Sectarianism in the Arab World
by <
http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/author/alexandercorbeil/> Alexander
Corbeil | on April 17th, 2013 |
<
http://foreignpolicyblogs.com/2013/04/15/sectarianism-in-the-arab-world/#co
mments> 0 comments
Division, a word so simple yet characterized by many intricacies has led
mankind through its political evolution. The development of the modern
nation-state, which was birthed by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 was based
on it. The United States and the Soviet Union threatened to lob nuclear
weapons at one another, in part because of a division of ideologies. A long
list of countries have fought based on “division,” whether the reasoning be
religion, language or culture: India-Pakistan, England-France, the Kurdish
Worker’s Party and the Turkish government. The list goes on, both in modern
times and across the historical spectrum.
Political entities and the people within them have molded and refined their
entities, a fluid reality, based upon self-identification vis-à-vis an
“other.” While not easily defined, given the pluralities of “others,” each
and every socio-political grouping has defaulted to an antagonistic
relationship or relationships which have endured for various lengths of
time. The violence associated with these divisions have ranged from the
one-off battles, which brings to mind the Canadian (then a British
colony)-American War of 1812 to mind. Others have lasted longer, usually
those which have been fought not at the inter-state level but that of the
intra-state variety. Lebanon, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Sri
Lanka, among a long list of others fall into this category. Samuel
Huntingon, in his controversial book The Clash of Civilizations, boiled
these latter categorized wars to geographical fault lines. But geography is
only one of a variety of casual factors. Ideological and religious divisions
are internal issues within many of the world’s religions, and in the vast
majority of cases have in turn caused violent conflict within geographic
areas and not on the borders of two “civilizations” as Huntingon would call
them.
No inter-geographical contest between ideologies has been ever-present and
violent as that between the religions of the Middle East. While division,
in terms of Islam, began with the antagonistic relationship between the
prophet’s third wife Aisha and his son-in-law and nephew Ali, it was morphed
into its modern form by colonial politics. Christians which had long been
accepted by their Muslim neighbours, albeit with a tax levied against them,
were also affected. Even before the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World
War One, British and French intervention into the Arab lands, in the form of
numerous capitulations, had created sectarian strife. 1860 saw Greater
Syria’s Druze population, back by Sunni paramilitary forces, butcher up to
20,000 Christians. The resentment was in part due to these above mentioned
agreements and the trading privileges bestowed upon Christian subjects of
the Ottoman Empire as mandated by the capitulations.
While uprisings, like that of 1860, would subside, the defeat of the Ottoman
Empire and the division of Arab lands would entrench a new and
irreconcilable system: the nation-state. The mandate system, backed by the
newly-born League of Nations, allowed both the British and French an
opportunity to “assist” these peoples, defined by fictitious boundaries, to
mature into nation-states. While on paper, these projects seemed noble in
their cause, they instead allowed these colonial overseers, who had divided
the region with the Skyes-Picot Agreement, to exacerbate underlying tensions
that they themselves had previously allowed to resurface. This is not to
argue that protagonists on both sides of the Sunni-Shi’a spectrum did not
play a role in exacerbating these tensions, but rather that the systemic
forces which created the conditions for sectarian hatred: economic hardship,
political turmoil and occupation, were by and large a European creation.
During this period the colonial overseers also engaged in divisive policies,
playing minority or religiously linked groups off against the larger
population.
The French backed the Christian Maronites in Lebanon and encouraged Alawites
to join the ranks of the Syrian military; the latter to ensure that they had
a trustworthy force to lean on successive Syrian governments. In both cases
the colonial positions bestowed upon the political elite of both groups
would in turn translate into disaster for their wider co-religionists. In
Lebanon, a bloody civil war, created through attempts by the Maronite
political elite to govern alone, led to a mass exodus of Christians and the
destruction of the country. In Syria, we see the bloody effects of minority
rule today, with the Alawite populace under threat of massacre as Bashar
al-Assad has tricked his coreligionist and other minorities into supporting
his rule. In Iraq, the British continued the Ottoman policy of supporting
Sunni rulers, which were in the minority, over their Shi’a counterparts. In
Israel, the play was not between Muslim groups but rather between newly
arrived Jewish immigrants from Europe and the native Palestinians.
Nevertheless, the effects were the same.
With the independence of these colonial creations, built on artificial
borders, with populaces whose political elite rallied them around their
sectarian identities for political gain it is no wonder that the break down
in central power would arose violent sentiments. With the Arab Spring, and
this is especially true in Syria, the nation-state bonds which have so
tenuously kept these cleavages in check have now been unraveled. The result
has been various levels and instances of brutality — rape, murder, the
destruction of holy places. While many may point to causal factors which
reach back thousands of years, it is worthwhile to keep in mind the colonial
legacy.
Iraqi and Lebanese Shia Units fight Syrian rebels to defend the Sayyidah
Zaynab Mosque in Damascus. The grand-daughter of Prophet Muhammad is an
important figure for Shi’as.
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Received on Wed Apr 17 2013 - 14:55:03 EDT
