The following article considers the extent to which the Nigerian jihadi group, Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal-Jihad (JAS), also known as Boko Haram, is transforming its model of governance from domination by violence and force to governance through civil administration and public support. Drawing on over four years of research and programming in north-east Nigeria, the authors consider three aspects of such a transformation: the development of institutions, the propagation of an ideology and programmes to win over the hearts and minds of the wider population, and the role assigned to women and girls. The article finds that JAS has established little in the way of a civilian administration in the areas that have come under its control. Likewise, the movement has apparently made no concerted effort to project a vision of a future society or concrete benefits of the envisaged caliphate that would generate a level of public support. Moreover, the brutal treatment of women and girls belies any attempt by the movement to promote a positive vision of the role of women, even as wives and mothers. In this, JAS is seen to differ from a number of other jihadi movements that have relatively sophisticated approaches to generating popular support and recruiting members. The article goes on to suggest a number of reasons for JAS's failure to move towards a polity that is more consensual and less dependent on violence, as well as its implications for those who would seek to restrain the expansion and ideological reach of jihadist groups. It concludes by offering suggestions of how the government can seize the opportunity presented by this lack of a state-building strategy, in order to show the people of north-east Nigeria that it can offer a better alternative.

This essay lays out the historical and intellectual lineage of the idea behind the journal Feminist Dissent. As the "Rushdie Affair" was both the backdrop and the catalyst for a group such as Women Against Fundamentalism, the current conjuncture characterized by an exponential expansion of fundamentalism, neo-liberal austerity, rollback of the rights of women and sexual minorities, and racist control of borders and migration has necessitated a different kind of analysis, one that is absent from academic and popular discourse at the moment. This essay is an attempt to propose a new way of looking at the intersection of gender and fundamentalism, and underscores the importance of highlighting dissent as a crucial feminist strategy.

This article examines the binary of culture/ religion/ tradition and modern/ secular/ foreign and its impact on women’s human rights struggles in particular in northern Nigeria. This binary is commonly perpetuated by state and non-state actors, including politicians, community leaders and religious leaders, who weaponise culture, religion and tradition to resist the struggle for gender equality. It highlights how progress around some concerns, such as rape of young girls, has occurred concurrently with attacks on other rights, particularly sexual and reproductive rights including abortion and sex outside marriage, and of those with non-normative sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions. This hardening of attitudes and narrowing of what is seen as permissible not only obscures the diversity of how people lived and thought in the past but is also far from the reality of how people live their lives presently. It further reflects the increased influence of religious fundamentalism and conservatism in northern Nigeria.[1]   [1] I used the term religious fundamentalism as distinct from religious conservatism and to signify the project whereby those engaged in it ‘construct ‘tradition’ in a way that is highly selective, at the same time as dogmatically insisting that their reconstructions of text are ‘sacred’ and so unable to be questioned’ (Cowden and Sahgal, 2017, 15), deny ‘the possibility of interpretation and reinterpretation even while its adherents engage in both’ (Bennoune, 2013, 16) and centre the importance of control of women’s bodies and sexuality and rigid gender roles. Religious fundamentalists ‘believe in the imposition of God’s law, something called the Sharia – their version of it  rather than others’ – on Muslims everywhere and in the creation of what they deem to be  Islamic states or disciplined diasporic communities ruled by these laws,’ denounce secularists, seek to bring politicised religion into all spheres, want to police, judge and change the behaviour, appearance and comportment of others and aim to sharply limit women’s rights, sometimes in the name of protection, respect and difference (Bennoune, 2013, 16). In contrast, while religious conservatism remains problematic, it does not make claims to possessing the only true interpretation and can be ‘protective of certain traditional spaces for women as well as being capable of reform and change’ (Cowden and Sahgal, 2017, 18).

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