Competing Narratives among the Shi'a and the Sunni: Lessons from Gettysburg
My wife and I went to Gettysburg this past weekend. (There is a point to this respecting Islam, keep reading.) Quite a memorable experience, to be on this ground where these tens of thousands of people lost their lives, walking part of Pickett's charge, standing where Lincoln gave the Gettysburg address, even sitting on top of rocks that marked the one spot where a few hundred Confederate soldiers actually broke the main Union Line, the Angle. It's really only about half a mile from where they started, amazing how matters of such import are really decided over such short distances. The area between what would be for me a 15 minute walk perhaps determined the fate of millions of slaves.
Anyway, you sit there now, and it's all quiet. Birds chirp in the late afternoon heat, an elderly fellow sits on a lawn chair facing the other side, staring at the spot where Pickett led the Virginia men, a couple of kids run around playing something kids play, and wheat and tall grass blow lazily in the soft breeze. This, on the land where once tens of thousands of bodies lay dead, bugles blew, flags waved and a fierce fight was begun to hold the Union line.
But something else struck me about this place, and its peacefulness. For this place, the Angle, was not only the site where some of the fiercest moments of the battle was fought, but also where reconciliations were made. The first Confederate over the fence shook hands fifty years after the fact with the man who shot him in the cheek when he crossed. It was at the Angle where veterans of the war shook hands with each other at the 75th year reunion where Roosevelt spoke. War happened here, and so did peace.
I wondered as I saw these sights what was it that could lead to such appalling levels of bloodshed, and such quick restorations of the peace, here in the US, that seems so spectacularly lacking in Iraq, where disputes of more than a millenium are very, very raw today.
Bernard Lewis seems to think that it has to do with the Eastern man being conscious of his captivation by a construction of history, whereas the Western man lives free of such constructions by and large, or at least ignorant of them, making his adaptation to modern circumstances all the more comfortable. It's a common Orientalist vision--the Arab looks backwards, the American forwards, basically, if I had to simplify rather dramatically.
I guess I don't see that--at least not as Gettysburg. I didn't get the sense that the thousands of tourists weren't captivated by history, that the Southern boys proudly taking a picture by a statute of one of the Mississippi militia men clubbing the living crap out of a militia fellow holding the US flag (which is about to hit the ground) was because they had forgotten their history, that Eisenhower bought a farm at Gettysburg because of the cows and not the battlefield, or that Ohio schoolkids, the ones I know, who have to memorize the Gettysburg address aren't brought up with a keen sense of historical narrative. I just don't think it's true, I think there is a very deep sense of identity and pride that has come from events like this that shape the American character.
What I think the US has managed to do, however, which Iraq has not, is give everyone space to develop their own narratives through which to sustain a common vision. The narratives are quite different, as starkly different as Shi'a and Sunni in Iraq. I learned the Civil War in Ohio, my vision of John Brown is the one you get from the Underground Railroad Museum in Cincinatti, a brave if somewhat reckless man whose notions of race were decades ahead of their time and who awakened the conscience of a shamefully sleeping nation. I was shocked the first time I heard him described as a terrorist, or that someone thought Robert E. Lee was not a traitor, or that Sherman was not a war hero, or that the Civil War was not about slavery but Northern aggression. The narratives about what happened and how are very, very different depending on place and attitude. But none of that really matters, it doesn't cause turmoil, people don't get excited about it in a manner that's really a problem. Not because they've forgotten their narrative, but more because everyone, now, and fifty years after the war as well, was pretty okay being an American again.
And once that happens, then the story that is told shifts, not to adopt the alternative version, but to justify a common outcome for both sides. It's sort of another sort of realism--in the same way that the judge who hates polygamy can take a state law that explicitly permits it to effectively ban it through exceptions that swallow the rule, so some guy from the South at our hotel can proclaim loudly that Robert E. Lee's feats were fundamental to making America the great country it is today and I don't understand him to be (a) arguing for a version of "state's rights" that would be far more radical than the most ardent modern state rights proponent would accept or (b) calling for the restoration of slavery. You just focus on something else, and let the story evolve differently.
I guess what I think then is that the Sunni-Shi'a split doesn't really have to be the big deal it's made out to be in Iraq. If one can find a way to allow both sides to feel they have a stake in the place, and allow them their different narratives, we'll be as fine as the US is now. Everyone is searching for a reconciliation of the narratives, a reunification of sects, and I'm not sure that's very realistic. I just don't think it matters that the Shi'a dislike Sunnism's caliphs, including the first two. We do, and we always will. And I don't think it matters that Sunnis reject any notion of an Imamate following Muhammad. They're not changing that. But create the state where each one has his space, where each one feels he has a stake in the future, where each feels he is being treated fairly and with respect, and the narratives won't go away, but maybe they won't be the source of so much internal tension either, they'll evolve in a manner that won't threaten the state. In the absence of that, then yes, of course the identities will serve to raise tension and anger--the first two Caliphs will become the predecessors to Saddam for the Shi'a, and the current government will be an example of the insistence of the Shi'a on absolute and unshared rule from Iran to Lebanon under one Imam. But change the state, and the same conclusion need not be reached. It's a story, and there's lots of ways to interpret stories.
It certainly is something to strive for.
HAH
Anyway, you sit there now, and it's all quiet. Birds chirp in the late afternoon heat, an elderly fellow sits on a lawn chair facing the other side, staring at the spot where Pickett led the Virginia men, a couple of kids run around playing something kids play, and wheat and tall grass blow lazily in the soft breeze. This, on the land where once tens of thousands of bodies lay dead, bugles blew, flags waved and a fierce fight was begun to hold the Union line.
