Two hundred fifteen. That's the number of bodies found dead so far in the streets of Kaduna, Nigeria.
What natural disaster, what clandestine massacre occurred to cause such devastation? The Miss World pageant.
This year's Miss World pageant was to be held in Nigeria as a reward for its victory in last year's competition, but the honor was not seen as such by all. Nigerian Muslim groups, angry over an event they claimed promotes promiscuity, threatened protests and even rioting.
The protests did not turn violent, however, until Isioma Daniel, a columnist for the ThisDay newspaper, wrote a controversial opinion piece that the paper published "by mistake." That's all it took.
Nigeria is a nation divided by religion. Of Nigeria's 130 million residents, 65 million are Muslim and 50 million are Christian. As might be expected, such an even divide causes conflict.
Daniel's article had a simple theme: Muslim protests over the "indecency" of the Miss World pageant were unwarranted. One sentence in particular outraged the Islamic community: "What would [Islam's founding prophet] Muhammad think? In all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from among them [the contestants]."
With that, thousands of angry Muslims filled the streets of Kaduna, and thousands more flooded the Nigerian capital of Abuja. Muhammad, they believe, would never take a wife from such a promiscuous group, and so they showed the world and their God what it meant to be holy. They stabbed, beat and trampled innocent bystanders and anyone who wouldn't join their holiest of causes, most of all Christians.
They began by burning down the ThisDay newspaper office and continued to torch businesses, homes and churches.
The next day, after police had restored order, it was the Christians' turn. In retaliation for the assault on their people, they attacked Muslims and torched mosques. Such retaliation was understandable. After all, it's exactly what Jesus would have wanted.
In total, about 500 people were injured, 4,500 lost their homes and at least 22 churches and 8 mosques were destroyed. All over a writer's opinion.
In hopes of explaining these terrible events, American newspapers began editorializing the cause of the riots. "If only no one had brought these people religion," some said. "If only Western influences were not brought to their homeland," others argued.
Never, they concluded, could the fault be placed on the people rioting, or the religious leaders instilling hate. Nowhere can the blame be placed but right here.
But they were wrong. The problem in Nigeria does not lie with religion, and it most certainly does not lie with Western decadence. The real problem in Nigeria lies in education.
The quickest way to gain power is to amass a following, and the quickest way to amass followers is to unite them under a common belief and a common emotion. And no emotion evokes stronger unity than righteous anger.
Righteous anger can only be extracted from a people uneducated about their enemy, a people equipped solely with propaganda, misinformation and most troubling, no information. Only then can people be filled with such hate that they are willing to slaughter strangers.
Religion, in this case, was merely the tool used to galvanize a following and extract power. It could have been anything. Ethnicity, race, class, you pick the distinguishing characteristic that results in genocide.
It's this concept that most Americans miss when analyzing the war on terrorism. America and the West have often been used as tools by extremist Islamic fundamentalists. We are what give them their following; hatred for us is what gives them their power.
The reason for this is twofold. While America's economic wealth and military might make us the highest profile target, our heavy involvement throughout the world makes it easier for extremists to link America to its local problems. In short, our presence gives leaders an opportunity to deflect blame and thus maintain power.
Like religion in Nigeria, we are not necessarily the problem, but simply the tool used to incite anger.
Education is what determines how effective such polarization can be. In Europe, distaste for America is used by some for relatively benign political gains. But in the Middle East and parts of Africa and Asia, it's used for far more dangerous goals.
The reasons for this are simple: Poverty, despair and hopelessness are the things that help galvanize people to extreme behavior. And not coincidentally, they are the things that limit the spread of information. A simple pattern emerges out of this: The less freely information flows, the more virulent the groups that emerge.
It is this information void that makes certain groups so vulnerable to extremist views, and it is something that we as Americans must not only protect others from but also guard ourselves against.
After all, how much do you know about Nigeria?
Joshua Billar is a chemical engineering graduate. Reach him at joshua.billar@asu.edu.
