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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
ROBIN1 WRIGHT: What happens when a tornado2 sweeps through? You go to the cellar, and you cling to the pillars until the tornado passes. And it's the same thing in this conflict. People are going to the pillars in their soul that have defined them and given them sustenance3 and support all of their lives.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #1: (Chanting in foreign language).
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: Is the Sunni-Shia divide about to explode wide open?
AUDIE CORNISH, BYLINE4: What began as a protest movement has turned into a fight to the death.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: Second day of air strikes inside Yemen by Saudi jets.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #3: Iran supports one side, while Saudi Arabia supports the other.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Foreign language spoken).
RUND ABDELFATAH, HOST:
You're listening to THROUGHLINE from NPR...
RAMTIN ARABLOUEI, HOST:
...Where we go back in time...
ABDELFATAH: ...To understand the present.
Hey, I'm Rund Abdelfatah.
ARABLOUEI: I'm Ramtin Arablouei.
ABDELFATAH: And on today's show...
ARABLOUEI: ...The history of the Sunni-Shia divide.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ABDELFATAH: So if you follow the news in Yemen or Syria or really anywhere in the Middle East, you've probably heard about the Sunni-Shia divide in Islam.
ARABLOUEI: It's sort of a catch-all phrase used to explain a lot of the conflicts happening there.
ABDELFATAH: But how much do you actually know about the divide - like where it began, for example, what the fight's even about or how big the gap actually is between these two sects5 of Islam? Now, before we go any further, we should mention that this topic is especially close to home for us. I'm Palestinian and Sunni.
ARABLOUEI: I'm Iranian and Shia.
ABDELFATAH: And we've talked a lot about how frustrating6 it is to see headlines about the Sunni-Shia divide that seem to be written in a vacuum with no sense of the history behind it.
ARABLOUEI: Or to hear politicians talk about it in the same broad, sweeping8 way.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARACK OBAMA: The Middle East is going through a transformation9 that will play out for a generation rooted in conflicts that date back millennia10.
ABDELFATAH: So has this conflict been going on for millennia, or are the divisions rooted in events and conflicts much closer to today? To answer those questions, we've got to go way back to the beginning and retrace11 how we got to where we are - 1,300 hundred years of history in about 30 minutes.
ARABLOUEI: It's a lot, we know. But we're going to break it down for you into four key moments.
ARABLOUEI: The epic12 Battle of Karbala in the year 680, the moment when this divide first turned deadly.
ARABLOUEI: The Safavid takeover of Iran in the 16th century, which established a Shia empire.
ABDELFATAH: The Sykes-Picot Agreement in the early 20th century, which divided up the Middle East into the countries we see today.
ARABLOUEI: And the rise of political Islam at the end of the 20th century.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ARABLOUEI: Part I - the Battle of Karbala.
ABDELFATAH: Let's turn back the clock to the 7th century. We're in the dusty, hot desert of Arabia. Islam is the new big religion. And one guy, the Prophet Muhammad, is spreading that religion throughout the region.
ARABLOUEI: Just a reminder13 - in Islam, the Prophet Muhammad is the last messenger and prophet sent by God to guide humanity. But he was also a political leader and basically united all of Arabia into one single state.
ABDELFATAH: There's a lot more we could say about him. But the moment when this story begins it's at the prophet's deathbed.
LESLEY HAZLETON: And it took 10 days for him to die.
ABDELFATAH: He was about 62, which was a long life for his time.
HAZLETON: And what's amazing is that after so many battles and so many assassination14 attempts on him, he was actually dying of natural causes. In fact, it sounds very much today like bacterial15 meningitis lasted 10 days.
ABDELFATAH: It was a slow, painful death.
HAZLETON: Agonizing16 headache shooting up through the shoulders.
ABDELFATAH: He was in and out of fever.
HAZLETON: And everybody was there. You know, a sick room in the Middle East at the time was not like a hospital room in the West now. It was just full of people.
ABDELFATAH: And there was one question that was on everybody's mind.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ABDELFATAH: Who would succeed him?
HAZLETON: There were signs that Muhammad was all too aware of what would happen after his death. One tradition has it that his last words were, oh, God, have pity on those who succeed me. But then what did he mean by that? Was it an expression of humility17? Or did Muhammad with his final breath foresee the terrible saga18 of blood and tears to come? There is no way of knowing. As the old Arabic saying has it, only God knows for sure.
ARABLOUEI: This is author Lesley Hazleton. She wrote a book called...
HAZLETON: "After The Prophet: The Epic Story Of The Shia-Sunni Split."
