Can You Tell a Sunni From a Shiite?

[Rhiannon12866]

By JEFF STEIN
Published: October 17, 2006
Washington

FOR the past several months, I’ve been wrapping up lengthy interviews with Washington counterterrorism officials with a fundamental question: “Do you know the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?”

A “gotcha” question? Perhaps. But if knowing your enemy is the most basic rule of war, I don’t think it’s out of bounds. And as I quickly explain to my subjects, I’m not looking for theological explanations, just the basics: Who’s on what side today, and what does each want?

After all, wouldn’t British counterterrorism officials responsible for Northern Ireland know the difference between Catholics and Protestants? In a remotely similar but far more lethal vein, the 1,400-year Sunni-Shiite rivalry is playing out in the streets of Baghdad, raising the specter of a breakup of Iraq into antagonistic states, one backed by Shiite Iran and the other by Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states.

A complete collapse in Iraq could provide a haven for Al Qaeda operatives within striking distance of Israel, even Europe. And the nature of the threat from Iran, a potential nuclear power with protégés in the Gulf states, northern Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, is entirely different from that of Al Qaeda. It seems silly to have to argue that officials responsible for counterterrorism should be able to recognize opportunities for pitting these rivals against each other.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/opinion/17stein.html?ex=1161835200&en=8d4da9c1fa7de24e&ei=5070&emc=eta1

[sui generis]

1. that's exactly the problem with any abstract judgement

four hundred years ago I think the related question would have been "can you tell a consubstantialist from a transubstantialist?"

Can you tell a catholic from a protestant? Can you tell a republican from a democrat? A german from an american?

:shrug:

[babylonsister]

3. Not fair.

Now I have to look up consubstantialist and transubstantialist.

Shades of Vietnam? Wasn't there a similar problem there?

[sui generis]

4. sorry sis

:P

consubstantialists, i.e., catholic belief in the "substantial" presence of the body of christ in the bread and wine of the sacrament, vs. the "protestants" who fancied themselves as more enlightened.

There's more but that's the gist of it. They all burned each other at the stake for centuries in Europe, until everyone collectively got sick of religion in government. Germany even "secularized" religion, meaning that the church now has to hire fairly and pay income and property tax like everyone else.

Too bad they don't do that here.

[babylonsister]

6. That's okay. New words are fun!

But I usually remember them if I can use them. These? not so much, I'm thinking.
But thanks for contributing to my laziness by explaining it to me!
'Too bad they don't do that here'. I KNOW you meant the burning at the stake part! ;-)

[Rhiannon12866]

11. If you read the article, this is not an abstract judgment,

but a very concrete one, not based on religious differences, but about the alliances that each of these warring sects have. Sh'ia, the majority, are allies with Iran, while Sunnis are allied with most of the rest of the Middle East, but especially Saudi Arabia, and thus, al-Qaeda. This is an important fact for anyone dealing with this extremely complicated and volatile situation to know. Unfortunately, the Bush* administration did not...:grr:

[sui generis]

13. "if you read the article"

I love those admonishments,

I did and I still reserve the right to call alliances "abstracts", nor does it invalidate my point either.

As to the particular conflict of Sh'ia versus WHATEVER, and I say that with the utmost disprespect for anyone who requires an abstract to justify violence against a fellow human regardless of their affiliations, I could care even less.

On a broader political note: no we (excuse me, "they") absolutely did not know what they were getting into. Having lived in Pakistan myself (Karachi) for work I can tell you that once you substract alliances and affiliations and religious doctrines from the equation at dinner, we're all humans enjoying a bite to eat together. On the "reality" side, it took several thousand years to break, even counting the caliphate. Us pasty white folks with our hard haired notions of propriety sure as hell aren't going to do anything to fix it, and in fact the only way those cultures work is by strong-rule, hopefully reasonably benevolent. Without 100 percent of the population on the same page, democracy does not evolve naturally to MORE democracy, but to less, as proven right here in the good old USA without "insurgents" undermining every effort at western style governance.

EVERYTHING else is an abstract if you use it to make a judgement sight unseen.

[Rhiannon12866]

15. I didn't mean to imply that you didn't; it was just a figure of speech.

And I was just giving you my take on it. And I'm not saying that you didn't make good points. You're on DU, so you understand more than most. My only point was that the Bush* administration didn't know the difference. It doesn't really matter that we do, since we have no decision making power in these things, but we know the difference and they didn't, and probably still don't get it. But it's essential that they do, since they are the ones who started this terrible conflict. That was my take on this article...:-(

I also abhor violence. I see no sense in preemptive war and am extremely critical of Bush*'s refusal to attempt to broker peace in this region, unlike Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter and even the first Bush... There are enough problems in this powerkeg of a region without starting an unnecessary war...:grr:

And thank you for sharing your experiences. I absolutely agree that "they" did not know what they were getting into, and that was my point in posting this article. I've never been to Iraq, but I visited the USSR, with my grandmother, as part of a peace group, just before the USSR fell. I was brought up during the Cold War and I only joined my grandmother because she asked me to. I was totally freaked out at visiting Russia, since my childhood education taught me that they hated us and I was not looking forward to the experience. But it was one of the best of my life, met wonderful people who were as committed to peace as we were. And that's when I also realized that we're not any different, just speak different languages and live in different places, but all want the same things. My friend, who teaches third grade, does a unit on Russia, and has asked me to speak to the kids and that's what I tell them. We're all the same, underneath.:-)

Thanks,
Rhiannon:hi:

[sui generis]

16. wonderful!

