Shia-Sunni Nausea

23 November 2006 was the bloodiest day in Iraq since the invasion and occupation of that land in March 2003. 202 people were killed in a Shiite stronghold, allegedly by Sunni suicide bombers. The Shiites who are the majority retaliated by massacring at least 18 Sunnis. 

This tit for tat Sunni-Shiite violence has been going on for some time now. It took a turn for the worse with the bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra on 22 February 2006. Sectarian violence has become so bad that many fear Iraq may further spiral into an uncontrollable blood bath.

What is the primary cause of this violence? Is it rooted in Sunni-Shiite doctrinal differences that go back to the early decades of Islam or is it the consequence of more recent political developments in Iraq?

It is true that a dichotomy developed between those who accepted the line of caliphs that emerged after the Prophet Muhammad's death and those who felt that the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law, Ali Ibn Talib, was his rightful heir. The former came to be known as the Sunnah wal Jamaah (Sunnis) while the latter are referred to as the Shiites. This dichotomy became more pronounced after Ali's assassination in 661 A.D. Various political developments and economic trends in different parts of the Muslim world exacerbated the situation. 

The tussle for power and influence between the Safavid Empire in Iran and the Ottoman Empire in Turkey in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was a case in point. It had a direct impact upon Shiite-Sunni relations in Iraq. The Safavids who had made Shiism the official religion of Iran sought to control Iraq largely because of the tremendous religious significance of Karbala and Najaf. The Sunni Ottomans, on the other hand, were afraid that Shiite teachings would spread to Anatolia (Asia Minor) and wanted Iraq to remain a sort of buffer state. 

Iraq, then known as Mesopotamia, first came under the sway of the Safavids in the early part of the sixteenth century, before it was conquered by the Ottomans, after which it was retaken by the Safavids and then finally it was recaptured by the Ottoman Ruler, Murad 1V in 1638. This was the beginning of continuous Ottoman power over Iraq which lasted till the early decades of the twentieth century. It entrenched a Sunni minority, 20% of the population, over a Shiite majority. There were acts of discrimination by the Sunni elite against the Shiite population which further widened the chasm between the two Muslim communities. But there is no evidence at all of wholesale massacres of Shiites under Ottoman rule. 

Even after the imposition of British colonial rule in Iraq following the Sykes-Picot Agreement in 1916, there was no record of organized sectarian violence which pitted Sunni against Shiite, though latent animosity remained. This was also more or less the situation in independent Iraq from the monarchical period to the Baathist era. Even under Saddam Hussein's harsh and tyrannical rule which witnessed the suppression of all forms of dissent, Sunnis were targeted as brutally as Kurds and Shiites, there was no Sunni-Shiite bloodletting on any scale, comparable to what is happening today. 

On the contrary, Sunnis and Shiites had forged political alliances on a number of occasions in the last 90 years or so. In 1920 for instance when the Iraqi people chose to resist British occupation, the Shiites were supported by the Sunnis. In 1948, in the al-Wathbah uprising against the British, the Sunnis and Shiites displayed a remarkable degree of solidarity. We should also not forget that in the Iraq-Iran War between 1980 and 1988, the vast majority of Shiites stood by their Sunni leader, Saddam Hussein, against Shiite Iran. Arab nationalism proved to be a much stronger force than sectarian religious loyalties. At the social level too, in spite of sectarian differences, there has been a great deal of Shiite-Sunni interaction in Iraq's modern history. 

According to certain sources, 30% of marriages in Iraq until the 2003 United States' led invasion, were between Shiites and Sunnis. A largely secular society up to the late eighties, the Iraqi middle and upper classes were often oblivious of their Sunni-Shiite, or for that matter, Muslim-Christian affiliations. 

How did all this change so dramatically in the last few years? Some of the masterminds behind the US occupation of Iraq were convinced that the only way to eradicate Saddam's influence upon Iraqi society was to strengthen the Shiite majority and to weaken the Sunni minority which they regarded as the dictator's power base. It was not surprising therefore that they consciously embarked upon the classic colonial policy of 'divide and rule'. 

Paul Bremer, the second American Consul in Iraq, in particular was ruthlessly efficient in driving a wedge between Shiites and Sunnis through his political manipulations and administrative machinations. 

In more specific terms, for the Sunnis two events in 2005 spelt their political doom. The new Iraqi Constitution adopted in October gave much of the authority over oil to the Shiite and Kurdish regions and Sunnis living in areas where there was no oil felt that their future was in jeopardy. The Election in December which boosted the political power of the Shiites and Kurds was perceived as a monumental defeat for the Sunnis. The anger and frustration arising from these two events, a direct result of the occupier's policy of playing Shiites against Sunnis, expressed itself in the Samarra massacre of February 2006. 

Since then, groups within the regular Iraqi military and police and private militias and brigades from both the Sunni and Shiite communities have embarked upon an orgy of violence. For many Sunnis, Shiites are "traitors" who have "betrayed the covenant of Allah and the Prophet" by siding with the occupier. It is the fact of occupation that bestows Sunni attacks upon Shiites. It should be emphasized that a significant segment of Shiites such as the Sadrists are also vehemently opposed to the US-led occupation. Indeed, a survey undertaken by the respected World Public Opinion (WPO) in September 2006 shows that 74% of Shiites and 91% of Sunnis want the occupiers to leave within a year. Both groups " believe US forces are provoking more violence than they are preventing and that day-to-day security would improve if (they) left". 

This then is the solution to Sunni-Shiite violence as the Iraqi people themselves see it.

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar is the President of the International Movement for a Just World (JUST).