International protests against cartoons of the prophet Muhammad inflamed tensions between Muslims and Christians in Nigeria, sparking deadly riots in late February that claimed at least 138 lives in several cities.

There was widespread fear that riots would break out in many other parts of the country, including Jos, a central Nigerian city with a recent history of interreligious violence.

But local Muslim and Christian peacemakers worked together to reduce tensions in Jos through face-to-face meetings and cell phone text messaging. These efforts, as well as government security measures, prevented a violent confrontation in Jos, according to Gopar Tapkida, a (MCC) peace worker in the city.

Tapkida earned a master’s degree in from 91¶ÌÊÓƵ in 2001. He began his current assignment as an MCC peace worker in Jos weeks before interreligious riots engulfed the city on Sept. 7, 2001.

Teaching Peacemakers

Ever since interreligious riots erupted in Jos in 2001 and killed about 900 people, Tapkida and others have worked to teach peacemaking skills to Christians and Muslims in the region. He helped form groups of Christian and Muslim peacemakers in Jos and in the surrounding Plateau state.

On Feb. 23, during a week of heavy rioting in other cities, Tapkida met with 10 leading Muslim and Christian peacemakers in Jos to find ways to diffuse rising tensions.

“We agreed at this meeting that each one of us will serve as evangelists for peace,” Tapkida says.

Members of the group met with their friends and neighbors and spoke about how Christians and Muslims should resist calls for violence against each other.

Situation Defused

Tensions escalated in Jos as rumors spread that Muslims were preparing to attack Christians on Feb. 25 and that Christians were planning a reprisal attack. However, two Muslim peacemakers investigated the situation and found that Muslim teenagers were simply planning a demonstration against the cartoons of Muhammad.

The Muslim peacemakers sent text messages to inform Tapkida and other Christian peacemakers and eventually persuaded the teenagers to cancel their demonstration.

Tapkida says that the recent violence in Nigeria is a reflection of longstanding political divisions between Christians and Muslims. Nigeria’s population is divided about equally between the two religions.

Then, Tapkida says, he felt like a lone swimmer in an ocean of violence. But after the recent successes of peacemakers in Jos, he knows he is not alone.

“Today, as I look at the situation, the ocean is still there, but I don’t see myself swimming alone,” Tapkida says. “There are people that are swimming alongside.”

The headlines tell only part of the story: a venerated mosque decapitated in Samarra, Muslims and Christians slaughtering each other in Nigeria, raids on Christians in Egypt.

Few Westerners hear what is said in the Muslim world. In early February, a popular TV program in Abu Dhabi, a moderate Islamic location, ran a segment about a small-fry Italian politician who, reacting to the Danish cartoon controversy, called on the pope for a new crusade. The title of the segment was worded to arouse: “A New Crusade?” The show also aired on U.S. Arabic channels and presumably many other Islamic countries. The messages from growing extremist groups on the streets are much more inflammatory.

Just as many in the West believe there is threat from the Muslim world, large numbers of Muslims believe a vast threat to their beliefs and their way of life exists from the West. Fearful people on all sides easily find disturbing gestures from the other side and hold these up as indicators of the future. We are at a grave pass. What to do?

First, recognize the nature of the problem. This is not a short-term battle with a few crazy terrorists. It is a long-term struggle for the hearts and minds of a community of millions who have experienced prolonged and pervasive humiliation. The Muslim world has suffered setback after setback, politically, economically, educationally, technologically, socially, for many centuries.

Whereas most Western nations have for several hundred years been governed by leaders widely considered to be credible representatives of the people, most Muslim countries were colonized and remain in the grip of elites who have managed to retain imperial powers. The Muslim majority in most countries despise their own corrupt and oppressive leaders only slightly less than they resent the West for its arrogance, its decadence, and its willingness to support oppressive Muslim governments.

Second, recognize the strategy of extremist Islam, a growing but still minority faction. The real audience of the 911 attacks was not America, it was the struggling, weary, angry but passive Muslim masses. Remember, bin Laden was on the fringes and he knew it. So he borrowed a strategy that guided communist revolutionaries for decades: drive apathetic moderates into your own extremist arms by provoking enemy attack. There could have been no man in the world more happy than Osama bin Laden on the day George Bush launched the Iraq invasion.

Like a crafty matador goading a tiring bull, bin Laden continues to bait. After many months of silence, he issued in January 2006 a new round of threats