By now you’ve seen the call. “Bring back our girls.”
When Michelle Obama sent out a picture of herself holding a hand-written sign with that Twitter hashtag on the day before Mother’s Day, the image was quickly re-Tweeted 46,000 times. The same day, British Prime Minister David Cameron appeared on television holding a similar sign. Celebrities and public figures have joined the swelling movement started and propelled by ordinary people the world over: demanding that Nigeria bring back their girls – and promising the world we won’t stand silent until they are home.
The story behind the slogan is an unlikely one.
On April 15, 2014, terrorists from the brutal Islamist separatist group Boko Haram burst into a girls’ school in the Nigerian town of Chibok and carried away over 300 children. At the time, few people seemed to care. Soldiers stationed a half hour drive away declined to intervene. Later, local authorities refused to search for the girls. It was left to local parents to follow their daughters’ kidnappers into the vast, arid Sambisa forest, where the kidnappers fled, to fruitlessly search for their daughters.
In the days after the kidnapping, 50 girls managed to escape, but the rest – 276 teens – never came home. As the weeks went by, Boko Haram terrorists continued to act with impunity, carrying out other massive deadly terror attacks in the region, and even kidnapped another eight girls on May 5.
“These girls are the poorest of the poor,” one local resident told the New York Times. A primarily Christian village, Chibok had been under siege for five years by fundamentalist Islamists, who oppose all female education. In fact, the school where the abduction took place had closed out of fear of attack, and was opened briefly only so that local girls could take their state final exams. When the terrorists released a video showing the dazed captives, clad head to toe in Islamic robes and threatening to marry them off as slaves, few of the girls’ parents could see their daughters. Chibok lacks electricity, and they had no means to watch the video.
For weeks, it seemed likely that the 276 girls being held as slaves would disappear into the same obscurity of their town, married or sold off in secret, with few ever knowing or caring of their fate. By and large the story went unreported; there was no world outcry.
Then concerned individuals started to do what they could. Over a week after the kidnappings, Obiageli Ezekwesili, a former World Bank Vice President, appeared at a literary event in the Nigerian city of Port Harcourt. Taking the stage, she used the event to remind the crowd of the missing schoolgirls, leading a chant of “Bring back our daughters”.
Her words moved Ibrahim Musa Abdullahi, a lawyer watching the event on TV at home in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. He tweeted the slogan to his 95 followers, changing it slightly: “I don’t have a daughter so I thought it would be better to make it girls,” he said later, hatching the phrase that soon went viral.
As “Bring back our girls” continues to gain traction around the world, some have mocked the effort. Would terrorists in Nigeria stop killing and kidnapping because they checked their Twitter account?
Sometimes just doing our part can help make even the most overwhelming goals possible.
Yet “Bring back our girls” seems to be making a real difference, putting the story front and center in the media and pressuring countries to act. France, the United States, Britain and Israel all sent military personnel to Nigeria to hunt for the missing girls. On May 14, 2014, Canada became the latest country to pledge troops as the international outcry has swelled. In Israel’s case, the envoy includes intelligence experts who can help build up a picture of where the terrorists have taken the missing girls.
Twitter was actually used for a noble cause and making a real effect.
Two thousand years ago, Rabbi Tarfon addressed the question of how to tackle seemingly huge hurdles when the means at our disposal are so small. He taught: “You are not required to complete the task, yet you are not free to withdraw from it.” (Pirkei Avot 2:20)
Some tasks seem so impossibly daunting that we might feel there is no point in even attempting them. But sometimes just doing our part can help make even the most overwhelming goals possible.
The story of “Bring back our girls” is inspiring. Here are four lessons we can all learn from our roles in it.
1. Empathy is the basis of action.
One of the celebrities endorsing “Bring back our girls” is Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl who stood up to Islamists who wanted to close her school, too, who was shot in the head. “I believe we are all like a family” Malala has said, calling the Nigerian girls her sisters.
When we get in the habit of thinking of other people as related to us, we’re more likely to be moved by their plight. Imagine this was happening to your daughter, God forbid. How would you feel? What would you do?
2. Resist cynicism.
It was easy for some to dismiss a grass-roots social media revolution as ineffectual. But luckily, tens of thousands of people were unafraid of looking foolish, sharing the “Bring back our girls” message even when the cause seemed hopeless.
Resist the temptation to become cynical; remember nothing ever came from doing nothing.
3. Enlist your community.
Remember that you don’t have to do everything alone. Try enlisting your community, tapping into its resources and strengths.
The Bring back our girls campaign relied on people coming together; we can each do the same in our own lives. Try enlisting the aid of friends and mentors to help you accomplish your own goals today.
