Sectarianism
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Sectarianism refers (usually pejoratively) to a rigid adherence to a particular sect or party or religious denomination. It often implies discrimination, denunciation, or violence against those outside the sect. The term is most often used to refer to religious sectarianism, involving conflict between members of different religions or denominations of the same religion. It is also frequently used to refer to political sectarianism, generally on the part of a tight-knit political faction or party.
Sectarianism may, in the abstract, be characterized by dogmatism and inflexibility; sentimental or axiomatic adherence to an idea, belief or tradition; and idealism that provides a sense of continuity, orientation, and certainty. As a pejorative term, accusations of sectarianism may sometimes be used to demonize an opposing group.
The ideological underpinnings of attitudes and behaviours labelled as sectarian are extraordinarily varied. Members of a religious group may feel that their own salvation requires aggressively seeking converts from other groups; adherents of a given faction may believe that for the achievement of their own political or religious project their opponents must be purged. Sometimes a group feeling itself to be under economic or political pressure will attack members of another group thought to be responsible for its own decline. At other times, sectarianism may be the expression of a group's nationalistic or cultural ambitions, or cynically exploited to serve an individual demagogue's ambition.
In all cases, there is a real or felt opposition between 'Us' and 'Them', between insiders and outsiders. Sectarianism may take the form of hatred and fear of an outside sect or group. In such cases, sectarianism does not require a strong sense of religious belief, as much as a sense of group belonging.
A sectarian conflict usually refers to violent conflict along religious and political lines such as the conflicts between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland (although, of course, there are deeper reasons for this conflict than simply religion). It may also refer to general philosophical or political conflict between different schools of thought such as that between Shia and Sunni Muslims. Non-sectarians espouse that free association and tolerance of different beliefs are the cornerstone to successful peaceful human interaction.
In the United States, the word sectarian is also traditionally used non-pejoratively to describe institutions of higher education - colleges and universities - affiliated with religions or religious denominations, in comparison to institutions not so affiliated.
[edit] Religious sectarianism
Wherever religious sectarians compete, religious sectarianism is found in varying forms and degrees. In some areas, religious sectarians (for example Protestant and Roman Catholic Christians in the United States) now exist peacefully side-by-side. In others, Roman Catholics and Protestants have been in fierce conflict – one contemporary example of this is in Ireland and its diaspora. Within Islam, there has been conflict at various periods between Sunnis and Shias; contrary to the majority Muslim opinion, certain Sunni sects inspired by Wahhabism and other ideologies have declared Shias (and sometimes mainstream Sunnis) to be heretics and/or apostates.
[edit] United States
Despite a history of conflict and violence, Protestants and Roman Catholics in the United States mostly get along.[citation needed]
[edit] Ireland
Since the 17th century, there has been sectarian conflict of varying intensity in Ireland. This religious sectarianism is bound up with nationalism. Since the Irish Free State became independent in 1922, this has been particularly intense in Northern Ireland. Irish emigration has taken this conflict to other lands, including western Scotland (see: Sectarianism in Glasgow), Newfoundland, Canada's Maritime provinces, New York State, Ontario, Liverpool, and elsewhere. See also Know-Nothings for anti-Catholic sentiment in the United States.
[edit] Persecution of Protestants by Catholics
In Catholic countries, Protestants have historically been persecuted as heretics. For example, the substantial Protestant population of France (the Huguenots) was expelled from the kingdom in the 1680s following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. In Spain, the Inquisition sought to root out not only Protestantism but also crypto-Jews and crypto-Muslims (moriscos); elsewhere the Papal Inquisition held similar goals.
[edit] Persecution of Catholics by Protestants
In places where Protestantism is the majority or 'official' religion, there have been examples of Catholics being persecuted. In countries where The Reformation was successful, this often lay in the perception that Catholics retained allegiance to a 'foreign' power (the Papacy), causing them to be regarded with suspicion. Sometimes this mistrust manifested itself in Catholics being subjected to restrictions and discrimination, which itself led to further conflict. For example, before Catholic Emancipation in 1829, Catholics were forbidden from voting, running for office or buying land in Ireland.
Nowadays, bigotry and discrimination in employment usually only remains in a few places where extreme forms of religion are the norm, or in poor areas with a long history of sectarian violence and tension, such as Northern Ireland (especially in terms of employment, however, this is dying out in this jurisdiction, thanks to strictly-enforced legislation). In places where more 'moderate' forms (such as Anglicanism / Episcopalianism) prevail, the two traditions do not become polarized against each other, and usually co-exist peacefully. However, in western Scotland, where many people have some Irish ancestry, sectarianism can frequently be found between Catholics and Protestants.
