I Hate Jonathan Swift
I am pretty sure I know the difference between Sunni Muslims and Shiites. Shiites believe that the rightful caliph is a descendent of Muhammed's daughter, while Sunnis, I guess, have no particular opinion. Or maybe they do, but it's definitely not the same guy the Shiites think. I'm not sure if there are any other major doctrinal differences.
Doctrine only tell us so much, though. I could tell you that the difference between an Anglican and a Catholic is that Catholics obey the Pope, whereas Anglicans obey the king and his archbishops. That doesn't tell us what Anglicans and Catholics are like, though. Why do they (did they) hate each other? What stereotypes do they have about one another? I know, of course, that there is lingering resentment over Henry VIII, the Spanish Armada, the Gunpowder Plot, the Glorious Revolution, and the Stuart pretenders. Anglicans consider Catholics treacherous and chaotic, and Catholics consider Anglicans dictatorial and usurpy.
But this is not something you could learn just by looking at the doctrine. I guess you could infer, if you were clever, that loyalty to a foreigner is something that would bother patriotic people who are not so loyal. But in the Shia-Sunni case, it's never made explicit. People with different religions, even religions as slightly different as Shiism and Sunnism, seldom get along very well, but they usually don't loathe one another either unless something is up.
Is it all just resentment over Saddam Hussein? That doesn't explain why the two factions have been fighting for thousands of years. I guess you could just chalk it up to a cycle of reprisal, but my original question remains. What do Shiites and Sunnis really think of one another? I'm sure each group considers the other "barbaric" and "heretical" and other generic evil terms. But if you have an enemy faction, you can't just leave it at that. In World War II, Americans had very particular things they hated about the Japanese, things that couldn't just be applied to any enemy. What does your average Shiite think of Sunnis? How are they different from him?
For that matter, how different are Shiites and Sunnis? Do they wear different clothes, or eat different meals? At least the Hutus looked different from the Tutsis. If Sunnis and Shiites are no more than Littleendians and Bigendians, then things in Iraq are even worse than they're saying. How do you get identical twins to stop hating each other?
Doctrine only tell us so much, though. I could tell you that the difference between an Anglican and a Catholic is that Catholics obey the Pope, whereas Anglicans obey the king and his archbishops. That doesn't tell us what Anglicans and Catholics are like, though. Why do they (did they) hate each other? What stereotypes do they have about one another? I know, of course, that there is lingering resentment over Henry VIII, the Spanish Armada, the Gunpowder Plot, the Glorious Revolution, and the Stuart pretenders. Anglicans consider Catholics treacherous and chaotic, and Catholics consider Anglicans dictatorial and usurpy.
But this is not something you could learn just by looking at the doctrine. I guess you could infer, if you were clever, that loyalty to a foreigner is something that would bother patriotic people who are not so loyal. But in the Shia-Sunni case, it's never made explicit. People with different religions, even religions as slightly different as Shiism and Sunnism, seldom get along very well, but they usually don't loathe one another either unless something is up.
Is it all just resentment over Saddam Hussein? That doesn't explain why the two factions have been fighting for thousands of years. I guess you could just chalk it up to a cycle of reprisal, but my original question remains. What do Shiites and Sunnis really think of one another? I'm sure each group considers the other "barbaric" and "heretical" and other generic evil terms. But if you have an enemy faction, you can't just leave it at that. In World War II, Americans had very particular things they hated about the Japanese, things that couldn't just be applied to any enemy. What does your average Shiite think of Sunnis? How are they different from him?
For that matter, how different are Shiites and Sunnis? Do they wear different clothes, or eat different meals? At least the Hutus looked different from the Tutsis. If Sunnis and Shiites are no more than Littleendians and Bigendians, then things in Iraq are even worse than they're saying. How do you get identical twins to stop hating each other?
posted by apk01004 at 2:19 PM
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