4. Pray.
This powerful tool is always available for us to use. We can pray for the victims and their families. In fact, we must. We are responsible for the world. When there is a calamity, we need view it as if it’s happening in our backyard. We need feel the victim’s pain, and at the very least we need to pray for their well-being.
(26) Deborah, January 16, 2017 1:15 PM
The struggle continues
Thanks for covering this issue from my parents home country, Dr Miller.
(25) Larry, May 21, 2014 7:15 AM
The President and the Muslims
Why is Pres. Obama refusing to use the word Muslim when referring to Muslim Terrorists?
(24) C.B.W. West Indies, May 19, 2014 6:48 PM
Boko Haram ; ANNIHILATE THEM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A.S.A.P.
Recividists like Boko Haram has no place in this world. I urge world leaders, find ways, Annihilate them Now !!
(23) Bob Van Wagner, May 19, 2014 1:31 PM
Boko Haram also says "Bring back OUR girls"
Yes, the evil ones themselves used that very measure of words to motivate themselves to action. They claim that the girls were "ours" too, in their view the girls were Muslim, or should be, and they took action to insure the purposefulness of their words.
Their empathic fervent desire was to "bring back our girls" from the influences of the West.
And to there evil ones, the words did have meaning -- because they took action top make it so.
Empty words do get filled, like empty buildings, and empty bodies. But by what are they filled?
(22) Mustapha, May 19, 2014 6:54 AM
You are chasing a shadow.
What is the scale in Holocaust? What is the difference in value between a life and billions killed. It was a good price to starve the Iraqis and let millions of children die. Prayer is useless for prayer in 'Arabic means devotion.
The Nigerian affair cannot be solved by the West and Europe. They will certainly make things worse. The real issue is hatred malice has infiltrated the minds of Nigerians on the false pretext and pretense of 'religion'. It is only education that can solve the problem. This has been denied to Nigerians. The recent article in Loonwatch should be read for the real issue is raised. Islam is spread and explained as an undesirable way of life by both the so called Muslim scholars and their Western illiterate counterparts.
Anonymous, May 19, 2014 10:41 AM
Again...
Rabbi Tarfon in Pirkei Avos: We are not required to complete the task, but neither can we withdraw from it.
Alan S., May 21, 2014 11:34 PM
Applicable only if the task is ours.
(21) Beverly, May 19, 2014 6:09 AM
Sick
Do you think this will ever be solved and we can get our girls back,?
(20) Raphaelle Do Lern Hwei, May 19, 2014 5:58 AM
Pawns of Political Conflict
Shocking and sad why so many innocent girls and their families are in trouble due to political conflict.
In my part of the world, an elderly mother of the owner of the Sheng Siong supermarket chain was kidnapped in March this year. Kidnap for ransom money is more common here, but evil when it involved the defenceless and fragile. Gran could have died of cardiac arrest in captivity.
Boko Haram is perhaps not against education for girls but secular and other non Islamic education.
I deplore this intolerance.
(19) Lisa Klein, May 19, 2014 3:02 AM
Bring Back Our Girls
All the suffering in the world is OUR suffering, particularly when it comes to innocent children. We must rise up and be the voice for those who have none or have been silenced in one way or another. Shalom and Peace to all who suffer.
(18) Margarita, May 19, 2014 2:10 AM
hashtags do not help to bring girls back
how very sad to see people exploiting the issue for the personal gain, while the countries do nothing (michele obama is one of the examples - just watch her going much further than hilary. should we ask hilary "what difference does it make?" or is it just reserved to things she has already stuffed up?).
it is very upsetting to see what is going with this issue, but one has to ask - why this one and not women burned alive for attending churches? or boys being slaughtered for not enlisting with terrorists? and why it is not allowed to say that boko is an islamist (he admits it, he states it in videos, and yet our "political correctness" doesn't allow us to say it? why?). are they picking tragedy by the amount of possible
hashtags do not help, real help is required and not surprisingly, Israel is the only country which is helping to bring the girls back. Israel is a ray of sunshine and is a light to the nations.
(17) Myrna, May 19, 2014 1:51 AM
Sick people they should be beheaded for the heinous crime
(16) Laura, May 19, 2014 1:17 AM
Thanks for posting
Thanks for posting this. As a matter of fact, there is no such thing as "Those people over there". There is no other people somewhere else, we are all part of each other we are all sisters. If they 1 girl is missing, it is our daughter, if it is 276 girls are missing, kidnapped by terrorists, they are all our daughters. My heart is breaking for them, and for all of our other family members is despair. My Hashem bring them home quickly!
