Boko Haram, Procol Harum

I know I’m dating myself when I say this but every time I read about Boko Haram and their latest terrorizing antics also known as their plan to reinstate a medieval Islamic caliphate in religiously mixed Nigeria by virtue of stealing and brainwashing children, I hear an eerie version Procol Harum’s Whiter Shade of Pale in my head. Boko Haram is the group that abducted more than 200 schoolgirls to use as sex slaves from the village of Chibok. The girls are still missing after four months. Now this group has kidnapped dozens of boys and young men with intentions of forcing them to fight. At one time Boko Haram as a grassroots movement garnered popular support but as they have become bolder, more extreme, and more bloodthirsty they have lost much of that support and it seems that Nigeria’s military and even vigilantes are powerless against them. In the raid to kidnap the boys Boko Haram killed six older men and wounded five others. In my head I change Procol Harum’s lyrics from, Then dirt in truth is clean to the dirt in truth is clear and my heart goes out to the families of the children kidnapped and abducted in Nigeria. I can’t even begin to imagine how hard it would be to live immersed in fear and so much uncertainty,nor how difficult to be impotently unable to protect the lives of my children.