Where are the tears for the victims of Boko Haram?

In brief.

Last week practically all we saw on the news channels were the unfolding, and tragic events in Paris, France where a pair of mindless extremist Muslim brothers, Chérif and Saïd Kouachi, murdered 10 staff members at the headquarters of the satirical Charlie Hebdo magazine.Two policemen were killed too.

This, the brothers were alleged to have said, was in retaliation for the magazine posting blasphemous images of the Prophet Muhammad. They then went on the run, and whilst on their thankfully brief time on the lam, another mindless extremist believed to have had sympathy for their actions, a man called Amedy Coulibaly, murdered another police officer and took a number of people hostage at a Jewish supermarket in Paris saying he would kill them all if the Kouachi brothers were either apprehended or killed by the Police.

This gunman was killed by French police commandos, known as the GIGN, in a shoot-out but not before he had killed four of his unfortunate hostages. Shortly afterwards the brothers were sent to their maker too, and this brought the blood soaked mayhem and madness to a conclusion.

May all the victims of this atrocity rest in peace.

In light of all this, and quite understandably, all through the past week we had professional cartoonists, and fellow media practitioners, correctly, standing in solidarity with their departed brothers from the journalism community, and condemning, emphatically,these barbarians and those who think like them. We also saw a torrent of similarly themed cartoons on twitter and on various media websites which were drawn in solidarity with the departed. The message was clear. Freedom of speech is sacred to most fair minded people and we will not allow ourselves to be cowed by the fascism of religious fanatics.

This Freedom of speech is, of course, relative depending on who is exercising that freedom. Even the most self proclaimed fearless of them of all do not always "dish it out equal" as they like to claimAs some of you may recall there was an almost universal outcry, along with lethal rioting, among Muslims globally when a similar set of cartoons was published back in 2005 by the Danish magazine Jyllands-Posten . Danish and other European Embassies were attacked, flags were burned, and around 200 innocent people lost their lives. The very same magazine left me a little puzzled when they opted not to publish some satirical cartoons featuring Jesus Christ. 

Make of it what you will.

I have a question to ask.

Between the 3^rd and the 7^th of January, the Nigerian based, and thuggish, Muslim extremist group, Boko Haram, attacked and ransacked the town of Baga in Northern Nigeria which is situated close to Nigeria's border with Chad. Upwards of 2000 people, mainly children and the infirm and the elderly, are said to have lost their lives so far there at the hands of these cruel militants and it would seem that the government of the somewhat inappropriately named Goodluck Jonathan is powerless to act.

It is amazing to many though not to me how so little media attention is being paid to this continuing tragedy. The attack started well before the Parisian one and yet the media seemed to have ignored this only to begin to shriek and scream about Islamic extremism after the Paris attack commenced. A casual stroll through social networking sites – on a global level - will reveal an almost infinite numbers posts by people, rightly, mourning and lamenting the loss of lives in France. Strangely though, outside of Nigeria, and some parts of Africa, there are very few that have mourned the deaths of these children as if they do not exist in the minds of most.

Shall we not shed tears for these poor souls too? Or are some lives more valuable to others when it comes to globally covered atrocities?

Some may not think these people worthy of tears but I do.