But something else struck me about this place, and its peacefulness. For this place, the Angle, was not only the site where some of the fiercest moments of the battle was fought, but also where reconciliations were made. The first Confederate over the fence shook hands fifty years after the fact with the man who shot him in the cheek when he crossed. It was at the Angle where veterans of the war shook hands with each other at the 75th year reunion where Roosevelt spoke. War happened here, and so did peace.
I wondered as I saw these sights what was it that could lead to such appalling levels of bloodshed, and such quick restorations of the peace, here in the US, that seems so spectacularly lacking in Iraq, where disputes of more than a millenium are very, very raw today.
Bernard Lewis seems to think that it has to do with the Eastern man being conscious of his captivation by a construction of history, whereas the Western man lives free of such constructions by and large, or at least ignorant of them, making his adaptation to modern circumstances all the more comfortable. It's a common Orientalist vision--the Arab looks backwards, the American forwards, basically, if I had to simplify rather dramatically.
I guess I don't see that--at least not as Gettysburg. I didn't get the sense that the thousands of tourists weren't captivated by history, that the Southern boys proudly taking a picture by a statute of one of the Mississippi militia men clubbing the living crap out of a militia fellow holding the US flag (which is about to hit the ground) was because they had forgotten their history, that Eisenhower bought a farm at Gettysburg because of the cows and not the battlefield, or that Ohio schoolkids, the ones I know, who have to memorize the Gettysburg address aren't brought up with a keen sense of historical narrative. I just don't think it's true, I think there is a very deep sense of identity and pride that has come from events like this that shape the American character.
What I think the US has managed to do, however, which Iraq has not, is give everyone space to develop their own narratives through which to sustain a common vision. The narratives are quite different, as starkly different as Shi'a and Sunni in Iraq. I learned the Civil War in Ohio, my vision of John Brown is the one you get from the Underground Railroad Museum in Cincinatti, a brave if somewhat reckless man whose notions of race were decades ahead of their time and who awakened the conscience of a shamefully sleeping nation. I was shocked the first time I heard him described as a terrorist, or that someone thought Robert E. Lee was not a traitor, or that Sherman was not a war hero, or that the Civil War was not about slavery but Northern aggression. The narratives about what happened and how are very, very different depending on place and attitude. But none of that really matters, it doesn't cause turmoil, people don't get excited about it in a manner that's really a problem. Not because they've forgotten their narrative, but more because everyone, now, and fifty years after the war as well, was pretty okay being an American again.
And once that happens, then the story that is told shifts, not to adopt the alternative version, but to justify a common outcome for both sides. It's sort of another sort of realism--in the same way that the judge who hates polygamy can take a state law that explicitly permits it to effectively ban it through exceptions that swallow the rule, so some guy from the South at our hotel can proclaim loudly that Robert E. Lee's feats were fundamental to making America the great country it is today and I don't understand him to be (a) arguing for a version of "state's rights" that would be far more radical than the most ardent modern state rights proponent would accept or (b) calling for the restoration of slavery. You just focus on something else, and let the story evolve differently.
I guess what I think then is that the Sunni-Shi'a split doesn't really have to be the big deal it's made out to be in Iraq. If one can find a way to allow both sides to feel they have a stake in the place, and allow them their different narratives, we'll be as fine as the US is now. Everyone is searching for a reconciliation of the narratives, a reunification of sects, and I'm not sure that's very realistic. I just don't think it matters that the Shi'a dislike Sunnism's caliphs, including the first two. We do, and we always will. And I don't think it matters that Sunnis reject any notion of an Imamate following Muhammad. They're not changing that. But create the state where each one has his space, where each one feels he has a stake in the future, where each feels he is being treated fairly and with respect, and the narratives won't go away, but maybe they won't be the source of so much internal tension either, they'll evolve in a manner that won't threaten the state. In the absence of that, then yes, of course the identities will serve to raise tension and anger--the first two Caliphs will become the predecessors to Saddam for the Shi'a, and the current government will be an example of the insistence of the Shi'a on absolute and unshared rule from Iran to Lebanon under one Imam. But change the state, and the same conclusion need not be reached. It's a story, and there's lots of ways to interpret stories.
It certainly is something to strive for.
HAH
Enjoyed your reflection, particularly as you refer to John Brown, concerning whom I have written two biographical works, including a religious life. I am also the author of a religious life of Malcolm X, a Muslim activist of whom I am sure you are well aware. I would not agree that Brown was reckless, although clearly he was flawed like the rest of us. Best wishes
Reply to this
Thanks, I haven't had the pleasure of reading your work, though I did just read David Reynolds' work on John Brown about a month ago. Fascinating person. I'll try to pick up your work on Malcom X some time soon.
Reply to this
Some nice reflections. Something, though, for us (and Prof Lewis) to think about:
100 years from now, or 300, America is a shadow of its former self. The energy crisis has floored us. The world economic and political power centers are in Asia. America's cities are wastelands. There are race riots and massacres. Just fill in your own imagination of "what might go wrong" - I am not trying to be a prophet here (that would be bid'a, possibly even sabb al-nabi!). Imagine the books that will be written (in India, China, Sibera) about how the Americans live in the past, bicker endlessly over petty past events (the 17th century slave trade! some minor war in the 19th century! "who lost Saudi Arabia in 2017?"!), all trying to explain what it is about Americans that make them inevitably sear with resentment over what happened to them.
Reply to this