ABDELFATAH: So as the prophet is dying, the community is anxious, unsure who would lead them after he was gone.
ARABLOUEI: And the uncertainty20 came down to this - should the new leader be selected by a vote, or should a family member inherit the role? That question led to a lot of ugly infighting among Muslims.
ABDELFATAH: At the time, the Islamic empire was starting to spread throughout the Middle East.
ARABLOUEI: So there was a lot of power at stake.
ABDELFATAH: And the person who would succeed Muhammad, the caliph, would hold all of that power. By the way, caliph is an Arabic word meaning ruler, and the kingdom that a caliph rules over is a caliphate.
ARABLOUEI: So the prophet's cousin - his name is Ali - has a bunch of followers21 who think he should be the first caliph, that he should inherit the spot as a family member. But the people who wanted to vote in a caliph, they win out. So Ali is not the first caliph. Three other people rule before he gets the chance to.
ABDELFATAH: Eventually, he does become caliph. But he's assassinated22 pretty quickly into his rule.
ARABLOUEI: Which basically crushes the hopes of all of his followers, who by this point are known as the Shiat al-Ali, or the Shia.
ABDELFATAH: Then a new guy named Muawiyah takes over as caliph.
HAZLETON: I wish he were better known in the West because without him, I'm not sure that Islam would have survived.
ARABLOUEI: Lesley says, unlike Ali, who was thought of as this honorable, upstanding leader...
HAZLETON: None of this applied23 to Muawiyah. He wanted power. He was ruthless about how he enforced it. His governors were Saddam Hussein-types, basically - completely ruthless autocrats24. And Muawiyah, by the way, was known as the son of the liver-eater.
ABDELFATAH: Yep, you heard that right - son of the liver-eater.
HAZLETON: And the liver-eater in question was Hind7, who had been the wife of one of Muhammad's main opponents when Muhammad was still alive.
ARABLOUEI: And is this - this is the Hind that allegedly...
HAZLETON: Ate Hamza's liver.
ARABLOUEI: ...Ate Hamza's liver. OK.
HAZLETON: Yeah. That great story. But, you know, OK. That's going into too much detail (laughter).
ABDELFATAH: Sorry; tangent. OK. So under Muawiyah's rule, the followers of Ali - the Shia - were not treated well, especially in Iraq, where a lot of Shia lived at the time. Under Ali, Iraq had been the center of the Muslim empire. So a lot was at stake there.
ARABLOUEI: Eventually, Muawiyah dies and appoints his son Yazid as the next caliph. He turns out to be even more ruthless than his father. And under Yazid, the repression25 of the Shia in Iraq gets even worse.
ABDELFATAH: This sets the stage for a battle that - I don't think it's far-fetched to say - alters the course of Islamic history.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ARABLOUEI: Here's how the story goes. A group of Shia who were living in Iraq became really frustrated26 with the rule of Yazid, who, remember, is the caliph at this time. So they called on Ali's son, the Prophet Muhammad's grandson - his name is Hussain - to travel across the desert from Arabia to Iraq to rescue them.
ABDELFATAH: Hussain, by this point, had taken up the mantle27 as the leader of the Shia.
ARABLOUEI: Now, keep in mind all these political feuds28 had pretty much nothing to do with any religious disagreement. They were really about power - who should rule and how they should rule.
ABDELFATAH: On one side, you have a small band of Shia - almost all of whom were descendants of the Prophet Muhammad - led by the Prophet's grandson Hussain, storming towards Iraq to confront Yazid. And on the other, you have a massive Sunni army waiting for them. So let's just say the odds29 were stacked against the Shia.
ARABLOUEI: We'll that Lesley Hazleton pick it up from here.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
HAZLETON: And here is where begins a passion story that is equal in power in Islam to the passion of the Christ in Christianity. Takes three weeks to travel by camel - which is how everybody traveled at that time - from Mecca to Iraq. And during those three weeks, he got warning after warning. The Iraqis will betray you. Their mouths are big. Their swords are not. You know, repression will win out. Turn back. Turn back. And every time, he would sort of nod, acknowledge the warning and continue on. His most famous saying is that man travels in darkness and his destiny travels toward him. Was this heedless on his part? Was this naive31 on his part, to believe all the promises coming to him from Iraq? Or did he know what he's - was doing? Did he know that he was traveling towards his own death and that of all his family? In other words, was he deliberately32 sacrificing himself?
