraid and eventually will triumph over the regime that would crush their spirits and their art.

After hearing his story, I’m hard-pressed not to believe him.

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The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of John D. Sutter.

Article source: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/21/opinion/sutter-syrian-cartoonist-ferzat/index.html?eref=edition

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Syrian political cartoonist Ali Ferzat, shown earlier this month at the Oslo Freedom Forum, says pens have the power to topple dictators. The self-taught artist has mocked authority since he was a young boy.

Ferzat was attacked in Damascus in 2011. His hands were broken so that he wouldn’t be able to draw again, he said. The cartoonist left the country to get needed medical treatment.

The artist, who now lives outside Syria, protests the violence in April 2012. He remains optimistic about the torn nation’s future.

Initially, Ferzat’s cartoons depicted nameless people. Over time, he started drawing identifiable images of Syrian leaders to mock them directly.

Ferzat began drawing at a relatively young age. His cartoons have been published internationally. He’s convinced he will return to his country one day.

Ferzat said this image led to him being attacked in Syria in 2011. It shows Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad trying to hitchhike out of the country with Libya’s former leader, Moammar Gadhafi.

Syrian artist Ali Farzat at an exhibition of his cartoon paintings. Protesters and rebels alike have carried printouts of his work.

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Editor’s note: John D. Sutter is a columnist at CNN Opinion, covering human rights. E-mail him at CTL@CNN.com or follow him on Twitter (@jdsutter), Facebook or Google+.

Oslo, Norway (CNN) — The masked henchmen grabbed three fingers on each of the Syrian political cartoonist’s hands and pulled them back all the way — so far that they cracked.

“Break his arms so that he doesn’t ever draw again,” one said.

Ali Ferzat — the cartoonist who described the 2011 attack to me in a recent interview — soon found himself bleeding and left for dead near the Damascus airport. His assailants, who he believes were acting on behalf of the Syrian regime, dragged him alongside a moving car. His head and shoulder bounced on the pavement and then the men shoved him out of the vehicle, dumping him on the side of the road.

Ferzat wondered if he would live, let alone draw again.

It would be months before he would learn the second answer.

Before I’d heard these and the other horrifying details of this attack against one of the Arab world’s most notable artists, I asked Ferzat — an Arab-Santa-looking character with a smile that could cheer up Tilda Swinton — if he was sure his hands were broken to stop him from drawing cartoons critical of Syria’s leader, Bashar al-Assad.

His answer made me laugh.

“Obviously,” he said. “What do I look like to you, a chef?”

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I met Ferzat in at the Oslo Freedom Forum, a gathering of dissidents and human rights activists, where he received the Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent. Being in his presence was the human-rights nerd version of a basketball fan meeting LeBron. But what impressed me most about Ferzat is that he’s maintained his wit and cheer despite the darkness that has fallen on him and on his country, which is in the grips of an intractable two-year war that’s killed an estimated 80,000 people.

He is almost naively optimistic about Syria’s future. And it’s infectious. The rest of Syria’s opposition should take note. As his story shows, the true strength of a revolution is in its ideas — in nonviolent actions such as drawing truth to power.

Dictators do have reason to be scared of cartoons.

That’s why Ferzat’s hands became some of the most feared objects in Syria.

“They came after me,” he said. “Obviously (cartooning) has power.”

The self-taught artist, who’s in his early 60s, has been using them to mock authority since he was a young boy — first imitating cartoons he admired and then creating satire of his own. He went pro in the 1970s, gaining notoriety for publishing cartoons domestically and internationally. Back then, before the current war, Ferzat never dared to depict specific people in his cartoons. He drew autocrats and dictators, but they never looked like real, identifiable people. He did it to avoid censorship or retaliation.

But that was before the war — before reports emerged, in May 2011, that a 13-year-old had been tortured and killed in Daraa, Syria. Stories like those of Hamza Ali al-Khateeb’s death, which reportedly involved his genitals being mutilated, pushed Ferzat across a threshold. He started to draw exact likeness of al-Assad in his satire. Enough was enough.

