While partisan disagreement in the U.S. is "violent" only in a rhetorical sense, in the Muslim world sectarian differences are a killing matter--for no rational reason

I suspect that many people outside this country find it difficult to comprehend the American political system, unlike most western European nations which have parliamentary systems whose head-of-state (such as prime minister) is selected from the majority party. The U.S. government often seems hopelessly divided and stalemated; it has not always been like this in recent memory, at least not until 1994 when voters were tricked by Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America,” which required that all Republican officeholders be constrained to support strict government austerity and oppose taxes.  That deficits ballooned during the six years that the Republicans controlled all three branches of government (2000-2006) indicates that they only “honor” this program when a Democrat is in the White House. 

But at least this isn’t the pre-Civil War period when there were frequent brawls in the halls of Congress, usually instigated by “disagreements” over slavery and usually featuring Southern lawmakers threatening unarmed Northerners with knives and pistols. There was the famous incident involving the savage caning of Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks; Brooks was aided by a gun-wielding Lawrence Keitt, who kept Sumner’s would-be defenders at bay. Keitt would try to choke another congressman in a later brawl that involved 50 congressmen. Brooks was only punished by a fine for his actions, but when he was called a “coward” by Congressman Anson Burlingame, Brooks challenged him to duel, which Burlingame accepted to the chagrin of Brooks. When Brooks failed to show-up for the duel after he heard that Burlingame was an expert marksman, his reputation as a true coward was sealed.

Today there is less violence, but plenty of verbal violence, especially from the right; this makes it almost impossible to come to terms with the wishes and desires of all people, not just a particular tight-fisted jurisdiction. Constituencies on the right always want to take away from or deny something to another constituency, even though they would benefit as much, and usually out of sheer contrariness, bigotry and personal cupidity.  The irony is that the right always seems to defend its “right” to deny other people their rights. Obviously conflict derives from this, and like the days of old, it is usually those on right who posture threatening, while those on the left either make mock of their menaces—or back-off passively. The current iteration of the right uses bully tactics to strike a note of fear and paranoia into those most susceptible to it (“real” Americans, meaning white), but actual violence generally goes no further than Sen. Zell Miller “challenging” MSNBC’s Chris Mathews to a “duel.” More typically, the “violence” is to people’s lives by the act of denial, or “criminalizing” poverty.

But while political and social divisions in the U.S. tend to lead to heated talk and deadlock, in other parts of the globe real violence between parties seems almost inevitable once security apparatuses are disrupted. We’ve seen this in Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Afghanistan of late. While there is a preference by the participants to blame this on the meddling of western “infidels,” from the outside it just looks like Sunni and Shiite Muslims cannot “get along.” Bombings and murder gangs operating under the guise of one side oppressed by the other seems an almost daily occurrence in Iraq and Syria, with no end in sight. There are of course “differences” in religious beliefs and practices between Sunnis and Shiites, but these seem hardly sufficient reason not to find some human commonality, unless, of course, there is a deeper disturbance at its core.

I’m no scholar on Islam, let alone Christianity, but it would appear that some internal conflicts are similar in context. The Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches are headed by a single spiritual leader who is “infallible,” with priests and bishops as their unquestioned representatives, while Protestant denominations (especially evangelicals) tend to be more autonomous, with a pastor or preacher’s authority often  requiring the approval of the congregation. There were of course conflicts and even wars fought over religion, but below the surface these had more secular than spiritual underpinnings.  

For example, King Henry XIII went from authoring the “Defense of the Seven Sacraments” to breaking with Rome merely over its refusal to grant him a divorce. German princes saw “conversion” to Protestantism as an opportunity to confiscate church land and treasure for their own greedy requirements. The Thirty Years War began with religious rhetoric, but ended as a regional political and territorial power struggle. Even the conflict in Ireland was only “religious” in nature because it provided an easily defined identification of the combatants—an identification exacerbated by discriminatory law against Catholics in both Ireland and Britain itself that continued into the 19^th century. 

The U.S. hasn’t been without its religious conflicts; Catholic immigrants, particularly from Ireland, were characterized by nativists as comprising the “party” of “Rum, Rome and Rebellion,” and this attitude still held some sway with certain segments of the population in 1960 during John F. Kennedy’s run for president.