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
HAZLETON: He reaches Iraq. Yazid's men prevent him from reaching his followers, who, by that time, had given in completely, in any case. And he and his small band of followers are basically besieged33 on a bluff34 not far from the Euphrates River but not within reach of the water. And what happened next lasted 10 days. The instructions from Yazid are to starve them out by thirst. And one by one, they will capitulate. And surround them with an army of what would be 4,000 men.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
HAZLETON: So you have the eve of the final day, right? And those of his men who still remained, Hussain said to them, I hereby absolve35 you from your oath of allegiance to me. Go home now, under cover of darkness. Get out. Use the night as a camel to ride away upon. These men of Yazid's want only me, he said. And of course, they stayed. They swore never to leave him. That night, he took off his chain mail. And he put on a white seamless robe - that is, a shroud36. And they burned incense37 and anointed themselves and basically prepared themselves for death. And one of Hussain's daughters said, and we knew then that the final tribulation38 had come upon us.
(SOUNDBITE OF HORSE GALLOPING)
HAZLETON: On the tenth day, he rode into battle alone. Nearly all the male members of his family had been killed one by one. He rode alone right into battle against 4,000 men and, of course, was cut down. There were 33 sword cuts on Hussain's body. As soon as he fell from his horse, hundreds of men fell upon his body, just hacking39 at it. The head was cut off. In fact, the heads were cut off all 72 of his warriors40. The women and children were not killed. And they were all taken to Damascus along with the 72 heads.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
HAZLETON: Basically, what had happened was that all the members of Muhammad's blood family - his blood relatives, his immediate41 blood relatives - had been killed by other Muslims.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ABDELFATAH: Man, that story is intense.
ARABLOUEI: Yeah.
ABDELFATAH: I never heard it told like that when I was a kid.
ARABLOUEI: I actually heard that story just like that (laughter).
ABDELFATAH: I mean, you're a Shia.
ARABLOUEI: A lot when I was a kid - yeah, no.
ABDELFATAH: Yeah, that makes sense.
ARABLOUEI: It's such a central part of being Shia to know this story. And what happens at Karbala turns Hussain into a real martyr42 figure for most Shia.
ABDELFATAH: You know, as I understand it, it made him a legendary43 figure for centuries to come. And that mythology44 is going to fuel the growth of the Shia movement all over the world.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ABDELFATAH: Part II - here come the Safavids.
ARABLOUEI: After the Battle of Karbala, the most important date on the Shia calendar quickly became a day called Ashura.
VALI NASR: A commemoration of the Battle of Karbala. Now, that date doesn't exist in any Islamic scriptural text. It's a cultural spiritual experience that's very unique to Shiism.
ABDELFATAH: This is Vali Nasr.
NASR: Dean of Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.
ABDELFATAH: And as he pointed45 out to us, this battle was huge because it gave the Shia something to rally around.
ARABLOUEI: A battle that, remember, was centered on succession and politics, not a difference of opinion about theology.
ABDELFATAH: For a few centuries after the Battle of Karbala, the Shia were in the minority and basically had very little political power. So the main political authority in the Islamic world, really from the beginning, was in the hands of the Sunnis.
ARABLOUEI: Despite that, Sunnis and Shias lived for centuries in relative peace until...
NASR: A Mongol invasion destroyed the Abbasid caliphate that had ruled from Baghdad.
ARABLOUEI: And over the next few centuries, power passed from empire to empire in the Middle East ending what's now known as the Golden Age of Islam. In the 16th century, three major empires controlled the region - the Mughals from India, the Ottoman Turks and the Safavids.
ABDELFATAH: Like most of the Muslim world, the Mughals and Ottomans were Sunni. But the Safavids were Shia, and they set out to conquer Iran.
ARABLOUEI: Which brings us to the third moment on our journey, a moment that changed everything yet again. Because while today Iran is pretty much the center of Shia Islam, up until the Safavids arrived, Iran was almost entirely46 Sunni.
NASR: Until the Safavid came, Iran actually was the seat of Sunni philosophy, theology, high learning. But once the Safavid took over, they began to declare Iran as Shia, partly because they were Shia. And much like medieval European princes, once you took over a territory, the identity of the prince becomes the identity of the territory. And partly, also they wanted to create a differentiation47 with the two other rival empires on their borders.
ABDELFATAH: This was news to me. I mean, did you know about this, Ramtin?
ARABLOUEI: No. Not until we talked to Vali Nasr, I didn't.
ABDELFATAH: Yeah. Yeah. Same.
ARABLOUEI: For me, growing up, I was always led to believe, like so many Iranians, that Iran had always been Shia.
