Sectarian violence, wherever it occurs, is a failure of the cherished tenets of religion. But in the case of Sunni vs. Shiite in the Muslim world, the often-judgmental eyes of the world only serve to aggravate the existing problems.
The distribution of Sunni and Shiite populations throughout the Middle East ensure that one or the other group will be a minority population. As anyone who has contemplated politics and society knows well, the problem of minorities, whether religious or ethnic, is often a thorny one. Issues of identity come into play and are exacerbated greatly when they are linked to human, civil or property rights. For one group, however defined, to deny another of these basic rights is obviously problematic, and naturally enough may lead to discontent, retaliation or sedition. Such factionalism, however, routinely misrepresents its own core identities and beliefs.
Though differences may be, for instance, be religious, the factors that lead to violence seldom are. Almost always, key points of contention are economic or political. It would be wonderful if these problems could be addressed and solved within the realms in which they are created. Of course, looking back through history, this has seldom been the case.
Faith and violence should be so antithetical to one another that any suggestion of their connection ought to be an outrage. However, this, also, is seldom the case. I would not venture to say that more wars have been fought over religion than over any other issue, but this may in fact be the case. It is even more ironic when death occurs over religious differences that are relatively minor because it means that those involved in the conflict should, rightfully, regard one another as brothers.
Although there have been, for hundreds of years, points of contention, Sunni-Shiite violence has never been as strongly emphasized by the media as it is today, throughout the world.
Even those in the West who know next to nothing about the tenets of Islam have undoubtedly heard of the issues between the Sunnis and the Shiites. The slant of much of the reporting may unfortunately embody an unspoken assumption: That Muslims are violent people. An explanation of the issues aimed at simplifying them for westerners starts by saying that, because Sunnis and Shiites occupy the same broad swaths of land, naturally this is problematic. But why should it be? And even if it occasionally is, why on earth should it be assumed to be the case?
On Twitter, one tweet says, “When we were young, we did not know the term Shiite; today’s children feed this term with loads of hate.” This is an eloquent and simple expression of the effects of today’s reporting of events and social preconceptions. And these effects are absolutely deadly. Our children are growing up in a world where little possibility exists for religious differences to be benign, according to a popular wisdom, which has sprouted dozens of new voices. Left unchecked, the effects will likely be a perpetuation of violence, again masquerading as religion.
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