I grew up in Germany with family all over the planet, literally. At the end of the day we all just want to be able to look forward to the next day. Most of us want to have some friends we trust, make sure the kids (and maybe parents) are fed and happy, and that we have some reasonable comforts to enjoy and maybe share.

If we believe we own our own lives and can be convinced that other individuals own their own lives too, for the most part we all can get along. However, there is real misogyny in the world and real greed and desire to "own" other people's lives (and reproductive lives), and there is also hunger and misery competing with rampant apathy to create cultural and political powder kegs everywhere. Roll those insults and hurts into feuds along the lines of kin and you have Serbia, and Chechen and the Balkan states and the middle east and Kurds and Turks and Greeks and Bedu and Berber and Hutus and Tutsis going at each others throats and passing the memory of hate down through their children for generations.

The best and the worst leaders in this world know how best to take the focus off those simmering feuds and unite people against either a common enemy or one of their own. Here we have had unity against immigrant irish and germans, against "race", against sexual orientation, against immigrants Part II, against "the liberals", against "the terrorists", and any other boogeyman that can be dreamed up or borrowed.

Pharaonic egypt built huge pyramids, other iconic giant public works to unite disparate cultures and regions that would otherwise skirmish and fight, yet the only iconic "giant public work" we should all support was born of grief and tragedy at ground zero.

We unite against "enemies", instead of for the greater good, and in the process we make enemies instead of a better world.

Underneath it all at the end of the day, in those odd and unexpected quiet moments we have between here and there, we are still each of us just trying to get home to feed the kids, to get a decent night's sleep, to maybe greet someone we cherish; to have some glimmer of contentment and hope to get us through the next day.

I'd like to ask our leaders how hard it would be to cultivate a little optimism rather than this daily regimen of fear and spite.

[pooja]

2. Do you think this was the plan all along?

Let them fight to the death and all that's left remains our? Isn't it easier to let Iraqi kill Iraqi... Bush doesn't care about the American's getting killed in the crossfire. I'm just wondering if they want this instabilty to keep the oil prices high. They were pissed at Hussein for setting different prices on the oil and not going along with Opec...

[Rhiannon12866]

8. The problem is that Bush* had no plan, and no clue.

It was only when a guest from the Middle East at the 2003 White House Super Bowl party enlightened him to the fact that there were 1400-year-old warring factions in Iraq, Sh'ia, Sunnis and Kurds, that Bush* became aware that they even existed... And the invasion, which took place only a few short weeks later, was already long planned. He had no clue what he was getting into, and unleashing, just as he had no plan for getting out...:grr:

[rkc3]

5. It's tattooed on the back of their necks.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Anyway, one point you could take away from the whole thing is that no one really knows the differences between Sunnis and Shiites and yet we expect to be able to bring them together. Kind of like trying to get oil and water to mix without understanding the fundamental physical properties of each and why it will never work - without some medium to hold them suspended (like Saddam was to Iraq).

That said, I don't know the difference either - but I can't tell the 57 varieties of Christians apart either.

[Rhiannon12866]

9. The point of the article was not the religious differences,

which are about who was the successor to Muhammad, but the alliances that each sect has. This is the important fact and anyone who's dealing with this very complicated situation had damn well better know what they are. The majority of Iraqis are Sh'ia, mostly in the South, and they are aligned with Iran. An important fact. And the Sunnis, formerly the ruling sect, are a minority, but Saudi Arabia is Sunni, and thus, so is al-Qaeda. And then there are the Kurds in the North, not friendly to Saddam, but formerly friendly to us. The fact that Bush* had no clue that these 1400-year-old warring factions even existed, until he was enlightened by a Middle Eastern guest at the 2003 White House Super Bowl party, speaks to the fact that he had no clue, just as he had no plan...:grr:

And I don't know that much about the varieties of Christianity, either, except that Catholics recognize the Pope and Protestants don't, thanks to the 1533 split from the Catholic Church by Henry VIII, so he could divorce Queen Catherine (of Aragon) and marry Anne Boleyn...:shrug:

[Igel]

10. Apparently there are dialect differences.

Colloquial Shi'a, urban Sunni, and rural Sunni (western) Iraqi Arabic apparently are different, they've seen themselves as different societies and communities for so long. If Hole's works are accurate, and I assume they are. Standard Arabic is the same, with traces of dialect showing up to be sure, and I assume that the influx of many rural Sunnis into Baghdad has bollixed up the sociolinguistic picture involving "Iraqi Arabic" (i.e., the Baghdadi norm) pretty well.

(Reportedly the Sunni, Shi'ite, and Christian dialects in Lebanon have the same kind of split, with rural dialects being different from urban ones. And the situation in Jordan is no better.)

But dialects can be faked, and using them to distinguish would involve having people fluent enough and aware enough of the fact that there is no completely unified "Iraqi Arabic" to identify the differences.

[Rhiannon12866]

12. That's the fact that the Bush* administration didn't take into account,

That these very different, warring sects exist and that there are important differences. A unified Iraq is just not in the cards. To have left them to their 1400-year-old split would have been the wise move. But, now that we're there, and have stirred things up to the point of civil war, we're going to have to learn to recognize the differences if we're ever going to deal with this. My solution: Bring the troops home. We can do no good here...x(

[whistle]

7. I think they have to be standing on their heads to really make a

...positive ID

[Cooley Hurd]

14. K&R - Franken was talking about this today...

:kick:

[watercolors]

17. Can you tell a Catholic from a Protestant?

nt

[Karenina]

18. David the drummer can...

at 50 paces! :wow: But HE'S Irish. ;-)

[sarcasmo]

19. I think it should be like Cripps and Bloods.

I mean when you have a civil war or a gang fight isn't the only way to tell sides by uniform or colors.