ABDELFATAH: And it turns out that so many of the early Sunni scholars were actually Persian, like al-Bukhari, al-Ashari.
ARABLOUEI: And so the natural next question is, how did the Safavids turn such a Sunni country Shia?
NASR: You reward those who convert by patronage48, and you punish those who don't convert by denying them resources.
ARABLOUEI: Well, actually, there was another way, too - by force. And that was really brutal49. The Shias persecuted50 Sunnis and attacked anyone who refused to convert.
ABDELFATAH: A lot of blood was spilled. And by the time it was all said and done, the Safavids were successful. Iran had become majority Shia.
ARABLOUEI: And an important thing to note here is that the vast majority of Iranians are not Arabs. Ethnically52, they're some variation of Persian or Turkic. And this isn't a Sunni Arab dominated region. So now they're not only ethnic51 outsiders. They're ideological53 outsiders, too.
ABDELFATAH: So Shias is now have a country, a military and an ethnic identity. And remember our original question about the impact of the Sunni-Shia divide on modern conflicts? Well, this is when Iran as we know it, as a solidly Shia state with political ambitions, begins to take shape. And that sets the stage for the divisions we see today, Arab-Sunni and Iranian-Shia.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ABDELFATAH: So a couple centuries after the Safavids arrived in Iran, a new religious movement emerges in Arabia that shakes up the political order of the region. It's called Wahhabism.
STEVE COLL: Wahhabism is a revivalist strain of Sunni Orthodox theology that was born in the harsh, impoverished55 deserts of what's now Saudi Arabia.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ARABLOUEI: And this movement allied56 itself with one of the most prominent clans57 in Arabia, the Saudis. You might recognize the name because later on, after conquering all of Arabia, they named it after themselves.
COLL: One of the characteristics of Wahhabism was to go back to the time of the prophet...
ARABLOUEI: By the way, this is Steve Coll, dean of Columbia University's journalism58 school and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book "Ghost Wars."
COLL: ...And to preach that true Islamic faith and practice required imitating the faith and practice present in the seventh century during the life of the prophet, and that all of the evolutions of Islam since then had been forms of corruption59.
ARABLOUEI: And this includes all of Shia Islam. So fast-forward to the 20th century. Two powerful, oil-rich countries emerge in the Middle East - Shia Iran, the descendants of the Safavids, and Wahhabi Saudi Arabia. Their rivalry60 will redefine the Sunni-Shia divide and fuel a series of bloody61 conflicts across the region.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ABDELFATAH: Part Three. Sykes-Picot.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ARABLOUEI: Now we're in the early 20th century, and the world's about to enter the war to end all wars...
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSION)
ARABLOUEI: ...World War I. On one side where the allied powers, including the U.S., Great Britain and France. And on the other side, Germany and, most importantly for us, Turkey, which was then called the Ottoman Empire.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUNFIRE)
ARABLOUEI: Well, the side with the U.S. - the Allies - they won the war.
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSION)
ARABLOUEI: The Ottoman Empire collapsed62, and all of the land it controlled in the Middle East goes to the allies.
DANIEL NEEP: The longer historical context is that Britain and France have been chipping away for decades at the territories of the Ottoman Empire.
ABDELFATAH: This is Daniel Neep, assistant professor in the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University.
NEEP: What Britain and France can do is think about how they're going to be dividing the Ottoman Empire and how they're going to take control of it and what the post-war settlement will look like.
ABDELFATAH: So what happens is these two guys, Sir Mark Sykes and Francois George Picot, from England and France, sit down at a table and decide to come up with an agreement to divide up what we call today the Middle East like a turkey.
ARABLOUEI: Like a Thanksgiving turkey.
ABDELFATAH: Yeah. They just carve it up into new nation-states.
WRIGHT: It cut through, whether it was tribes, ethnic groups, religious factions63.
ABDELFATAH: This is Robin Wright, a fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
WRIGHT: There's a famous quote when Sir Mark Sykes was explaining to then-Prime Minister Asquith how to define the region. And he said he wanted to draw a straight line from the E in acre all the way to the K in Kirkuk.
ABDELFATAH: Cutting through what we know today as Syria, Iraq and Jordan. So going back to something Daniel Neep said, this arbitrary line was a serious problem. Because in countries like Syria and Lebanon, the populations were actually really diverse.
NEEP: We have Sunni, of course. We have Shia populations. We also have various - what are considered heterodox offshoots from Islam. So we have the Druze faith, the Alawi community...