[edit] South Asian communalism
- Main article: Communalism (South Asia)
In India, sectarianism is known as communalism, which refers particularly to conflict between the Hindu and Muslim communities. It can also refer to Hindu/Sikh conflict and Hindu/Christian conflicts. While communalism usually implies economic communalism, in this sense it refers to the sectarians' "community."
Violence in Sri Lanka between the Tamil, Sinhalese, and Muslim communities often has heavy sectarian overtones.
[edit] Sectarianism in Pakistan
In Pakistan, there has been a brutal history of sectarian violence and unrest since the 1970s. In early years, the Sunni focus was Ahmadis. Today, though the majority of violence exists between Sunnis and Shias, there has also been example of ethnic violence that has played a major role in the development of the 60 year old nation.
Under the rule of Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, sectarianism in Pakistan, especially in Karachi came to an explosive point. This sparked a whole new era of sectarian violence whose legacy came to a near end when a Sunni suicide bombing of a Shia mosque in 2003 took place. Many have attributed this to Zia's practice of Wahhabism, which gained notoriety in mainstream Sunni after the destruction of the Shia holy shrine of Imam Hussein in Karbala, Iraq in 1800. The plan for Islamization of Pakistan led to further violence between the two main sects.
In the early part of the new millennium, Shia doctors and lawyers were put on anonymously paid for newspaper ads that published assassination hitlists. Then, those people were systematically assassinated by extremist Salafist and Deobandi groups as part of an effort to ethnically cleanse the nation of its Shia notables.
More recently Sectarianism in Pakistan has been institutionalised to the extent that it has become a complex part of Pakistani society in which the dividing lines are blurred. Although sectarianism in the Pakistani context often refers to the conflict between the majority Sunni and minority Shia traditions, this definition is misleading. These two groups are not homogenous, having their own subsects, local variants and different schools of thought See Sectarianism in Pakistan: A Destructive Way of Dealing with Difference PSRU Publication.
[edit] Sectarianism in Iraq
- Main article: Sectarian violence in Iraq
Iraq's Shia population was persecuted during the presidency of Saddam Hussein, and certain elements of the Iraqi insurgency have made a point of targeting Shias in sectarian attacks. In turn, the Sunnis have complained of discrimination and human rights abuses by Iraq's Shia majority government, which is bolstered by the fact that Sunni detainees were allegedly discovered to have been tortured in a compound used by government forces on November 15 2005. [1]
This sectarianism has fueled a giant level of emigration and internal displacement. See Refugees of Iraq.
[edit] Ethnic conflict in the Balkans
The civil wars in the Balkans which followed the breakup of Yugoslavia have been heavily tinged with sectarianism. Croats and Slovenes have traditionally been Catholic, Serbs and Macedonians Eastern Orthodox, and Bosniaks and (for the most part) Albanians Muslim. Religious affiliation served as a marker of group identity in this conflict, despite relatively low rates of religious practice and belief among these various groups after decades of communism.
[edit] Christian/Muslim conflict in West Africa
In certain West African countries, particularly Nigeria, competition between Muslims and Christians has exploded into severe violence.
[edit] Sectarianism within Judaism
Sectarianism also exists between Orthodox and Reform Jews, with orthodox Jews often characterising reform Jews as being non-religious, disobeying the Torah, rarely attending shul and adopting semi-Christian styles of worship. Reform Jews, on the other hand, often view the orthodox as being intolerant of them and other religions, placing legalistic rules such as the observance of the Sabbath above ethical obligations, being cult-like and hostile to change.
[edit] Anti-Semitism
- Main article: Anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism has traditionally been the most widespread variety of sectarianism in Europe. However, this form of prejudice is not wholly religious in nature, as can be seen by the racial policies of the Nazis, who could be said to be more concerned with the "contamination" of Aryan blood than with the Jewish religion itself, and the experiences of Marranos who were treated with suspicion several generations after their families had converted to Christianity.
[edit] Sectarianism in Lebanon
- See also: Lebanese civil war
Sectarianism in Lebanon was caused because of the political sharing of power. The 1943 National Pact gave the Maronite Christians, the then majority, more power than the other groups. Although the Taif aggrement ended the civil war, power is still divided along sects.
[edit] Political sectarianism
In the political realm, to describe a group as 'sectarian' (or as practicising 'sectarianism'), is to accuse them of prioritising differences and rivalries with politically close groups. An example might be a Communist group who are accused of devoting an excessive amount of time and energy to denouncing other Communist groups.
The Monty Python film The Life of Brian has a well-known joke in which various Judean groups, who to an outsider are indistinguishable, are more concerned with in-fighting than with their nominal aim of opposing Roman rule. This is taken to be a parody of modern political groups.
[edit] See also
