{"id":23976,"date":"2014-08-19T03:19:33","date_gmt":"2014-08-19T07:19:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/?p=23976"},"modified":"2014-08-19T03:19:33","modified_gmt":"2014-08-19T07:19:33","slug":"wearent-helping-when-we-take-sides-in-sectarian-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/2014\/08\/19\/wearent-helping-when-we-take-sides-in-sectarian-violence\/","title":{"rendered":"WeAreN’t helping when we take sides in sectarian violence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Who said the following? \u201cIt\u2019s obvious the majority of the community liked it. So should we deny the 95 percent of those that liked it their rights, just for the 5 percent of people who are upset?\u201d<\/p>\n

A.<\/strong> Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi<\/a>, leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, referring to his Sunni militia\u2019s seizure of control of majority-Sunni regions in Iraq.<\/p>\n

B.<\/strong> Rick Konopasek, member of the Fourth of July Parade Committee of Norfolk, Nebraska, referring to the\u00a0majority-white support for a racist float in the town\u2019s annual parade.<\/p>\n

The correct answer, in this case, was \u201cB.\u201d You can read all about it in Mara Klecker\u2019s report last month for the Lincoln Journal Star<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

It would, of course, be foolish to suggest any kind of equivalence between these two things (almost as foolish as attempting a hostile reading of this post that tried to insert some such claim to equivalence here). The Nebraska story is far from harmless, as such ethnic intimidation has very real economic and legal consequences that affect the very real well-being, financial security and physical safety of real people. But it\u2019s still nothing at all like a rampaging guerrilla army carrying out a violent campaign of religious cleansing.<\/p>\n

But while we mustn\u2019t equate the two, we do need to appreciate what they have in common and to learn from it, because this Cornhusker committee member has provided us with a clarifying\u00a0distillation of the logic motivating not just ISIS\/ISIL, but every such army waging sectarian violence anywhere in the world: Why should the majority have to respect the rights of the minority?<\/em><\/p>\n

Wherever that question cannot be answered, there will be oppression and there will be conflict.<\/p>\n

The violence of ISIS in Iraq has been described by some here in the U.S. as the \u201cpersecution\u201d of Christians. That\u2019s not wholly wrong, but it\u2019s misleading in a way that ultimately feeds into and reinforces sectarian violence. The persecution of Christians in Iraq is, indeed, one effect of the religious cleansing being perpetrated by ISIS, but it is not the only, or even the primary, effect. This is a group that is trying, by force, to create religious hegemony, and for them that means displacing or destroying everyone who doesn\u2019t share their particular sectarian variety of Sunni Islam. Christians and Yazidis are small, relatively powerless minorities in the area and so they are being brutally crushed, slaughtered or swept away, but so are Shiite Muslims and anyone ISIS regards as the wrong kind<\/em> of Sunni<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Vague appeals to \u201cdefend religious freedom\u201d aren\u2019t helpful here because this is precisely what groups like the ISIS militia imagine they\u2019re doing \u2014 defending their religious freedom. This is also what both the Seleka and the anti-Balaka militias in the Central African Republic<\/a> imagine they\u2019re doing. It\u2019s what the Buddhist<\/a> authorities in Myanmar imagine they are doing by crushing that country\u2019s minority Rohingya population<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t new \u2014 it\u2019s also what Thomas Wyatt and Queen Mary I<\/a> both imagined they were doing back in 1554. When \u201creligious freedom\u201d and other fundamental human rights are contingent on which faction controls\u00a0the throne, then factions will fight to control that throne.<\/p>\n

Picking sides or defending one side in such a conflict doesn\u2019t alter the overall dynamic and cannot resolve the perpetual cycle of violence. The only thing that can do that is to ensure that religious freedom and other fundamental human rights are not contingent \u2014 that they are enshrined in the rule of law, equally, for the majority and the minority alike.<\/p>\n

That is also, ultimately, the only way to defend persecuted religious minorities \u2014 Iraqi Christians or anyone else.<\/p>\n

Many American Christians are rightly horrified by what is happening to Christians in Iraq. In response, as Cathy Lynn Grossman reports for RNS<\/a>, some have taken to social media to raise awareness about the plight of our brothers and sisters in that country:<\/p>\n