(15) Anonymous, May 18, 2014 11:50 PM
Counting the Omer, nightly, as I come to the prayer 'Free the
captive' , I pause and pray for the girls and their distressed
families. May the Almighty preserve these innocents in safety
and make it possible for them to be found and restored to their families. Amen
(14) Samson OCHE, May 18, 2014 11:26 PM
BringBackOurGirls
Good talk. Bring back our girls is not a cry to the irresponsible terrorist group, because they are unrealistic and evil, so we condemn their actions in the strongest possible term. It is to the government's lackadaisical action or response to the adoption of the girls. We know that the Nigerian government if committed can and would have recovered the girls within the hour of their captivity.
Shalom From Nigeria.
(13) Shoshana, May 18, 2014 7:29 PM
Because they did ot help us we should help them
It is easy to turn our backs because of our past with Christianity. It's true, who spoke up for us? No one. So we teach them how. To be a Jew means to teach, even when it is not easy. Choices made from pure emotion are not wise. G-d has given us an opportunity to show them how things need to be done. We should do it and help these girls. Todah for this article. It's soul food.
(12) Ignatz, May 18, 2014 7:15 PM
The girls didn't just wander off....
They were kidnapped -- and forcibly converted -- in the name of Islam. Empathy is great -- but how about giving the problem a namel? There's only ONE religion that is attacking people daily on 5 continents -- and it has a name. Nothing courageous coming from Michele O. about the root of the problem. By the way, I haven't heard Mrs. O. call for those conversions to be nullified so the girls can remain Christians....
(11) Joy, May 18, 2014 6:06 PM
Where are the people of their religion
Why only us the U S we are not the police men of the world. Who spoke up for us the Jew SICK!
Margarita, May 19, 2014 2:13 AM
because you can make a difference
it's not about being a policemen of the world, it is about helping to save the life. and practically nobody spoke (or will speak if G-d forbid.........) but this is who we are and each life is presious.
not sure why this issue was singled out and picked up by the government, but nevertheless, it is horrible and i am sure you will be relieved when all of it will come to the end.
(10) bill, May 18, 2014 5:27 PM
irony
i like this artical about people living thousands of miles outside of there control recommending great empathy for these victims of radical islam yet for the people living under house arrest men women and children they feel none in the west bank and gaza strip words come before actions actions come from the result of commitment sacrifize and determination
Alan S., May 18, 2014 9:15 PM
Please learn to use punctuation. Your letter might make sense.
(9) FR WILLIAM BARROCAS, May 18, 2014 5:26 PM
free the abducted girls at once
33 days after we are still reaching nowhere in this shameful incident although 50 girls escaped, still another 276 remain unknown as victims of abduction. the poorest of the poor from a primarily christian village, is truly being held to ransom it seems because being christians they are resisting the denying of equal and free access to modern facilities which are a must in the situation the girls were in. now under this attack on girls and boys too must stop.let therefore the world community rise as one man/woman and help liberate the 276 and any others there might be and help stop this and similar incidents once for all. god help us
(8) Manasseh, May 18, 2014 5:09 PM
To Parents: "Our Girls"
OUR GIRSL!
After hearing the the news of the abductions and as a father of girls, I felt as if they are my own children
To anyone who is a parent the word Our Girls is appropriate
It will be a sad day to the people of the whole world when the world stands by and watches the inoccents who cant even deffend themselves become pawns of dirty games, dirty idoelogies, dirty philosophies and iresponsible thinking
May G-D find us a solution
(7) Ra'anan, May 18, 2014 4:39 PM
good;, you are right
good;, you are right
(6) Bob Van Wagner, May 18, 2014 4:30 PM
Barking dogs do not bite
Words can be a most a terrible substitute when action is needed. What should one think of the Fire Chief's wife who parades by the fire holding a sign saying "#FIRE, STOP NOW!". We hope only that her husband is a man of actions, and less wordy than she.
(5) mgoldberg, May 18, 2014 4:11 PM
Re: I beg to differ
The comment I used was by Pamela Geller, and she wrote further regarding the disingenuous actions of the #hashtag complaints...
"The hashtag politics aren’t aimed at the terrorists. They’re aimed at helping the terrorists.
There’s a reason why the media and so many leftists have embraced the hashtag. #BringBackOurGirls isn’t a rescue. It denounces the Nigerian government for not having already gotten the job done even as the State Department stands ready to denounce any human rights violations during a rescue attempt."
And that's the ongoing appeasement that disallows caling Boko Haram a terrorist group, these past five years, but never allowing it to be known as a 'muslim' terror, which it is, and has been and will be. "Obama and Boko Haram want to bring down the Nigerian government and replace it with a leadership that is more amenable to appeasement. It’s the same thing that is happening in Israel and Egypt.
