"... On my visits to Egypt since the Tahrir Revolution, I have been struck by the growing polarization between Christians and Muslims and the vindictiveness against Mubarak’s family and friends. It’s nice to see Egyptians lining up at newspaper kiosks (to buy real newspapers, as opposed to canned official lies), but my Cairo friends say that too many headlines carry the implicit message, “Off with their heads!”...
... This transition process is especially volatile in Syria, where a blood feud between the ruling Alawite minority and the Sunni majority has been building since the 1970s. Exacerbating this religious fracture is the regional tension between Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia. For an example of how the blood feuds of the past can poison the present, one need look no further than the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Both sides are so embedded in their narratives that they can’t write the common document of a peace treaty. They could use a little truth and reconciliation, too...."
As the Arab Spring rolls forward, the new revolutionaries must build pathways to a stable and tolerant future, even as they take proper account of the past. Otherwise, as the movie title had it, “there will be blood.”
Posted by G, M, Z, or B at 11:07 AM River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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