It’s Not a Sunni-Shiite Conflict, Dummy
▻http://www.fairobserver.com/region/middle_east_north_africa/its-not-a-sunni-shiite-conflict-dummy-02579
Last week in Yemen, my young cousin in the second grade ran inside after an explosion shook the windows. “I don’t mind when the house shakes, I just don’t want to die in it,” he said out of breath. “You won’t,” I reassured him. He then went back to play. I followed him outside to find a group of children playing a political game: “President Hadi vs Abdulmalik al-Houthi.” Their mission was to free the cats held hostage.
As I sat there watching this game unfold, I heard them throw many terms around: democracy, justice, national dialogue conference, etc. The words Sunni or Shiite, were never mentioned.
This is not surprising given the fact that affiliation to a madhab (religious school of thought) rarely comes up in conversations in Yemen. This is slowly changing, and many fear that this historic diversity and tolerance might become something of the past.
To say there are no sectarian tendencies or cleavages in Yemen is incorrect (as Shelagh Weir explained from the 1980s). But the oversimplification of explaining the current power struggle entirely on historic theological differences between Sunnis and Shiites is incorrect as well.
This is incorrect for a variety of reasons that I will summarize here.
