Ethnic and religious groups fight each other for many reasons, rarely good ones, but the most enduring problem is the perception of suffering. Few things mobilize groups, particularly minorities, more than narratives of historical woe and ongoing suffering.
It is too simplistic to reduce the Iraqi conflict to one of ethnic or sectarian hatred. That is part of it, but Iraq’s tale is also one of comparative torment. The Shiites feel entitled to right their past abuse at the hands of the Tikriti-led Sunni minority, Sunnis today fear they will have no say in a future Iraq, and Kurds have allowed their suffering to gestate for generations. In this type of minority syndrome, communities come to view every concession made to the other as the first step in their own existential decline.
My view is that Iraq is still in the preliminary stage of a new social contract – it may be terribly bloody, but I disagree with those who assume that Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds are doomed to perpetual enmity. Their narratives of suffering can be reconciled if they see that all sides lost out under Iraq’s successive autocracies. Each community may demand a different arrangement for the Iraqi state, but I predict those calling for Iraq’s partition will be disappointed. Arab states are sometimes like Arab households: one never truly breaks free, no matter how difficult the coexistence.
Lebanon is a good example. The bizarre social contract governing Lebanese society has often broken down in the past, and threatens to do so today. But never was the notion of partition taken very seriously, even at the height of the 1975-1990 civil war. It was as if the forces pushing the country apart were so pervasive that they did not need a formal divorce in order to live separated, and never went through with it. Why do so, when the state already allows society to express its differences?
I believe that when Westerners look at the Middle East and other societies, they can never quite grasp the vast gray zone that is inter-sectarian or inter-ethnic relations. These issues seem so clear-cut in most modern Western societies (although even there you have emerging problems today), that the social ambiguities in Arab societies are seen as one step removed from barbarism. Sometimes they are, but often there can be resilience to inter-communal relations – to the informal relationships between social groups – and this should never be underestimated in the Middle East.
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