One of the saddest aspects of the work of the Lindisfarne Centre is the sheer predictability of some aspects anti-Christian persecution. Whilst part of our mission is to identify future risks and trends, there are some times of year when you can virtually guarantee that attacks on churches and Christians will happen – and Christmas is one of those.

Attacks this Christmas

This Christmas we have seen a series of attacks on at least 20 predominantly Christian villages in Plateau State in Nigeria’s Middle Belt in which local estimates suggest that over 200 Christians were killed and around 300 others treated in hospital in what the state’s governor described as a series of coordinated attacks on the night of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. 

We also saw at least 10 Christians killed in an attack by jihadists on a predominantly Christian village in western Uganda a few days before Christmas, with Uganda is in fact, rapidly becoming a new hotspot for jihadist attacks on Christians. The last year has seen the bombing of a Pentecostal Church on Good Friday; in June jihadists attacked an Anglican church where Christians had been holding a prayer meeting and hacked one Christian to death and leaving others injured. In the same month jihadists attacked a predominantly Christian school killing 37 students, kidnapping six others; In September a bomber was stopped as he attempted to place explosives inside a church. Then in October, Uganda’s President announced that police had thwarted attempts to bomb two more churches.

How the press described the attacks

One of the other depressing aspects of such attacks is that western media often have a marked tendency either to not report the attacks at all, or if they do, then to downplay the fact that the victims were Christians, often not even mentioning this at all.

One of the most extraordinary things about the Nigeria attacks is that the western media have either simply ignored the massacre of around 200 Christians at Christmas, or failed to even mention that they were Christians - something it is hard to conceive they would have done if the victims had been members of another faith community. Frequently, they have also simply uncritically repeated the official line of the Nigerian Federal government that these were attacks by “armed gangs” or “bandits” and that it is part of “inter-communal violence” in the area between Christian farmers and Fulani herders who happen to be Muslim.

For example, in the UK the Guardian reported that the attacks had been carried out by “armed gangs” or “bandits”. It made no mention of the fact that the victims of the Christmas attacks were Christians, but did imply that Christians were equally responsible for the wider intercommunal violence in the region, saying:

“competition for natural resources between nomadic herders and farmers, intensified by rapid population growth and climate pressures has also exacerbated social tensions and sparked violence”

If this had been reported elsewhere about an attack on any other faith group, the Guardian is a newspaper which might well be expected to accuse them of “victim blaming”. 

The BBC did not even include attacks in their main news, but posted a video of a mass victim funeral on their Facebook page saying the region had been beset by “inter-communal violence”. They did cover it as part of their Boxing Day Focus on Africa podcast, but whilst mentioning in passing the existence of “a religious element” in a multifaceted issue, they also failed to mention that the victims were Christians – and focused on the risk of retaliatory attacks – again implying that the victims were as culpable as the attackers.

The Daily Telegraph also referred to the attackers as “armed groups” whilst slightly more specifically quoted local officials as saying that “military gangs, locally known as ‘bandits’ launched well-coordinated attacks in not fewer than 20 different communities”. However, it also failed to state that the victims were Christians, although it did note that Nigeria was suffering from both tensions between herders and farmers and a jihadist conflict.

The Financial Times referred to the attackers as “armed gangs of bandits” but also failed to give any indication that the victims were Christians.

Only the Daily Express and the Daily Mail  pointed to the victims being Christians. The Daily Express saying that the area which was attacked was one “where mainly Christians live”, while the Daily Mail and quoted a local church leader, implying that the victims were Christians:

So, why is it so hard for western media to say that the victims of these mass killings were Christians?

In fact, for years the victims of this “inter-communal violence” have been overwhelmingly Christians and whilst some young men from the Christian community have now begun to engage in retaliatory attacks, the overwhelmingly majority of attacks are perpetrated by militant elements among the Muslim Fulani. Although, the movement of Fulani Muslim herders southwards due to desertification has certainly increased tensions, religious factors are not purely incidental to the violence. In fact, as a research report published by the Lindisfarne Centre earlier this year clearly demonstrated,  the violence which has beset the Middle Belt for much of the last decade cannot be reasonably explained by excluding either the history of Fulani raids on non-Muslim communities in the Middle belt or the legitimisation of those by the form of shari’a which has historically been taught in West African madrassas.

The real motivation for the Christmas attacks

Witness testimony from the 19 December attack in Uganda which killed 10 Christians suggests that part of the jihadists’ motive was to prevent Christians celebrating Christmas.  One woman who escaped the attack reported

“I heard the attackers saying that: ‘The Christians will not celebrate the birth of Issa [Jesus] – we have to teach a lesson to these infidels for refusing our religion,’”

Similarly, the attacks in Nigeria were not simply an attack by “armed gangs” or “bandits” – they also had a number of specific anti-Christian hallmarks.

