Divide and Conquer

Silently sitting on the floor of my half-empty apartement, my guts were boiling with anger and bitterness as I read Robert Fisk's Latest Columns. It is titled: "How easy it is to put hatred on a map".

The most sickening part is this:

“Buy Time magazine, dear reader, turn to page 30, and what will you find? "How to Tell Sunnis and Shi'ites Apart." Helpful, uh? And after this, are columns of useful, divisive information. "Names," for example. "Some names carry sectarian markers... Abu Bakr, Omar and Uthman ... men with these names are almost certainly Sunni. Those called Abdel-Hussein and Abdel-Zahra," (I have never in met an "Abdel-Zahra" by the way) "are most likely Shi'ite." Then there are columns headed "Prayer", "Mosques", "Homes", "Accents" and "Dialects", even - heaven spare us - "cars". The last, for those readers not already reeling in disbelief, tells us which car stickers to look out for (spot a picture of Imam Ali and you know the driver is Shia) or which licence plate (Anbar province registrations, for instance) means a probable Sunni driver.”

What is sad and Ironic is that even a westerner, Robert Fisk, is telling about the conspiracy and we are still not listening. Sectarianism is so deeply rooted in our subconscious that even if we don’t like it, we either get swept by it or just watch it as a daily routine, but never manage condemn it. It is just a way of life.

They have changed the name of our part of the world many times: the Arab world, the Middle East, the new Middle East, the greater Middle East. While we are still label each other sunni, shia, who is more arab and who is less arab, while the truth is that it all does not matter to "them" as long as we fight and they reign.

Predominantly optimistic in nature, I believe that time is on our side and tides will sooner or later turn in our favor, and we would, slowly but surely, wake up from our prolonged hibernation.