What About Sunni Sectarianism?
Mshari Al-Zaydi

What we are currently witnessing today are the flames of sectarian fire consuming our region whilst politicians and leading figures lie and tell us that everything is well.

Look at the situation in Iraq, many people warned against the waste of a victory and a “celebrated” event in the form of the toppling of a dictatorial regime and the potential for success in Iraq and for Iraqis after this rare historical occasion. The event came about as a result of American interest in deposing the Iraqi regime and exploiting the opportunity by building a pluralistic Iraq interested in construction and development and not allowing the opportunity to pass by as a result of allowing sectarian and ethnic impulses to surface. Such malicious instincts are strengthened by the fangs of doctrine and the claws of militias, however it seemed that nobody took heed of such warnings, most notably the Americans, thus the trauma began when Abu Musab al Zarqawi of Al Qaeda took hold of the situation in Iraq and invested in the existing Sunni tensions and the alertness of the Baathists, and so a bloody chapter of Iraqi history took form and killing in the name of identity commenced.

This period also saw fanatics, who drown in sectarian consciousness, become leading figures in Iraq, such as Moqtada al Sadr who now has his own representative bloc in parliament whilst his militia carries out acts of slaughter and spreads fear. This was the very period that saw individuals occupied by sectarian tension become key players in Iraq such as Harith al Dari.

What has happened has happened in Iraq and it has reached such a level of devastation that no political attempts to disguise or gloss it over have succeeded, including attempts by Iraqi politician Abdulaziz al Hakim who stated in a television interview that there is no case of a civil war in Iraq but rather only the existence of political differences.

Al-Zaydi, who writes on Islamic movements and fundamentalism for Asharq Alawsat, offers up this piece for your consideration. He notes that sectarianism, which has had a history of dividing the Islamic umma, is rising again. The media have been covering Shi’i instances, as in Iraq and Lebanon, but have not been paying much attention to efforts by Sunnis to play the religion card. He notes the influence of Al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as the hard-line salafists like those Saudi ‘scholars’ who called for war against the Shi’i last week. Definitely worth reading.