Recently, Lebanon announced that it is on the verge of bankruptcy due to years of sectarian rule that ended in complete political and economic chaos, as political reform failed to eliminate the sectarianism that has plagued the country since the 1975 civil war.
In Iraq, Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr called on political forces to end sectarianism and pay attention to the national interest to form a new Iraqi government, stressing that sectarianism is the reason for Iraq’s deterioration.
In Yemen, President of the Presidential Command Council, Rashad Muhammad Al-Alimi, pledged to work to end the war and bring peace to Yemen, stressing that the Yemeni Presidential Leadership Council will stand as an impenetrable dam to confront terrorism in all its forms, and will work to combat sectarian conflicts that are tearing up Yemen’s social fabric. This is especially so since Yemen has turned into an arena for sectarian conflicts that want Yemen to be a starting point to undermine the security and stability of the Arab Gulf.
In Libya, the same sectarian conflict still prevails after nearly a decade since the popular uprising against the regime of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi and the military intervention of NATO to help overthrow him. Libya has become a battleground for armed militias competing for power and money. The country witnessed regional and international proxy conflicts that undermined all possibilities for restoring stability.
In the Gulf region, especially after the recent Houthi attacks, the dynamics of sectarian politics have re-emerged, especially that there are about 2 million Shiites within the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Although the sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shiites in the Middle East has existed for more than 1,300 years, sectarian problems were not necessarily intractable. Despite the long history of sectarian divisions in the Middle East, research confirms the possibility of cooperation between the different sects in a way that does not undermine the concept of the state.
According to research, throughout our modern and contemporary Arab history, since the independence of the Arab countries and even before that, no one in the Arab world has called for dividing the Arab countries into Sunni or Shiite countries. Arab socialists called for Arab countries that adopt socialism and value social justice, Arab nationalists call for countries that adopt Arab nationalism and value unity, Arab Islamists call for Islamic countries that value the Islamic approach, and Arab liberals call for liberal countries that value liberalism. In general, the Arab intellectual and political forces did not adopt this hateful sectarian dimension as part of their political programs.
Nevertheless, the nature of sectarianism and sectarian conflict has evolved and changed significantly during that period. Specifically, the sectarian conflict in the Arab world began to take shape to appear in its current form, which succeeded in destroying many Arab countries since the Khomeini revolution in Iran and the regime that was introduced. It was this racist sectarian regime that initiated sectarian hatred and deliberately sought to ignite strife and conflict between Shiites and Sunnis to serve its expansionist project in the Arab region.
Then, the United States and the West assumed the task of developing the sectarian division scheme, which they found a promising project to destroy the Middle East region to exploit its wealth. This scheme, which succeeded in tearing the Arab world apart, destroying Iraq and Syria, cast a shadow over Libya, Yemen and Tunisia, and almost succeeded in Egypt, but the cohesion of the Egyptian people and the strength of their army succeeded in thwarting this scheme. Indeed, Egypt was the only country that was able to survive this devastating sectarian conflict and did not fall into this trap when the Brotherhood succeeded in deceiving the people and reaching power because national unity was the effective weapon that preserved Egypt.
Despite the withdrawal of the United States of America from the Middle East, this sectarian project that seeks to divide the Arab countries into sectarian states is still ongoing and is supported by many American and European research centers that confirm in their research that sectarian conflict in the Middle East is inevitable. What is worse is that these researchers began to focus more on the Arab Gulf states and the need to redraw borders again on sectarian bases to avoid future conflicts. These researches focus on the Gulf countries definitely because they are the second stage in the scheme to tear the Arab world apart after the first stage achieved a lot of success.
The Arab peoples preceded their political leadership and realized that the nation-state and national unity are the only way to preserve the Arab nation and restore its glories. Today, the whole world hears the voices of the masses in the squares of Iraq, Lebanon, and many Arab countries, denouncing sectarianism and foreign labor, and rejecting the rule of militias and the corrupt. All Arab peoples today demand the upholding of the value of the homeland and the national state.
The present moment is a decisive moment for all Arab leaders to prove their patriotism and rise above useless differences. The restoration and preservation of the nation-state are the basis for stability and the beginning of recovery. The sectarian conflicts will only benefit the gangs of terrorism and the forces greedy for the wealth of the Arab world.
Dr. Marwa El-Shinawy – Assistant Prof. at International American University for Specialized Studies (IAUS)