ABDELFATAH: Before Sykes-Picot, these communities were governed by empires, and the rulers were far away in distant cities. So for the most part people could maintain their local customs, and diversity was kind of just a fact of life. But Sykes-Picot disrupted all of that. Suddenly, arbitrary boundaries created by the West were superimposed onto these centuries-old communities, and authoritarian64 rulers were put in power who, in most cases, were propped65 up by the West. So tensions began to build between different communities, including Sunni and Shia, that used to get along pretty well. Still, for a while these new countries functioned relatively66 OK. But then...
ARABLOUEI: In the 1950s and '60s, those tensions boiled over. A revolutionary wave swept through the region, and autocrats began to be removed in coup54 d'etats. Generally, these uprisings resulted in leftist, secular67 dictators gaining control, including in Iraq, where Saddam Hussein eventually came to power. But the problem was these leftist, secular dictators, although they were keeping the peace, they were also viewed as propped up by outsiders. And this frustrated the people in the region.
EVAN BARRETT: Some of these leftist movements were tarred as sort of the people who wrote these books have European names. Europeans are the ones who drew these fake borders. They're the ones who set up this tyrannical government.
ARABLOUEI: This is Evan Barrett, former deputy director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force.
BARRETT: The legacy68 of colonialism and the sort of perception of the West as belligerent69, over time, landed a real skepticism about secular movements.
NEEP: In this context, it becomes almost perhaps natural for opposition70 to these secular, socialist71, authoritarian regimes to take on a different - an alternative ideological hue72.
ARABLOUEI: This serves as the backdrop for something big that happens in 1979.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #4: The streets were lined with literally73 millions of supporters.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #5: Residents, revolutionaries, soldiers driving through the streets, waving pistols, rifles, machine guns.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #6: Iranians continued to vote today on the new Islamic constitution. There's little question who that one supreme74 power will be - the Ayatollah Khomeini.
ARABLOUEI: The Iranian Revolution erupts. An Iranian cleric, Ayatollah Khomeini, assumes power in Iran. And he becomes the leader of a movement that takes hold of the Middle East - political Islam.
NEEP: The turn to political Islam is usually mapped onto the Iranian Revolution in 1979, which marks the first time that Islam burst onto the scene as a political force. And then it seems to become increasingly prominent across the region.
ABDELFATAH: All right. This is a big deal because Iran, which is Shia, is the leader of this political Islam movement and kind of an unlikely leader, right?
ARABLOUEI: Can you imagine what it appears like to other Muslim fundamentalists in the region at that time?
ABDELFATAH: They're probably freaking out.
ARABLOUEI: They've been trying to achieve an Islamic revolution for years. And all of the sudden, it's this Shia Iranian cleric that achieves it for the first time.
ABDELFATAH: Like, Saudi Arabia especially is probably really freaking out because they knew that there are Shia minorities in Saudi and other Arab countries that might be tempted75 to rise up now.
ARABLOUEI: It introduces a tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia and other Sunni countries in the region.
ABDELFATAH: And that tension - it's going to shape future conflicts until today.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ARABLOUEI: Part IV - the proxy76 war.
ABDELFATAH: All right. So by now we've glided77 through more than a thousand years of Islamic history. And we're getting close to modern day. But in order to get to the situation we see today and to really understand it, we have to start at a moment 30 years ago in the deserts of southern Iraq - the same place where the Prophet Muhammad's family was killed nearly 1,300 years ago.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Foreign language spoken).
ABDELFATAH: Just months after the Iranian Revolution, Saddam Hussein - Iraq's secular dictator - sees an opportunity and invades Iran. His goal: to annex78 the oil-rich majority-Arab province of Khuzestan. In response, Iran mounts this epic defense79 and repels80 the Iraqi army after a few years. The Iraqis offer a peace deal, but Khomeini rejects it and, in retaliation81, calls on the Iranian military to invade Iraq under the guise82 of a religious war.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Foreign language spoken).
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSION)
COLL: The Iranian revolution and the Iran-Iraq war did inflame83 sectarianism greatly, soaked it in blood.
ARABLOUEI: This is Steve Coll again.
COLL: In Iran, that mobilization was part and parcel of the revolution - big, public cults84 of martyrdom and the pursuit of purity through sacrifice. And of course, then, you know, the big billboards85 spring up all over Iranian cities with the faces of martyrs86. And just the whole mobilization of war was sectarian in character in important respects.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #2: (Singing in foreign language).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Singing in foreign language).
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #2: (Singing in foreign language).
