“It's difficult to pinpoint the worst aspect of this atrocity. And it's pitiful that this is nothing new. Treating women as spoils or weapons of war has been a common practice for thousands of years.”
Gates defines Boko Haram as “extremists” rather than terrorists.
Boko Haram are not “extremists”, they are literally throat-cutting terrorists. Evil as it is, they don’t just kidnap school girls to be married off or sold into slavery, they force their Christian victims to convert to Islam. They set school children--of both sexes--alight and leave them to burn alive in their own school dormitories.
Both Obama and Gates leave the impression that the slaughter of innocents in Nigeria has nothing to do with radical Islam when fact proves otherwise.
“Boko Haram has sought to justify its actions as consistent with Islamic teachings, and this is an insult. Many influential voices in the Muslim world have rebuked the group's actions. (To cite just one example, Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb of the Cairo-based Al-Azhar, one of Sunni Islam's most prestigious theological institutions, said the kidnappings "completely contradict Islam and its principles of tolerance.")
With eight-month-pregnant
Meriam Ibrahim yesterday sentenced to death in Sudan for “apostasy”, Sheik Ahmed el-Tayeb, who also came to the defense of Coptic Christians in Egypt, shows outstanding courage.
But it’s easy for the feminist-first Melinda Gates to point to one influential voice in the Muslim world, when the silence of the “many” is so deafening.
“But perhaps the most awful part of the story is that Boko Haram stands against a better future for ordinary Nigerians,” Gates wrote in her CNN piece. “Boko Haram is committed to the idea that women are the property of husbands and mere instruments of reproduction. They are particularly opposed to the idea that girls ought to be educated, which is why they target schools.
“In fact, when girls are educated and free to pursue their passions, they contribute more to a thriving society. When women have a voice, they raise it to demand a life that is greater than what they've been told they have a right to expect. And these demands change the future for everyone.
“It doesn't help the Nigerian schoolgirls now, but thinking about the women and girls everywhere who are strong and getting stronger is one way to maintain some of the optimism that must go along with our collective impatience.”
All too easy to talk about unleashing passion when billions of dollars drive your own.
“Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (B&MGF or the Gates Foundation) is one of the largest private foundations in the world, founded by Bill and Melinda Gates. It is "driven by the interests and passions of the Gates family." The primary aims of the foundation are, globally, to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty, and in America, to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology. The foundation, based in Seattle, Washington, is controlled by its three trustees: Bill Gates, Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett. Other principal officers include Co-Chair William H. Gates, Sr. and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Raikes.
The pro-life community was discouraged when it was revealed last week that
Warren Buffet gave $1.2-billion to Planned Parenthood and other pro-choice groups in the past decade.
Long before that Warren had empowered Bill and Melinda Gates with
billions of dollars for passions that include millions of abortions.
Warren Buffett donation
“On June 25, 2006, Warren Buffett (then the world's richest person, estimated worth of US$62 billion as of April 16, 2008) pledged to give the foundation approximately 10 million Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares spread over multiple years through annual contributions, with the first year's donation of 500,000 shares being worth approximately US$1.5 billion. Buffett set conditions so that these contributions do not simply increase the foundation's endowment, but effectively work as a matching contribution, doubling the Foundation's annual giving: "Buffett's gift came with three conditions for the Gates foundation: Bill or Melinda Gates must be alive and active in its administration; it must continue to qualify as a charity; and each year it must give away an amount equal to the previous year's Berkshire gift, plus an additional amount equal to 5 percent of net assets. Buffett gave the foundation two years to abide by the third requirement." The Gates Foundation received 5% (500,000) of the shares in July 2006 and will receive 5% of the remaining earmarked shares in the July of each following year (475,000 in 2007, 451,250 in 2008). In July 2013, Buffet announced another donation of his company's Class B, this time in the amount worth $2 billion, is going to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
“Nigeria has a population of 170 million. Its economy is the largest on the African continent. The future holds nearly boundless promise, as represented, in part, by the fact that the World Economic Forum is meeting in Abuja right now. But if the country's 85 million women and girls don't have the opportunity to seize their potential, then neither will Nigeria,” Gates wrote.
“There are countless examples of places around the world where women and girls are gaining power and autonomy, where the future looks brighter because women and girls are slowly wiping away the old gender norms.”
Just as Buffet arranged that “Bill or Melinda Gates must be alive and active it its administration” to use his money, in order for women and girls to slowly wipe out “old gender norms”, they have to be alive.
“The impressive outpouring of support for the girls -- both within Nigerian communities and around the world -- is an encouraging sign that most people want the version of the future that empowered women and girls will create, not the version that Boko Haram is trying to impose,” Gates wrote.
What most people want both within Nigerian communities and around the world is an end to the slaughter of innocents by radical Islamists.
“It doesn't help the Nigerian schoolgirls now, but thinking about the women and girls everywhere who are strong and getting stronger is one way to maintain some of the optimism that must go along with our collective impatience,” Gates concluded.
Optimism cannot be ordered. Impatience is individual and not collective.
Meanwhile, #BringBackOurGirls is not about saving school children. It’s about exploiting kidnapped school children for sheer political gain.