#WeAreN is sweeping the Christian Twittersphere as churches, organizations and individuals change their avatars to the Arabic letter \u201cNun.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the symbol for \u201cNazarene,\u201d or Christian, used by Islamic State militants\u00a0in Iraq to brand Christian properties in Iraq as part of their effort to drive out an ancient Christian community with threats to convert or die.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That\u00a0#WeAreN campaign is\u00a0a good impulse \u2014 solidarity with those suffering oppression is always a good thing, as is raising awareness about injustice.<\/p>\n

\"nun\"<\/a>But it\u2019s also a troublingly tribal expression of sectarian<\/em> solidarity \u2014 an expression of support for \u201cour\u201d sect in this sectarian conflict. And that can be a dangerous, destructive thing. Groups like ISIS are likely to perceive this as confirming that we are unwilling to defend the rights and freedoms of their sect, reinforcing their belief that their only avenue is to defend their sect through violence, seizing control of the throne and establishing their religious hegemony to prevent us (or anyone else) from establishing ours.<\/p>\n

I appreciate Michael Brendan Dougherty\u2019s argument that \u201cAmerica is duty bound to help Iraqi Christians<\/a>.\u201d But Dougherty\u2019s Pottery-Barn argument also applies to Yazidis and, in fact, to Iraqi Sunnis displaced and disenfranchised not just by the American-led war, but by the Shiite regime installed and propped up (until recently) by America.<\/p>\n

I commend Kirsten Powers<\/a> for drawing attention to the humanitarian crisis facing Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq. But Powers\u00a0blurs the\u00a0distinction between \u201cus\u201d Americans and \u201cus\u201d Christians<\/a>, and so her proposed remedies involve taking sides within Iraq\u2019s sectarian conflicts rather than helping to create the only framework that can end them.<\/p>\n

Picking sides in a sectarian conflict is not the same thing as defending the persecuted. In the long run, the only way to defend the persecuted is to end the cycle of\u00a0sectarian violence \u2014 which is to say, to eliminate sectarian government and replace it with secular government that protects the rights of religious minorities under law.<\/p>\n

The ins and outs of sectarian conflicts can be dizzyingly confusing. Here in America, we struggle to keep track of basic sectarian distinctions like Sunni and Shiite, let alone the esoteric (to outsiders) distinctions within those broad streams, or the the myriad other groups and factions and sects involved \u2014 Yazidis, Shakar, Turkmen, Alawites, Druze, Christians, etc. And where do the Kurds fit into all this? Or the Syrian Christians? (Tim F. offered a good overview of the interplay among\u00a0these factions in Iraq and Syria<\/a> last month, although it\u2019s already out of date.)<\/p>\n

But you don\u2019t need to be an expert in world religion to understand the basic dynamic of sectarian conflict. All you need to know is that it is the inevitable result of any situation in which the 95 percent majority is able to disregard the rights of the 5 percent minority. Or in which the 40 percent plurality is able to disregard the rights of all the smaller factions.<\/p>\n

Wherever rights are contingent, there will be conflict. Wherever religious freedom is contingent on which sect controls the sectarian government, there will be sectarian conflict.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Picking sides or defending one side in a sectarian conflict doesn’t alter the overall dynamic and cannot resolve the perpetual cycle of violence. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"WeAreN't helping when we take sides in sectarian violence","description":"Picking sides or defending one side in a sectarian conflict doesn't alter the overall dynamic and cannot resolve the perpetual cycle of violence. 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A former managing editor of Prism magazine, Fred worked in the parachurch nonprofit world for a decade and then for a decade in the newspaper biz. He began blogging in 2002. In 2003 he began writing a review of the best-selling Left Behind series. Eight years later he still hasn\u2019t finished reviewing the second book of that series and the experience has left him a broken shell of a man. Fred knows the difference between the possessive \u201cits\u201d and the contraction \u201cit\u2019s,\u201d and he is acutely bothered when others mistakenly confuse the two, yet he himself just kind of instinctively types the apostrophe whether or not it belongs there. Some feel this is his greatest hypocrisy, but those who know him better know better. He\u2019s guilty of much greater hypocrisies. Jesus loves Fred far more than Fred loves Jesus, but he at least has the decency to recognize the unfairness of that lopsided relationship and he has long wished that he were better at maybe kind of sort of doing something more to correct that some day. A Baptist, an amateur, a Gen-Xer, a Gemini and a Mets fan, Fred lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with his wife and two teenage daughters. You can reach him via email at slacktivist at hotmail dot com.","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/author\/fredclark1\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23976\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/slacktivist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}