ABDELFATAH: This is one example of those public displays - an Iranian war song urging soldiers to invade Iraq and recapture Karbala from its Sunni rivals.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Singing in foreign language).
ARABLOUEI: Listening to this song in Farsi, it really captures the heart of what Shi'ism is about. The emphasis on what happened in the battle of Karbala creates an entire mythology and rituals that fuel Iran's war effort.
ABDELFATAH: Which seems like a pretty effective way for the government to play on people's fears and use sectarianism as a weapon of war.
ARABLOUEI: And on the other side, Saudi Arabia came to the aid of its Arab ally, Iraq, beginning a series of conflicts between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The war goes on for eight bloody years, costing over 1 million lives, and ultimately produced no winner.
ABDELFATAH: The war left Iraq seriously weakened. Still, in the early 1990s, Iraq decided87 to invade Kuwait, suspicious that they were stealing oil from the fields on the Iraq-Kuwait border - sparking the first Gulf88 War. And all these conflicts culminated89 with the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #7: Tonight, the president will give Saddam 48 hours - not 72, 48 - to get out of Iraq or face a U.S.-led invasion.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ABDELFATAH: You probably know this story. The U.S. invades Iraq in 2003, ousts90 Saddam Hussein, destroys all statues, billboards, any remnants of his government. And as many experts predicted, with no viable91 government to provide services or security, chaos92 ensues. And a fight for power and resources pushes people to cling to their sectarian identities. Civil war erupts. Iran and Saudi Arabia quickly start supporting different sides based on sectarian lines. And this isn't the last time they'll fight this proxy war.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #3: (Chanting in foreign language).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Chanting in foreign language).
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #3: (Chanting in foreign language).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Chanting in foreign language).
ARABLOUEI: Eight years after the fall of Saddam in Iraq and just months into the Arab Spring, unrest begins in Syria. It's 2011, and the people in Syria are frustrated with a failing economy and the repressive regime of Bashar al-Assad, who, by this point, has been in power for nearly 11 years. And so the people take to the streets.
BARRETT: So there's this big solidarity93. And you saw really multi-ethnic, multi-faith participation94 in these protests. I mean, one of the big phrases of these early protests was (foreign language spoken)...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #4: (Chanting in foreign language).
BARRETT: ...Which is, like, the Syrian people are one.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD #4: (Chanting in foreign language).
ARABLOUEI: But that unity19 wouldn't last because the Assad regime - which is Alawite, an offshoot of Shiism - decided to paint the protesters as some kind of fringe Wahhabi Sunni movement.
COLL: And that only reinforced the sectarian trend on the other side, including outside interference. So once the revolt kind of hardened in Sunni-majority territory to the north of Damascus, rebels, you know, often increasingly were mobilized by religious community and sectarian community and then aided by Iran's Gulf opponents - Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates - primarily wealthy states. I think aid from the Sunni Gulf states as well as the volunteerism that gathered in the territory claimed by the so-called Islamic State ended up creating the stalemate that we see today.
ARABLOUEI: After 2013, the Islamic State, or ISIS, emerged in Syria and Iraq and took sectarianism to a new level.
ABDELFATAH: In large part because of ISIS, the Syrian war went from a localized conflict to basically now an international one. Iran got involved, providing military support to the other side. So it was no longer just Syrians fighting Syrians.
ARABLOUEI: And ISIS used sectarianism for recruitment to motivate its soldiers. They even used language like calling the Iraqi government and their Iranian supporters Safavids.
ABDELFATAH: Alluding95 to that 16th century dynasty, which has nothing to do with anything today.
ARABLOUEI: Yeah. It's just a clever use of language.
ABDELFATAH: And as we've kind of talked about, the problems of that time are not the problems of today. But nevertheless, it's dictating96 the narrative97 now not just in Syria and Iraq but also in Yemen, where this proxy war has led to one of the worst humanitarian98 crises in the world.
ARABLOUEI: And this brings us back to today, 2019, and, really, back to our original question.
ABDELFATAH: Are people in the region killing99 each other because of a thousand-year-old conflict? Or is it just a convenient weapon being used by both sides in these modern proxy wars?
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
NASR: We're dealing100 with a real ethnic conflict in the region. This is not a millennial-old conflict. Look. In any other ethnic conflict we've dealt with, their identities go back in millennia, too.
ARABLOUEI: Right.
ABDELFATAH: Mmm.
NASR: Right?
ARABLOUEI: Mmm hmm.
NASR: It has to do with today's grievances101.
