John Kifner: When a Country Cracks ... History Lessons
... The sequence of [last week's] events [in Iraq] evoked past crises involving conflict between entrenched ethnic or religious groups — the fodder for civil war. They have a rhythm of their own. Often tensions seem to build to an unbearable level, then suddenly ease.
Sometimes something so awful happens that it is a turning point. That was the case during the Serbian siege of Sarajevo. At the beginning of February 1994, a mortar fell on an outdoor market where Bosnians bought used goods from one another. It exploded on a table full of secondhand hardware, turning bolts, hammers and screwdrivers into shrapnel, creating a bloody tableau in which 68 people died and a severed head rested among old shoes.
International attention was suddenly focused on the struggle in the former Yugoslavia. A take-charge British general, Sir Michael Rose, was sent to lead the lackluster United Nations force. Despite hundreds of years of warlike mountain traditions intensified by religion and nationalism, he hammered out a cease-fire that eventually led to peace accords.
But at other times, it seems, tension builds, ebbs, then builds again, each time starting at a higher point. Events — bombings, gunfights, even massacres — that once were almost unthinkable become mundane. This was the case during the 15-year Lebanese civil war. Foreign journalists in Lebanon had a T-shirt made up that said "Beirut Cease-Fire" followed by row after row of crossed-out tally marks.
Experience shows that once these conflicts begin, people tend to identify only with their own group — largely for protection. It is difficult, if not impossible, to be cosmopolitan. This identification is even more intense when the group is also defined by religion, particularly if it is accompanied by righteous certainty and rejection of the other.
Thus, in the former Yugoslavia, Serb identity was reinforced not only by Eastern Orthodox Christianity, but by a hatred of Islam — the prevalent religion in Bosnia — dating back to the Ottoman Empire. In Lebanon, of course, politics was rigidly defined by religion: Christian (mostly Maronite) or Sunni, Shiite and Druze.
Iraq is less a nation than an artificial entity drawn created by the British. In recent years, only the brutality of Saddam Hussein held its parts together....
Read entire article at NYT
Sometimes something so awful happens that it is a turning point. That was the case during the Serbian siege of Sarajevo. At the beginning of February 1994, a mortar fell on an outdoor market where Bosnians bought used goods from one another. It exploded on a table full of secondhand hardware, turning bolts, hammers and screwdrivers into shrapnel, creating a bloody tableau in which 68 people died and a severed head rested among old shoes.
International attention was suddenly focused on the struggle in the former Yugoslavia. A take-charge British general, Sir Michael Rose, was sent to lead the lackluster United Nations force. Despite hundreds of years of warlike mountain traditions intensified by religion and nationalism, he hammered out a cease-fire that eventually led to peace accords.
But at other times, it seems, tension builds, ebbs, then builds again, each time starting at a higher point. Events — bombings, gunfights, even massacres — that once were almost unthinkable become mundane. This was the case during the 15-year Lebanese civil war. Foreign journalists in Lebanon had a T-shirt made up that said "Beirut Cease-Fire" followed by row after row of crossed-out tally marks.
Experience shows that once these conflicts begin, people tend to identify only with their own group — largely for protection. It is difficult, if not impossible, to be cosmopolitan. This identification is even more intense when the group is also defined by religion, particularly if it is accompanied by righteous certainty and rejection of the other.
Thus, in the former Yugoslavia, Serb identity was reinforced not only by Eastern Orthodox Christianity, but by a hatred of Islam — the prevalent religion in Bosnia — dating back to the Ottoman Empire. In Lebanon, of course, politics was rigidly defined by religion: Christian (mostly Maronite) or Sunni, Shiite and Druze.
Iraq is less a nation than an artificial entity drawn created by the British. In recent years, only the brutality of Saddam Hussein held its parts together....