Center Journals

This paper does not represent a comprehensive vision of the revolutions that took place (and are continuing) in the Arab world as much as it forms an attempt to think about the means that will help to expand political prospects, which have started to gradually diminish, to make them consistent with a pluralist political reality as the entryway to institute principles for human life without tyranny.

In its contemporary meaning, political sectarianism, argues Bishara, is the product of the interaction between the pre-existing social system and modern colonialism, and the way in which the latter constructed the state. Based on institutionalized, or semi-institutionalized, quotas for sects, political sectarianism, though a phenomenon within the framework of the state, may also be employed in a transnational fashion to strengthen ties of solidarity, or for purposes of outside interference in other states. The author observes the contradiction between, on the one hand, the Arab-nationalist path (a unifying national culture founded upon a common language) and the nation-state path (based on citizenship enshrining political and social rights) and, on the other, sectarianism, for these two paths are a means for assimilation that cut across the division of society into tribal or regional groups. In sum, in the Arab Levant, Arab nationalism is not the antithesis of the nation state, but rather one of the foundations for its unity. The alternative, argues Bishara, is sectarian fragmentation or even social and regional fragmentation. Bishara offers the case of Lebanon and Iraq as examples in the transformation of the social sect into the political sect and refers to political religiosity, noting that in multi-confessional societies, politicized religiosity automatically ends up in political sectarianism, as can be seen in the process of the transformation and dismantling of “other” groups, religions, or confessions into minorities, and the behavior of the majorities according to a sectarian mentality. Bishara warns how monitoring these transformations constitutes the major challenge confronting Arab researches when analyzing sectarianism.

Using a socio-historical approach to the study of Shiites in Saudi Arabia, this analysis demonstrates how Shiite identity took its present shape by constructing a relatively independent power field through a network of relations that allow the sect to exist as a space for political action separate from its environment, and where actors compete to represent it and assume positions of influence. This field emerged and changed through a historical process of interaction between actors within it and between them and external influences (principally the state). Focusing on the Qatif region in Saudi Arabia, the study shows that sectarian hierarchy and relations of power tend to preserve their bounds by the same act of competition. This study puts forward a relational paradigm for understanding sectarian identity by dealing with it as a dynamic result of relationships and not as a discrete analytical category. This draws attention to the fact that sectarian identity is inseparable from an infrastructure of power relations within the sect and that the phenomenon of sectarianism may at root be a precursor to the production of sectarian discourse, a discourse which when dealt with relationally will reveal its link with power relations. This conception adds a new dimension to the understanding of identity, and consequently reorders the research agenda on the subject of sectarianism. It also contributes to a rethinking of the solutions to confront the crises of identity. The author proposes that best way to changes this sectarian reality is to create alternative networks of relationships by means of civil society institutions that create fields outside the sectarian field.