Mick Hartley

It's noticeable how in certain quarters we're being urged to ignore the religious element in the latest massacre in Nigeria. The BBC has an educational Q&A on the subject:

What is the fighting about?

More than 2,000 people have been killed in communal violence in Plateau State since 2001.

They are usually reported as clashes between religious groups but the underlying issues are political and economic….

The situation is exacerbated by Nigeria's system of classifying its citizens as "indigenes" and "settlers".

This system is nationwide but in Plateau State it perpetuates the local divisions.

The Hausa-speaking Muslims are classified as "settlers" even if they have lived there for generations and have no knowledge of their "home" region.

"Settlers" are banned from taking some positions in state government and the state does not pay for their education, meaning these groups feel discriminated against.

While some people may feel the only way they can change the situation is to use violence, the Christian groups in power may stop at nothing to to retain the advantages they enjoy.

So, if anyone's to blame, it's the Christians – sorry, the indigenes.

Caroline Duffield, the BBC 's correspondent in Lagos, enlightens us further:

These killings are often painted by local politicians as a religious or sectarian conflict. In fact it is a struggle between ethnic groups for fertile land and resources in the region known as Nigeria's Middle Belt.

The feeling remains though, despite the best efforts of Auntie, that these underlying grievances aren't quite enough to account for the butchering of 500-odd, including many women and children. A struggle for resources is nothing new, but it doesn't usually end in this kind of slaughter.

Then there's Peter Cunliffe-Jones in the Guardian, under the heading Food not Faith:

Certainly, religion is one of the many dividing lines in Jos and elsewhere in Nigeria. But it is not the main one.

In Jos, as elsewhere, the cause of fighting has, more often been the struggle for resources than it has religion. In Jos, my AFP colleague Aminu Abubakar reports that the original cause of the latest clash was the alleged theft of cattle, blamed by a group of settler-farmers on a group of cattle herders. Often the fighting in the north is between the semi-nomadic cattle herders (who happen to be mostly Muslim) and settler-farmers (who happen to be mostly Christian), fighting about the diminishing access to land.

All of which no doubt well-intentioned and reassuring Marxist-type interpretations, which look to the underlying economic circumstances as the main driver of human actions, struggle somewhat with the actual events:

Survivors claimed that Muslim inhabitants of the targeted villages of Zot, Dogo Nahawa and Rastat had received telephone calls two days before the attack telling them to leave the area.

Witnesses said gangs waited at main entry points to the villages while others went from house to house, setting the homes on fire.

Those who fled were killed at the exit points. Others were slaughtered after being caught in animal traps and nets as they ran in the dark.

Ben Kwashi, Anglican Archbishop of Jos, said he visited one of three villages engulfed by the violence. “I could see kids from age zero to teenagers, all butchered from the back, macheted in their necks, their heads. Deep cuts in the mouths of babies. The stench. People wailing and crying,” he said….

Survivors told The Times that entire families were killed, some to the chants of Allahu Akbar — God is Greatest. They said villagers awoke to shouting and gunfire at about 3am on Sunday.

“They then set homes on fire and attacked men, women and children. Many were decapitated,” said Theresa Malinowska, press officer for Christian Solidarity Worldwide. Staff counted the bodies of four babies and 28 children under 5 in one location alone.