“Secticide”

Hussein Ibish:

The narrative of the last few years of the previous decade — the “culture of resistance” (which supposedly included both Sunni and Shia Islamists and some Arab nationalists) versus the “culture of accommodation” (a term of abuse for all moderate or pro-Western forces in the Arab world) — has been completely subsumed by this emerging sectarian narrative.

I now think it’s impossible to deny that the single most important factor shaping the Arab regional dynamic is a sectarian divide, not between Sunnis and Shia, but between Sunnis and everybody else

I don’t think this is a “new” issue per say. I just think it was buried deep under thick coats of dictatorship and limited expression. With the Arab spring, matters of identity will emerge — sometimes violently — to the surface. The singular challenge for the revolutions will be to create representative and secular governments (and by secular, I don’t mean the sham distortions that minoritist dictators like the baathists claim to have) that regards all citizens as equal under the law.

When people feel secure in that notion of identity, they will — hopefully — abandon their attachment to narrow and hateful forms of religious affiliations.