It has come to my attention that many people, frequently liberals, like to pat themselves on the back for knowing that there are, broadly speaking, two types of Muslims: Sunni and Shia. This often occurs after a pubic figure makes some kind of gaffe, which apparently reveals his or her ignorance of this division, such as John McCain’s recent declaration that Iran (a predominantly Shia nation) is offering aid to al-Qaida (a Sunni terrorist organization) in Iraq.

Now, far be it from me to defend McCain, who was, by nearly all accounts, incorrect. One reason that his comments are especially surprising is that Iran has actually helped us fight al-Qaida in the past, especially in the war in Afghanistan. Still, there is something disturbing about the way that many Westerners assume that all of Muslims’ behavior can be deduced from their religious identity.

This kind of thinking permeated the responses to McCain’s gaffe. Rather than simply pointing out that the groups in Iraq, which had been aided by Iran were not al-Qaida, many also excoriated McCain for daring to assume that Sunni and Shia Muslims could ever cooperate.

I certainly don’t deny that religion has a powerful influence on Middle-Eastern politics. Iran may find more natural alliances with Hezbollah in Lebanon or with the Shia majority in Iraq than it does with Saudi Arabia or Hamas in Palestine, but that does not mean they will not cooperate with Sunnis when the opportunity presents itself. Indeed, Iran has given financial aid to Hamas, a Sunni organization, despite their religious differences. Admittedly, this may be more because they share a common enemy in Israel than because of religious solidarity, but if Muslims cared as much about their religious differences as many seem to suppose, this sort of cooperation would not occur.

Nowhere is the religious explanation of conflict more frequently invoked than in commentary on the Iraq war. There is, of course, nothing wrong with pointing out that many of the fault lines in intra-Iraqi conflict are between Sunni and Shia Muslims (though as the Sunni/al-Qaida fighting in the Anbar province and the recent clashes between the Sadr army and the Maliki government show, this is not always the case). However, I do have a problem with how these conflicts are often explained. Many argue that the conflicts arise solely from differences in religious doctrine. The most irritating variant of this belief is the “Sunnis and Shias have hated each other and fought for a thousand years, so there’s not much we can do in Iraq” meme, the most prominent proponent of which may be the liberal commenter Bill Maher.

The problem I have with this belief is that they completely ignore historical contingencies that also help to explain conflicts between the Sunni and Shia in Iraq. Might it be useful to know that the British arbitrarily drew the borders that now enclose Iraq without taking into account the cultures, nationalities and religions of its inhabitants? How about the fact that wealth and power in Iraq have become, with the help of first the British and later Saddam Hussein, disproportionately concentrated in the hands of the Sunni minority? Or that the Shia majority faced terrible oppression at the hands of Saddam Hussein, leading them to band together and disdain their Sunni-dominated government?

The conflicts in Iraq need not be traced to an ancient enmity, because there is plenty of recent history to explain it. An arbitrarily-constructed country, in which the constant rule of monarchs and dictators never gave a glimmer of hope for the development of civil society, cannot settle its problems overnight. Had the population of Iraq been full of Christians, Jews or atheists, we would have observed similar results. We should not be content to condescendingly shrug our shoulders and say, “Oh well, they just hate each other’s religion” when, without our well-developed institutions, we would fare no better in the anarchy following Saddam Hussein’s removal.

Bill Hoffman is a senior in Arts & Sciences and a forum editor. He can be reached at [email protected].

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