Samuel Cohn: Global Social Trends

Just for the record:

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1. Nigeria is still in a civil war with Boko Haram. Over 25,000 civilians have been killed. The Nigerian army has lost many of its recent engagements. At one point, Boko Haram appeared to be defeated – but human rights abuses by the army are increasing popular willingness to join the rebels.

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2. There is a civil war in the Cameroon between the French and the English speakers. The war has produced over 15,000 refugees, most of them English speakers.

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3. There is armed conflict between rival Moslem groups in Burkina Faso. This is still at the level of low scale terrorism and raids.

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4. The northern portion of Mali fell to Tuareg rebels in 2012. Things were peaceful enough when the Mali government just left the North alone. But the central government is trying to re-establish control and the Tuaregs are fighting back effectively.

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5. Northern Chad has fallen into violence, this time from local Chadian rebels who use the desert in neighboring Libya as a base.

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6. Mozambique has been generally peaceful since the end of a civil war that ran from the 1970’s to the early 90’s. Recent insurgents have started a campaign of beheadings. For now, the violence is confined to one province.

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7. In Somalia, the war between the government and the Al-Shabab insurgents continues.

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8. The civil war in Syria continues. The Syrian civil war has produced over 6.7 million refugees, including 3.6 million in Turkey, 950,000 in Lebanon where refugees represent one sixth of the Lebanese population, 670,000 in Jordan, 250,000 in Iraq and 130,000 in Egypt. Don’t think the presence of all of these refugees isn’t having an effect on local politics in Turkey and the Middle East.

Not a single one of these stories was covered by the New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, the Washington Post or the Wall Street Journal.

On the day I am writing this, the major story is Donald Trump at the G-7 meetings. Donald Trump was unhappy because Emmanuel Macron invited the Iranian Foreign Minister to the meetings. Donald Trump’s discomfort was good news for the liberal outlets and bad news for the conservative outlets.

Donald Trump’s comfort or discomfort is a source of constant interest for American news watchers.

There is much less interest in the non-American people being shot or beheaded in the rest of the world.