The renewal of sectarian violence in Egypt urges the reconsideration of a saying which has become a quasi-constant principle in the Arab region, and can be summarized by the fact that the Sunni-Shiite conflict is the “characteristic of this era.” Indeed, we cannot exclude the objective reasons behind some villagers' burning of the shops and homes of their peers from the Coptic sect, as the climate is heated with the imminence of legislative elections that might increase the stalemate. This makes any side wishing to exploit the tensions affecting the sectarian relations try its luck. The targeting of the Copts in Egypt - in parallel to the attacks on churches and Christian worshipers in Iraq and Al-Qaeda's threats to target their counterparts in Egypt - reveals the presence of a phenomenon that extends beyond the frameworks in which some writings are trying to place the Sunni-Shiite conflict. In this context, believing that the crimes committed against the Iraqi Christians stem from the conflict over power is justified, as the Christians are being forced to play the role of the scapegoat to defuse the rising tensions on the eve of Al-Maliki's victory in the competition over the post of prime minister. However, in Egypt where there are no Shiites except for a few, the domestic tensions are being turned toward the Coptic “others,” as it would be impossible to turn the popular restlessness and uproar toward Israel or the United States after they were depleted by the popular and nationalistic media (noting that the media war on Algeria at the beginning of the year was short-termed and that football was not enough to contain the different facets of the domestic crisis). The definition of the areas of Sunni-Shiite friction in the Arab and Islamic worlds and saying that this friction has historical and denominational bases that are oblivious of the current developments affecting Arab and Islamic communities is inaccurate. Moreover, naively saying that a Zionist-imperialistic conspiracy is continuously planting the seeds of strife in our countries to maintain our division and allow Israel and America to eternalize their dominance and pillaging of the region's wealth lacks objectivity. Whoever saw the posters which featured the pictures of the dead in the ranks of Fatah after Hamas gained control over Gaza in 2007, could not help but notice that a number of them carried the expression “was killed by the Shiites.” Whoever printed these photos claimed that the alliance between Hamas and Iran meant the “Shiization” of the movement which has emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood. What is meant here is that a consciousness that is in crisis invents its own “Shiites” to fight them and explain why it is drowning in various predicaments, while securing a way to elude the urgent need for self-accountability. Lebanon, Iraq, Bahrain, Kuwait, Iran and Pakistan all witnessed the eruption of sparks of sectarianism during the last few months, shedding light on the flaws affecting Sunni-Shiite relations and the necessity to handle them. However, the greatest problem is revealed by the situations witnessed in Egypt and Gaza among others, where the Arab communities seem to be deploying great efforts to invent domestic enemies as the only way out from unbearable conditions and bleak horizons. What the analysts of the Sunni-Shiite conflict are forgetting is that the majorities and minorities around the world are reconsidering the outcomes of their current policies, as it is now seen in Europe. They are also forgetting that the persecution of the minorities - regardless of their names - is a global historical practice, and that the current chapter represented by the conflict between the Sunnis and the Shiites is nothing but a modern translation of it. As for the books of denominational history, they neither provide answers nor treatment for this plague whose germ was produced by the problems of neglect, backwardness, social discrepancies, political depravation and whatever equals them or can enter through their wide open doors to falsify the facts and mislead us.
