Monday, February 26, 2007

Creating a New Society

Along the lines perhaps of a peculiar concept of living hell. Sunni versus Shia, they just refuse to acknowledge they have anything in common or, for that matter, anything to share between them. Say, for example, something as pedestrian, as banal as human lives. Bloodlust blinds them to anything but bitter determination to wipe one another out of existence.

So much for the pacification effects of brotherly love through religious observation. So much for respecting the high office of clerical responsibilities to a shared vision of Allah. It appears to be Allah's past emissaries here on earth, those who should have inherited a transitional throne of Messenger of God at fault, yet Allah looks down with patient understanding at the deadly preoccupations of his unruly flock.

Let them murder one another, and the world will be better for it is the thought that flits temptingly through one's mind. Unfortunately, there is the plight of all those other Iraqis, Sunnis and Shias who have no intention of taking up the battle, who wish nothing more than to be able to live in peace and security with their dependents, their families, ordinary Iraqis.

They're the real targets. The slaughter of Sunni on Shia, of Shia on Sunni is aimed directly at the defenceless, the innocent. In recognition of this those who could flee Iraq have long since gone; those with the wherewithal to leave, and those who fled as frightened refugees placing themselves at the mercy of their Muslim neighbours.

Just think of the brain drain. Sunnis have begun to target Shia intellectuals, colleges, not only Shia mosques. Think of it; fanatic Islamists who worship their compassionate and all-knowing god, target the mosques consecrated to his worship, but belonging to other tribes, not theirs. Now who will be left with the courage, the conviction and the intelligence to build a viable state should this internecine warfare ever abate?

"There were bodies everywhere", said the professor at the Baghdad Economy and Administration College after the blast which killed 40 students at the college. He refused to give his name. The college is part of another one, Mustansiriya University, itself hit by twin bombs last month that killed 70 people, mostly students.

Where is the end to it? When will the protagonists' desire for blood be slated?

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