HAZLETON: For most of history, Shia and Sunni have coexisted perfectly102 peaceably. What we focus on - because we're as guilty as those, you know, cheap television news shows, which always go, you know, flames first, flames lead - what we focus on is when it erupts into flame and it erupts into actual warfare103, when there's blood and guts104 and so on. We tend not to focus on the times when it actually works. We only focus on the breakdown105, on civil war.
COLL: The best evidence that this conflict is not fundamentally sectarian is the successful pluralism that existed in both Syria and Iraq prior to 2003. You don't have to walk far through refugee camps to hear people talk authentically106 about the really fine, mutually respectful and supportive relations they had enjoyed in their old neighborhoods in Baghdad or Damascus with Sunni or Shia or Christian30 neighbors, depending on the street that you're talking about. And that stability had been present for decades.
NEEP: Although this kind of narrative of a Shia-Sunni split in the region is very convenient, religious identity's - communal107 identity is used as a shorthand for something other than it actually is.
WRIGHT: At the end of the day, it's not like the tension is related to how many times a day anyone prays. This is really not about dogma. It's really about the balance of power in the Middle East.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ARABLOUEI: That's it for this week's show. I'm Ramtin Arablouei.
ABDELFATAH: I'm Rund Abdelfatah. And you've been listening to THROUGHLINE from NPR.
ARABLOUEI: The show was produced by Rund and me.
ABDELFATAH: Our team includes...
ARABLOUEI: Jamie York.
ABDELFATAH: Jordana Hochman.
ARABLOUEI: Lawrence Wu.
ABDELFATAH: And N'Jeri Eaton.
ARABLOUEI: And special thanks to Jeff Rogers.
ABDELFATAH: Alison McAdam.
ARABLOUEI: Sanaz Meshkinpour.
ABDELFATAH: Larry Kaplow.
ARABLOUEI: And Ayda Pourasad.
ABDELFATAH: Original music was produced by Drop Electric.
ARABLOUEI: If you like something you heard or you have an idea, please write us at [email protected] or find us on Twitter at @throughlineNPR.
ABDELFATAH: Hope you enjoyed the show.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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1
robin
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| n.知更鸟，红襟鸟 | |
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tornado
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| n.飓风，龙卷风 | |
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sustenance
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| n.食物，粮食；生活资料；生计 | |
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byline
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| n.署名；v.署名 | |
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sects
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| n.宗派，教派( sect的名词复数 ) | |
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frustrating
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| adj.产生挫折的，使人沮丧的，令人泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的现在分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧 | |
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hind
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| adj.后面的，后部的 | |
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sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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9
transformation
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| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
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10
millennia
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| n.一千年，千禧年 | |
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retrace
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| v.折回；追溯，探源 | |
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epic
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| n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的 | |
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reminder
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| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
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assassination
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| n.暗杀；暗杀事件 | |
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bacterial
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| a.细菌的 | |
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agonizing
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| adj.痛苦难忍的；使人苦恼的v.使极度痛苦；折磨(agonize的ing形式) | |
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17
humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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saga
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| n.(尤指中世纪北欧海盗的)故事，英雄传奇 | |
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19
unity
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| n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调 | |
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20
uncertainty
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| n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物 | |
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21
followers
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| 追随者( follower的名词复数 )； 用户； 契据的附面； 从动件 | |
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22
assassinated
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| v.暗杀( assassinate的过去式和过去分词 )；中伤；诋毁；破坏 | |
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23
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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autocrats
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| n.独裁统治者( autocrat的名词复数 )；独断专行的人 | |
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repression
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| n.镇压，抑制，抑压 | |
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26
frustrated
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| adj.挫败的，失意的，泄气的v.使不成功( frustrate的过去式和过去分词 )；挫败；使受挫折；令人沮丧 | |
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27
mantle
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| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
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28
feuds
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| n.长期不和，世仇( feud的名词复数 ) | |
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29
odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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naive
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| adj.幼稚的，轻信的；天真的 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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besieged
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| 包围，围困，围攻( besiege的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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34
bluff
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| v.虚张声势，用假象骗人；n.虚张声势，欺骗 | |
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35
absolve
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| v.赦免，解除（责任等） | |
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shroud
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| n.裹尸布，寿衣；罩，幕；vt.覆盖，隐藏 | |
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37
incense
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| v.激怒；n.香，焚香时的烟，香气 | |
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38
tribulation
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| n.苦难，灾难 | |
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39
hacking
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| n.非法访问计算机系统和数据库的活动 | |
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warriors
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| 武士，勇士，战士( warrior的名词复数 ) | |
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immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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42
martyr
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| n.烈士，殉难者；vt.杀害，折磨，牺牲 | |
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43
legendary
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| adj.传奇（中）的，闻名遐迩的；n.传奇（文学） | |
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mythology
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| n.神话，神话学，神话集 | |
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45
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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46
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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differentiation
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| n.区别，区分 | |
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48
