It’s Theology, Not Baseball: Misunderstanding Iraq’s Sectarian Conflicts | Religion Dispatches
Overer a decade after the US-led invasion of Iraq, President Barack Obama has given an hour-long interview to the New York Times which recites the mantra of “inclusive governance” with no mention of religion. He did cite problems involving Sunnis and Shi’a — and neighborhood issues that involved Israelis and Palestinians. But for an observant Christian leader of a conspicuously religious nation, sectarianism appears to be entirely a political problem: if only “the Shi’a majority had reached out to the Sunnis” after the Americans packed up, all would be well.
This is the legacy of a mindset in which Congressmen and even American intelligence officials, after the invasion of Iraq, confessed to being clueless about Sunni and Shi’a Muslims — and whether Iran and Saudi Arabia were one or the other. In this worldview, the players might as well be baseball teams; all we need do is keep track of their colorful outfits and politics. Imagine planning an intervention in Northern Ireland with no idea as to what Protestant and Catholic identities are about.
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Amyn B. Sajoo is Scholar-in-Residence at Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Comparative Study of Muslim Societies & Cultures in Vancouver. His books include Pluralism in Old Societies and New States (1994), Muslim Ethics (2004), and Muslim Modernities: Expressions of the Civil Imagination (2008). Link to website. All related link at Ismailimail.
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