His pen would hold no punches.

Ferzat drew al-Assad standing on the side of the road with his thumb in the air, ready to hitchhike out of Syria. A crazed Moammar Gadhafi, who was still alive at the time but later would be killed in Libya’s uprising, was driving a getaway car.

The message was clear: Syria’s leader had to go.

That was the image, he told me, that led to his attack on August 25, 2011. Ferzat’s animated demeanor — his eyebrows bounce when he talks and his hands, now unbandaged, gesture wildly — flattened as he told me the story.

That day, a white car with darkly tinted windows followed him out of the studio before dawn. He’s been working there by candlelight to avoid detection. Frightened by the car, he drove to the center of Damascus, to a square he knew to be home to government buildings and the president’s palace. The car followed and crashed into him at the square, he said, forcing him stop. Three men emerged and yanked off the doors of Ferzat’s car. They pulled him from it, beat him with crowd-control batons and then yanked plastic handcuffs around his wrists.

“They handcuffed me so tightly I felt that one of my wrists was going to break,” he said.

SANA, the Syrian state news agency, reported Ferzat “was attacked by veiled people” and that “authorities concerned are conducting an investigation.” My e-mail requesting further information, however, was not responded to. And the U.S. State Department condemned the attack, saying in a statement that the al-Assad regime was sending “a clear message that (Ferzat) should stop drawing.”

They beat him so badly that his vision failed for days in one eye, Farzat told me, and he could barely see out of the other. Confused, Ferzat asked what was happening to him.

“Don’t you ever dare to cross your bosses and to cross your leaders, because Bashar al-Assad’s shoe is on your face and on your head.” (For evidence of the severity of that insult, recall the Bush and Ahmadinejad shoe-throwing incidents).

They drove 30 minutes to a road near the Damascus airport. That’s where they threw him from the car.

“My white shirt was completely, totally, red from the blood,” he said.

He thought he surely would bleed to death there. Cars wouldn’t stop, perhaps afraid to pick up a person targeted by the regime or by police. But then the first of three miracles happened: A truck’s tire burst, forcing it to stop exactly in front of Ferzat.

“This is like something out of a freakin’ movie,” Amir Ahmad Nasr, a blogger-author friend who was translating the conversation from Arabic, said to me.

Ferzat threw himself into the bed of the pickup and begged the three men who drove it to take him back to the city. They agreed to drop him at the gates of Damascus, but wouldn’t take him further — definitely not to a hospital — for fear of being targeted themselves. Still bleeding and barely able to see because of the beatings to his head, Ferzat wandered up to a house and asked its guard for help.

Then the second miracle: The guard agreed to give him a ride to a nearby clinic, where (here’s the third) doctors recognized the cartoonist and were sympathetic to his cause.

They treated him at his house to avoid detection. But there was always the worry: his hands. Would he draw again?

“My hands became stuck like this,” he told me, tensing up his digits into a wooden, claw-like shape. “The doctors told me I needed to get treatment overseas.”

Fate, again, would intervene. Using a newspaper contact in Kuwait, Ferzat arranged to leave Syria and seek treatment in a hospital there. After six months of surgery and physical therapy, he was able to put pen to paper.

The first cartoon he created after the attack was not diluted by fear. He drew al-Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin walking side by side, their legs intertwined to make the shape of a Nazi swastika.

Ferzat is still living in exile. But the revolution needs him. It needs his art. He’s seen images of protesters and rebels carrying printouts of his drawings. So he contributes art from outside the country.

The outcome of the war in Syria is anything but sure. But talk to Ferzat and his optimism will rub off on you. He’s convinced he will live and draw in Syria again — that people in his country, a cradle of civilization that invented one of the world’s first alphabets, are no longer afraid and eventually will triumph over the regime that would crush their spirits and their art.

After hearing his story, I’m hard-pressed not to believe him.

Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.

Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion.

The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of John D. Sutter.

Article source: http://edition.cnn.com/2013/05/21/opinion/sutter-syrian-cartoonist-ferzat/index.html?eref=edition