patronage
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| n.赞助，支援，援助；光顾，捧场 | |
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49
brutal
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| adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的 | |
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50
persecuted
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| （尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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51
ethnic
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| adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的 | |
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52
ethnically
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| adv.人种上，民族上 | |
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53
ideological
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| a.意识形态的 | |
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54
coup
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| n.政变；突然而成功的行动 | |
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55
impoverished
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| adj.穷困的，无力的，用尽了的v.使（某人）贫穷( impoverish的过去式和过去分词 )；使（某物）贫瘠或恶化 | |
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56
allied
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| adj.协约国的；同盟国的 | |
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57
clans
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| 宗族( clan的名词复数 )； 氏族； 庞大的家族； 宗派 | |
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58
journalism
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| n.新闻工作，报业 | |
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59
corruption
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| n.腐败，堕落，贪污 | |
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60
rivalry
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| n.竞争，竞赛，对抗 | |
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61
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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62
collapsed
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| adj.倒塌的 | |
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63
factions
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| 组织中的小派别，派系( faction的名词复数 ) | |
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64
authoritarian
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| n./adj.专制(的)，专制主义者，独裁主义者 | |
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propped
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| 支撑，支持，维持( prop的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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66
relatively
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| adv.比较...地，相对地 | |
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67
secular
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| n.牧师，凡人；adj.世俗的，现世的，不朽的 | |
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68
legacy
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| n.遗产，遗赠；先人(或过去)留下的东西 | |
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69
belligerent
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| adj.好战的，挑起战争的；n.交战国，交战者 | |
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70
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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71
socialist
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| n.社会主义者；adj.社会主义的 | |
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72
hue
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| n.色度；色调；样子 | |
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73
literally
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| adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实 | |
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74
supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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75
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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76
proxy
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| n.代理权，代表权；（对代理人的）委托书；代理人 | |
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77
glided
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| v.滑动( glide的过去式和过去分词 )；掠过；（鸟或飞机 ） 滑翔 | |
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78
annex
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| vt.兼并，吞并；n.附属建筑物 | |
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79
defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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80
repels
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| v.击退( repel的第三人称单数 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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81
retaliation
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| n.报复，反击 | |
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82
guise
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| n.外表，伪装的姿态 | |
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83
inflame
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| v.使燃烧；使极度激动；使发炎 | |
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84
cults
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| n.迷信( cult的名词复数 )；狂热的崇拜；（有极端宗教信仰的）异教团体 | |
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85
billboards
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| n.广告牌( billboard的名词复数 ) | |
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86
martyrs
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| n.martyr的复数形式；烈士( martyr的名词复数 )；殉道者；殉教者；乞怜者（向人诉苦以博取同情） | |
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87
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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88
gulf
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| n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂 | |
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89
culminated
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| v.达到极点( culminate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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90
ousts
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| 驱逐( oust的第三人称单数 )； 革职； 罢黜； 剥夺 | |
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91
viable
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| adj.可行的，切实可行的，能活下去的 | |
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92
chaos
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| n.混乱，无秩序 | |
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93
solidarity
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| n.团结；休戚相关 | |
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94
participation
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| n.参与，参加，分享 | |
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95
alluding
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| 提及，暗指( allude的现在分词 ) | |
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96
dictating
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| v.大声讲或读( dictate的现在分词 )；口授；支配；摆布 | |
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97
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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98
humanitarian
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| n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者 | |
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99
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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100
dealing
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| n.经商方法，待人态度 | |
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101
grievances
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| n.委屈( grievance的名词复数 )；苦衷；不满；牢骚 | |
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102
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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103
warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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104
guts
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| v.狼吞虎咽，贪婪地吃，飞碟游戏（比赛双方每组5人，相距15码，互相掷接飞碟）；毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的第三人称单数 )；取出…的内脏n.勇气( gut的名词复数 )；内脏；消化道的下段；肠 | |
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105
breakdown
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| n.垮，衰竭；损坏，故障，倒塌 | |
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106
authentically
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| ad.sincerely真诚地 | |
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107
communal
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| adj.公有的，公共的，公社的，公社制的 | |
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