But in today’s modern world where religion plays much less a role in shaping geopolitical and domestic policy—save in intolerant, right-wing fundamentalist enclaves—countries that are technically Christian in character have so many other things to occupy their time with, not to mention a greater cynicism about the world we live in.

That cynicism is only exacerbated by what they see happening in the name of “religion” in the Islamic world. Much of this conflict is due to religious vs. secular political philosophies, and the fact that Shiites are seen by Sunnis to be prone to radicalism and disturbing the “normal” relationship between the two sects (in which Shiites are supposed to be “subservient” as the minority overall in the Islamic world). This is somewhat ironic given that most of the violence today is being perpetrated by Sunnis and their Al Qaeda supporters. While Sunni and Shiite sects would seem to be two sides of the same coin (like Catholics and Protestants), recent bloody violence between the two suggests that this is driven by two entirely contradictory belief systems that cannot tolerate the other—perhaps due to rivalries between egomaniacal religious “leaders” exhorting their flock to violence and acts of “martyrdom” that they themselves are too cowardly to engage in personally—since it would mark them as being “sinful,” and thus reduce their religious “credibility.”

Things have changed since them, since no one can truthfully claim to be a descendant of Muhammad (any more than those who claim to be the descent of Jesus from his alleged marriage to Mary Magdalene), since Ali and his family were assassinated.  Remembrance of this event would infuse Shiite sense of grievance against Sunnis ever since.  The divisions caused by who should succeed Muhammad and the subsequent deaths of Ali (who eventually was selected as the fourth caliph, thus briefly “uniting” the two parties) and his male heirs caused a contrary reaction among the minority of Muslims who believed in this line of succession, and they deliberately sought to differentiate themselves from the majority by arbitrarily selecting different definitions to the Islamic belief system. 

Sunnis tend to more “philosophical” in their interpretation of their religion, while Shiites take ancient texts literally; in the West, people who take the Bible—especially the Old Testament—literally are usually regarded as fanatics and adrift from reality. Sunnis, however, do believe in predestination, meaning that their actions—including mass murder of civilians—are beyond their control, that they have been preordained by Allah, or so they have been told by the particular religious leader they have chosen to listen to.

The Sunni Caliphate effectively died with the end of the Ottoman Empire, but their leaders continued to be those recognized by human peers, such as those who form the  “Ulama” in which Islamic jurists and scholars decide orthodoxy; one of the most contentious issues in Egypt’s Islamic-inspired constitution was allowing such a group to mandate policy in social and political spheres. Shiite imams, on the other hand, essentially derive their authority from the belief that others in their community believe that their authority is divinely granted to serve the same purpose on Earth as Muhammad. These imams are supposed to be sinless and free of human fault; that many who could be viewed as violent fanatics naturally brings into question these alleged qualities. For example, many Muslims seem to have allowed themselves to become excessively influenced by the “teachings” of their religious leaders, some of whom have extraordinarily magnified perceptions of themselves.

In Islamic nations dominated by one sect over the other, each seems to wish to prevent the minority the opportunity to offer alternatives to one belief system over the other; thus public displays by the minority sect are discouraged or banned. Thus in Iran, there is no Sunni mosque in Tehran despite the residency of 1 million Sunni in the city, and in Iraq, bald-faced domination by the Shiite majority—initially “understandable” due to the years of oppression under Saddam Hussein—has led to daily bloodshed.

One searches in vain for reasons. Freedom of thought and religion seems a threat not so much for the masses, but for competing religious leaders drunk with their own "authority." While Sunnis tend to be more “philosophical” in their interpretation of their religious texts, Shiites take these ancient writings literally; in the West, people who take the Bible—especially the Old Testament—literally are usually regarded as fanatics and adrift from reality. Sunnis, however, believe in predestination, meaning that their actions—including murder of civilians—are beyond their control, that they have been preordained by Allah, or so they have been told by the particular religious leader they have chosen to listen to. While drone attacks on militants (and collaterally, civilians) always generate outrage in Islamic countries, there seems little morally wrong with killing each other over differences of opinion.

Will there ever come a time when Islamic countries learn to live together in peace and acceptance of each other’s differences without resort to violence or oppression? So far there is very little to suggest that, despite to what seems to us to be “minor” disagreements in philosophy.