State Department officials responded to Boko Haram attacks over the years with the same litany of statistics about unemployment in the Muslim north and the 92 percent of children there who do not attend school. When Hillary Clinton was asked about the kidnappings by ABC News, she blamed Nigeria for not “ensuring that every child has the right and opportunity to go to school.”
In essence, the fight against muslim attempts to overthrow the government, to overthrow the freedoms and liberties allowed by non muslim rulers is not allowed to be mentioned and the blame has been put on Nigeria these past years for being to oppressive, when in fact the enslavement of infidel infidells is just the end of a long line of religiously sanctioned tyranny, slaughter and the appeasement of all that rather than honestly admitting what they themselves claim to be and do.
(4) mgoldberg, May 18, 2014 4:00 PM
I beg to differ
With all due respect to your well meaning words... I find them shallow, without understanding of what goes on there, and the people involved. To quoted one astute commentator:" Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton haven’t championed #BringBackOurGirls because it’s a hashtag in support of the kidnapped girls, but because it undermines the Nigerian government. They aren’t trying to help the kidnapped girls. They’re trying to bring down a government that hasn’t gone along with their agenda for appeasing Boko Haram and Nigerian Muslims."
Do you not recall what obama did to egypt, to libya, to iranians who in 09' were protesting that vicious government of Israela and jew haters? look past the obvious to see a realistic view of what the enemies of those girls in Nigeria, and not only them. Boko Haram and muslims have been doing this in Nigeria for some two hundred years- it is Islam tormenting kaffirs, and Obama did absolutely nothing, And the has tag campaign is a sad joke, and meaningless escept as it undermines the ability of the non muslim government to fight islamic tyranny. They have been critic for being harsh to muslims and that being the 'cause of Islamic enslavery and mass murders. This is the appeasement you are aiding with your suggested actions. You want to be good, and decent but the effect will be the opposite.
(3) H.A. Arnevet, May 18, 2014 3:59 PM
Where are Muslim voices
Anyone hear any Muslims demanding return of the girls, criticizing Boko Haram; is the Arab League sending troops to help find the girls and eliminate Boko Haram?
No, no, and no again.
(2) Laurie, May 18, 2014 3:57 PM
Only God can save the girls
It is clear by now that only God knows where these precious girls are. Pray He sends warrior angels to hold back the evil one and show the way to the rescuers. Please put guardian angels around these innocents.
(1) Anonymous, May 18, 2014 3:44 PM
Our Girls
I feel great empathy and sadness, for these poor young girls who have been ripped from their families,and virtually have lost their lives forever to this terrorist regime... having said this...I have repeatedly heard Michelle Obama referring to these girls, as 'our girls'...I do understand that while this might well appear to be unimportant in comparision to this grave situation, it strikes me as rather odd that as an American, and as our Presidents wife, that she would refer to these girls as 'our girls' when they are not in fact American girls..one might question her choice of words, having overly personalized their plight.
Rachel, May 18, 2014 5:01 PM
Our Girls
As the author of the piece states, the first thing we need is empathy. As a female, I cannot begin to imagine the terror these young women are undergoing. As a woman, I can try to imagine what their parents must be going through. Being a white American Jew doesn't mean I don't care about black Nigerian Christian & Muslim girls. That's what "Bring Back OUR Girls" means: we are all human beings, we have all been someone's child, most of us are someone's sibling or parent. This is not a question of left-right American politics, nor pro- or anti-Nigerian government politics either. It is a question of humanity.
Anonymous, May 18, 2014 7:35 PM
Our Girls
Rachel, beautifully said! This is an issue of huminty inwhich we are all a part of.. Put yourself in the shoes of the girls, or their families. How would your feel? If we don't collectively stand up for injustice to all. We become the next victims, and who will come to your rescue. This a very heartfelt article. We should all stand against any type of terror.
Anonymous, May 22, 2014 11:38 PM
Can someone other group besides Jews spearhead this issue?
Jewish people are always there, rightly or wrongly, to help the very people that would in turn have no problem putting a bullet into the heads of the people trying to help.
Comment #3 is particularly accurate. Again, Jewish people are always are on the front lines, for and against the same issue. Here in New York, Jewish people are picketing the depiction of a film at the new 9/11 museum, the film accurately portraying and stating who the terrorists were that flew the planes into the towers. As much as I disagree with these Jews for trying to rewrite history, the point is that it is the Jewish people, rightly or wrongly, that are on the frontlines. With the abduction of these girls, where are the Muslim and Arab voices?