With internecine strife rife, Galal Nassar examines possible solutions Arab and Muslim blood is being shed with every passing day. The victims are both combatants and civilians and the warfare is often among former comrades who have become enemies. Indeed, one no longer knows how to distinguish between enemy and friend. A friend can become an enemy from one day to the next, and vice versa. Domestic fronts have fractured into opposing trenches while the outside enemy grows stronger and more united. It is the same story in Palestine, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Morocco, Algeria, Yemen and Lebanon. As all these countries disintegrate the enemy consolidates its forces. It is natural to differ. Human beings differ in language, race, culture, customs and traditions. This is why we have diverse societies and nationalities, and international organisations to help them work together. Nature is rife with multifarious variations and differences at all levels, from inanimate objects to plants and animals. This diversity is at the heart of nature's beauty and abundance. Much of history is about difference, differences in beliefs and creeds, in political ideologies and in material interests, and of disputes because of these. Among the most dangerous of these are tribal, sectarian and ethnic disputes. When these escalate they can lead to the fragmentation of nations and societies. This is what is currently plaguing the Arab nation, and it is happening by design so that "neo- colonialism" (otherwise known as globalisation or the mono-polar world order) and global Zionism can prevail and so that perpetual conflict remains the fate of dismantled states and neighbouring petty states. The notion of difference has two connotations. The negative one arises when differences in opinion turn to mutual exclusion and existential challenges. Disagreement is taken to outright rejection, first, of the ideas of the other and, then, of the other's right to exist. The opposing view is banned and its advocator is threatened with death or expulsion, leaving only one opinion with the right to prevail and its proponent with the right to life. Such are the differences that lead to strife and civil war. But it does not have to be this way. Differences of opinion can remain just that -- differences of opinion. These can be healthy. When necessary they can be resolved through the systematic exchange of views, as in a national dialogue aimed at attaining a minimum level of national consensus and reaching compromises that all sides can agree on without sacrificing fundamental principles. Not only does this help preserve peace but it helps to clarify priorities and, hence, identify the most efficient, fair and practical ways forward. Resolving differences in the context of a national coalition or front does not necessarily have to be done in accordance with the quantitative prevalence of the exponents of a particular view. Qualitative presence must also have weight. The majority is not always right. Having a different opinion should not be a crime punishable by death. Who is to say which advocate of which opinion has the right to kill? The right to an opinion is universal, not selective. Opinions are not truths; they are perspectives and as such equally legitimate. Truth is a point of view; the text is open to interpretation; yesterday's consensus is not binding on today because times change and people and their needs change with them. Unfortunately, not everyone subscribes to this principle. What turns differences of opinion into a source of strife is a legacy that condemns independent thought, prohibits interpretation that goes against the literal meaning of the text, idolises the consensus of the past, and declares that there can be only one absolute right and all else is wrong. This is the legacy of ultra-fundamentalists and jihadists, and stems from a misunderstanding of the notion of unification. Unity and diversity are opposite poles of a continuum, one being the ideal, the other reality. But this legacy rejects the latter and, along with it, diversity in opinion. Those who differ are condemned as heretics by those who count themselves among the "group spared from damnation". Different opinions are not a sin while killing those who have the courage to differ is. Safeguarding the sanctity of life is the foremost aim of Sharia. Indeed, under Islamic law a death sentence against a murderer can only be carried out after the guardian of the victim refuses to pardon the murderer in order to spare a life. It is the embodiment of the principle that two wrongs do not make a right. Killing a murderer does not revive the victim, it adds another death. In the region today, killing is claiming not only the lives of the combatants, but millions of innocent women, children and elderly, while millions more are displaced, forced to seek shelter in refugee camps and to survive on the relief provided by international agencies. In Palestine Fatah supporters are killing Hamas supporters. It is as though the idea is just to kill, irrespective of who or why. Hamas and Fatah are two ideas, two points of view, one championing an ideal, the other realities on the ground. One speaks of the sword, the other of the shield. Both are right. They should be talking with each other in order to forge a national coalition that takes both of their points of view into consideration. Their cause needs them both. In Sudan, Khartoum and Darfur are both right. Whereas the former is fighting for the unity of the country and against foreign intervention, the other is fighting for its fair share of power and wealth in accordance with an arrangement such as that which has been struck between the north and the south. The Sudanese nation, as a whole, is responsible for the millions of displaced persons, the children dying of starvation and disease, and the women who have been raped. In Somalia, yesterday's comrades are now enemies, fighting one another over the application of Islamic law which is meant to preserve the sanctity of life. Some are killing others in order to expel a foreign occupier; others are appealing to foreign powers to help them kill their enemies at home. Somalia is caught between two models of government, one the powerful leader who can unify the government -- the old model -- the other a plurality of leaders, a kind of tribal democracy that turns plurality into warfare. In Iraq, meanwhile, people differ over how much power should be given to the central authorities and how much should be ceded to local authorities. They also differ over the sectarian composition of the country and which neighbouring countries to cooperate with. These differences of opinion have erupted in fighting between Sunnis, Shia, Kurds and others. Innocent people are dying in market places where car bombs explode. Instead of all guns aiming at the common enemy from abroad, they are aimed inward at each other, in the fight for power and control. It is every group and militia for itself. Is this what the heroic struggle of the Iraqi people against the occupation has come to? In Morocco the government and a portion of the south are still fighting over the desert. Were it not for the occasional truce thanks to the intervention of a foreign mediator due to the lack of an Arab one, violence would be constant. Yet between total subordination in the name of unity and partition there is a compromise: self-rule. In Yemen, the south pleads northern domination as cause for secession and the north cites unity as the justification for its heavy-handedness. This is a formula for such an impasse. The way out is a truly democratic state in which all citizens are equal. In Afghanistan and Pakistan there should be national coalitions instead of warfare between two points of view that each claim exclusive legitimacy. It is possible to safeguard tradition and to modernise at the same time yet instead each side turns to outside backers as they lash out against their enemies at home, actions the cost of which are counted in millions of shattered lives. Perhaps more countries should take their cue from Lebanon, which has suffered more than its share of internecine fighting. Lebanon emerged from decades of civil war by means of a national coalition that injected new life into their country. As Lebanon has shown, coalition does not mean selling out fundamental principles. It is not synonymous with treachery, surrender or even mediation and compromise. Coalition means recognising that in life other points of view have the right to be heard and to come together in constructive ways in the interests of safeguarding the unity of nations and peoples.