1.       They specifically attacked predominantly Christian villages.

2.       They specifically burnt down churches – as well the homes of Christians.

3.       Among those killed were Church leaders. These are tactics we have seen in other countries, such as Iraq – where the group which has now become known as Islamic State in 2004 began a campaign of targeted attacks on churches and abductions and killings of church leaders. In 2016 US Secretary of State John Kerry officially recognised Islamic State as having committed genocide against Christians, Shi’a and Yazidis.

4.       The Christmas attacks cannot be explained simply as conflict between Muslim Fulani herders. The statement by the Governor of Plateau State made clear these were “unprovoked attacks” adding that “this particular set of attacks was well coordinated with heavy weapons”.

5.       However, the most significant factor indicating that this was specifically anti-Christian violence – directed at Christians primarily because they were Christians was the timing of the attacks. The first 12 villages were attacked at 22:00 on Christmas Eve, with 3 more attacked at 22:45 i.e. less than 2 hours before Christmas Day.

This is a pattern jihadists frequently follow. For example, on Christmas Day 2022 Fulani militants attacked Angwan Aku village in Kaduna State as villagers were preparing for their Christmas church service, killing one person and kidnapping 45 others, many of whom are still in captivity. It’s not just Christmas – it’s any major Christian festival. In May 2022 the attacks on Christians in Nigeria unexpectedly extended beyond northern and central Nigeria with an attack on a Church in the southwestern state of Ondo which killed 50 worshippers. Crucially, the attack took place on Pentecost Sunday. This is by no means a pattern which is unique to Nigeria – as earlier noted, this Christmas also saw an attack on Christians in Uganda, a country which earlier this year had also suffered an attack on a church on Good Friday.

Why jihadists attack churches at Christmas

Well firstly, attacking churches at Christmas is not something that is new. According to early historical records such as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and the Irish Annals, the Vikings repeatedly attacked Christian monasteries and churches on Christmas Day and other Christian festivals. In fact, the account of the Irish Annals for 986 recording that monastery on Iona founded by Columba had yet again been

“plundered by the Danes on Christmas Night, and they killed the abbot and fifteen of the elders of the monastery”

sounds remarkably similar to what has been happening for several years to Christian communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt – and happened again this Christmas.

One of the reasons for such attacks is that Christian festivals such as Christmas Day are when there is a large gathering of Christians all in one place – so attacks on such occasions are a prime opportunity for anyone who wants to inflict the maximum level of terror and intimidation on Christians.

A second reason, related to this is that, uncomfortable as it may be to western sensitivities, there are aspects of some religions which specifically legitimise violence and plunder of other communities. Piety and plunder are not mutually exclusive in all religions in the way that they are in Christianity. This was unquestionably the case with some of the pagan Norse religion as can be seen in their wanton destruction of churches, monasteries and Christian symbols. It is also part of the historic background to the current wave of attacks of Fulani militants on Christian communities in Nigeria’s Middle Belt. As the report the Lindisfarne Centre published earlier this year on the religious background to these observed: the teaching of Islamic shari’a concepts such as “jihad” and “booty” in West African madrassas has historically provided a legitimisation of traditional Fulani practices such as raiding non-Muslim areas in the Middle Belt.

However, there is also a third reason for such attacks. The shari’a of classical Islam which is taught in west African madrassas, as well as in countries such as Iraq and Syria designates Christians as “dhimmis”. This is a term which has frequently been misinterpreted in the west as a form of religious toleration. In fact, it is nothing of the sort, it is a non-citizen status, whereby once an area has been subjected to Islamic government and shari’a, those who follow non-Islamic monotheistic religions i.e. principally Christians and Jews, are permitted to live, provided that they keep to a set of rules – known as the dhimma – or dhimmi contract. Part of this is that they only worship behind closed doors and – no aspect of their worship can be heard, nor can any Christian symbols be seen by Muslims.  What this often does is to create a cultural assumption that the public celebration of Christian festivals such as Christmas is somehow provocative – and should not be allowed in an Islamic country.  

Nigeria of course, is not an Islamic state, it is a country where there is a balance between Christians and Muslims, with a smaller element of adherents of African Traditional Religions (ATR) who also suffer similar violence at the hands of Fulani militants. However, three things are clear:

1.       Radical Islamists groups such as Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province wish to see to Nigeria become an Islamic state with shari’a enforced on Muslim and non-Muslim alike.

2.       It is in the interests of such groups to sit back and allow Fulani attacks on Christian and ATR communities to carry on, as the continuance of these attacks will help religiously cleanse Nigeria’s Middle Belt of its non-Muslim communities.

3.       The uncritical repetition by western media outlets of the Nigerian Federal Government’s line that such attacks are simply “inter-communal” tensions between farmers who happen to be Christians and Fulani herders who happen to be Muslim, is, when the victims are overwhelmingly Christians, in effect “victim blaming”. It also quite wrongly risks implying that all Fulani Muslim herders are to blame, rather than just a militant segment of them. Far from helping stop the violence, reporting that ignores the specific targeting of Christian communities – precisely because they are Christians, is potentially fuelling it.