On this day last year, the Kano bombing took place. It was another atrocity committed by Boko Haram. Roughly 120 people were killed and over 250 wounded. It was carried out at a mosque while Friday prayers were going on. Three bombs were set off — one on the road near by and two in the courtyard of the mosque. As the worshippers fled, they were gunned down. Allegedly, angry survivors caught and killed four of the gunmen.

That’s roughly as big an attack as the recent Paris attacks. But again: wrong kind of victims in the wrong place. Maybe we should make a bigger deal out of Paris. After all, what happened in Paris is the exception. Usually, it is overwhelmingly Muslims who are killed in these attacks. Yet here in America, we so casually blame “the Muslims.” You know, during The Troubles in Northern Ireland, people weren’t running around saying we couldn’t allow Catholics to immigrate to the United States.

In Hamlet, the title character has the perfect opportunity to kill Claudius. But Claudius is praying, and Hamlet does not want to send him straight to heaven. What does it say of Boko Haram that they kill people while worshiping? I think it says that religion really has nothing to do with their actions. If they believed in their god, they wouldn’t attack people while praying. They are just homicidal thugs who lust for power. I’m not saying they can’t find justification in their holy books. I’m just saying that it doesn’t matter. They could find justification on a postage stamp.