Can deep-rooted sectarianism succeed in thwarting the region's democracy revolutions, asks Salah Hemeid In his Friday sermon from Doha this week, prominent Egyptian Sunni cleric and President of the World Federation of Muslim Scholars Youssef El-Qaradawi said he was not supporting the weeks- long mass protests in Bahrain because it is waged by Shias against their Sunni rulers. "There is no people's revolution in Bahrain but a sectarian one," Al-Qaradawi said, "what is happening is not like what has happened in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, but it is the empowerment of some factions via foreign forces on others," said Al-Qaradawi, referring to the Shia protesters who are demanding political reforms. Al-Qaradawi's fiery statement, which was broadcast live on the official Qatari television, came two days after some 1,500 troops from the Gulf Cooperation Council's members, mostly Saudis and Emiratis, moved to the tiny Gulf kingdom to help restore order in response to a request by the ruling Al-Khalifa family. The dramatic move, prompted by the failure of Bahrain's own police and security forces to end the anti-government protests, raised the stakes in the Gulf region at a time of heightening tension. Shia spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani called on the Sunni-dominated government in Bahrain to "stop violence against unarmed civilians". Other Shia leaders in Iran, Lebanon, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia dubbed the Saudis and Emiratis as invaders. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad went as far as describing the Saudi involvement in Bahrain as "foul" while Shias in Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Lebanon took to the streets denouncing the entry of the GCC troops to Bahrain. Bahrain's protest movement was inspired by the new wave of the democratic revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen. The demonstrators, mostly Shias, were calling for equality, a new constitution, an end to human rights abuses, and the release of hundreds of prisoners who were rounded up after protests last year. But with a fierce crackdown and the killing of several protesters, the demonstrators started talking about the need to oust the Al-Khalifa monarchy and to establish a republic. That was the tipping point where the royal family feared protests should be stopped and prompted them to call on their GCC Sunni allies to send troops over and declare a state of emergency. For now the GCC military back-up for Bahrain might allow the Al-Khalifa monarchy to take a break from the protests, but the question is for how long, especially if the political turmoil moves to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries. The intervention has also raised more important questions about the relationship between the increasing demands for democracy, sectarian conflicts and political discontent in the region. Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa agreed that the conflict in Bahrain is sectarian. "The crisis in Bahrain started with a sectarian colour and perhaps it still is," Moussa told the Saudi- owned Al-Hayat newspaper Tuesday. The Arab League has been accused of being largely selective on how to deal with the democratic uprisings in the Arab world. While it had called on the Security Council to impose a no-fly zone on Libya, authorising use of force against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, it has kept a tight lip on events in Bahrain. Analysts have cautioned that a largely non-sectarian Egyptian-style revolution is unlikely to unfold in Bahrain, insisting that the sectarian split makes the kingdom more vulnerable to both internal turmoil and outside intervention. Though they agree that the spirit of the Bahraini protesters has been non- sectarian and their demands were largely for political reform they were still framed in sectarian terms and their demonstrations were overshadowed by the narrow sectarian prism of Sunni versus Shia through which politics in the Gulf is generally refracted. The roots of the Sunni-Shia division go back to early history and relate to Muslims' disagreement on who should have succeeded Prophet Mohamed. Throughout history hostility has flared between Islam's two main sects and it was quite evident recently during the 1980-88 Iraq- Iran war. Many analysts argue that the sectarian identity is so powerful that even when people have chances to choose their representatives in free elections, like in Iraq and Lebanon, they tend to choose those who represent their ethnicities. Unfortunately that seems to be true. In both Iraq and Lebanon political sectarianism not only impeded the promotion of a democracy that grants the majority the right to govern and the minority the right to oppose but it also spread chaos and instability. Even worse, because of crossborder tribal, religious and ethnic interconnections, sectarianism transcends national boundaries in the Middle East and becomes an insidious approach to regional affairs. For example, the empowerment of Iraqi Shias after the fall of Saddam Hussein in the US-led war in 2003 led to the deadliest sectarian conflict the region in recent history. That polarisation echoed in the Sunni- dominated parts of the Middle East, exacerbating existing tensions between Sunnis and Shias and reanimating long- dormant ones. This is why in too many recent conflicts we have seen that the divide also plays into the hands of the ruling cliques who try to exploit them to thwart aspirations for democracy. The manipulation of sectarianism was quite evident in the case of Bahrain, with governments, peoples and even the elites on both sides of the sectarian divide exaggerating the level of paranoia about existential threats of war. Many Sunni Arabs have been labelling Bahrain's uprising as being organised by Tehran and claiming that the protesters are fifth columnists for Iran, while many Shias have accused Sunnis of sectarianism and exclusion of Shias. In Iraq, protesters have been demanding that their government sever ties with Saudi Arabia and shut down the Bahraini embassy while some Saudis are urging their army on the Internet to invade Iraq and topple its Shia-led government. Saudi dissident academic Madawi Al-Rashid noted that the Saudi royal family is deliberately fuelling sectarianism to maintain a tight grip on the country and prevent a democratic revolution in oil- rich kingdom. "This is an attempt to absorb the Saudi internal upsurge, not only by Shias but also by the majority of Saudis to thwart the explosion," she wrote in the London- based Al-Quds Al-Arabi newspaper Monday. All that shows that even with high hopes that many of the remaining Arab dictatorships will crumble, the centuries- old Sunni-Shia rift might still be a fundamental impediment to a full blossoming of the Arab democratic revolution. Haunted by Bahrain's escalation, Arab reform-minded intellectuals are now worried that the future of democratic revolutions in other countries might be in danger because of religious or ethnic divides. Stakes are high in Egypt where Muslims and Copts, who insisted during the revolution that they were Egyptians first and foremost, are now facing a renewal of a sectarian spirit shown in the recent burning of a church and Muslim- Christian clashes during demonstrations of Copts. In Yemen, where a pro-democracy revolution has been simmering for weeks, tribal and north-south division could prove the impoverished country is not ready for a Western-style democracy. During recent protests in Morocco, Amazigh activists were outspoken in demanding a greater role for their national identity, raising the spectrum of sectarianism in the pro-democracy discourse.
