The popularity of Sharia (Islamic) law in the northern Moslem states has proved to be a failure and a fraud. Few (less than half a dozen) of the savage punishments (amputation for theft, death for adultery) have been applied. No one has been executed. Perhaps most telling, Islamic scholars have declared that politicians stealing public money is not theft, but breach of trust (a much lesser offense under Sharia law). The crime rate is still high and the politicians are still corrupt. People are now looking towards vigilante or tribal militias for peace and justice, but these organizations tend to get taken over by crooks. Despair is widespread, as is the popularity of separatism. But the desire by the less corrupt and better organized tribes to form their own nation is one act that will unite the rest of the country to oppose it.
