http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/06/10/14/10074643.html
10/14/2006 07:24 PM | By Habib Toumi, Bureau Chief
Manama: A Bahraini blogger has launched a campaign to resist and reverse the emerging divide between Sunnis and Shiites in Bahrain.
The ‘No Shiite, No Sunni, Just Bahraini’ campaign was started a few weeks before the municipal and parliamentary elections which many observers fear will be held on a sectarian platform.
“We are at a historic crossroads. We either eliminate this repugnant sectarianism or it will burn us all. Let us work together because we cannot be free if we do not stand united and we cannot live happily if we are not together. We are one people with one heart and one history,” said Mahmoud Al Yousuf, one of Bahrain’s best-known bloggers.
http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles/06/10/14/10074643.html
10/14/2006 07:24 PM | By Habib Toumi, Bureau Chief
Manama: A Bahraini blogger has launched a campaign to resist and reverse the emerging divide between Sunnis and Shiites in Bahrain.
The ‘No Shiite, No Sunni, Just Bahraini’ campaign was started a few weeks before the municipal and parliamentary elections which many observers fear will be held on a sectarian platform.
“We are at a historic crossroads. We either eliminate this repugnant sectarianism or it will burn us all. Let us work together because we cannot be free if we do not stand united and we cannot live happily if we are not together. We are one people with one heart and one history,” said Mahmoud Al Yousuf, one of Bahrain’s best-known bloggers.
“Sectarianism will only sever ties between the sons and daughters of Bahrain. Say neither Sunni nor Shiite, but Bahraini.”
Al Yousuf, a Shiite, said that Bahrainis were united in the 1920s, 1950s and 1990s, “without these over-the-edge sectarian tones”, but the country has over the last few years split squarely along sectarian lines.
“There must have been an event, deliberate or haphazard, that started these sectarian flights of fancy and pitting one against the other. I do not know who started it, but we are all accomplices in it. We do it blindly now. The very first thing that goes into our head when we meet someone is deciding whether the person is Shiite or Sunni, whether they are with us or against us, if he is from us or belongs to them. When we plan to marry, rather than asking ourselves whether we can make a good home with the other person, we ask whether they are from the right sect,” he wrote in his blog.
