Sectarianism by speech act posted by China

Posted by China

More grist to the the-BBC-is-a-pile-of-bollocks mill. The revolts that have shaken Iraq against the Yanqui-chivvied constitution are obviously too big to ignore, so what to do, what to do? Talk them up as a sectarian revolt! That'll discredit them - and by extension the insurgency. And voila the BBC report, 'Sunnis rally against Iraq charter'. Like a theologically obsessive Rain Man, the BBC autistically repeats the terms 'Shia' and 'Sunni' a preposterous number of times to underline just how sectarian the anti-occupation marchers are. 'Thousands of Sunni Muslims have demonstrated in the Iraqi city of Baquba', some carrying pictures of Saddam Hussein, sorry, 'Iraq's Sunni former leader, Saddam Hussein'; '[t]he Sunnis object to several parts of the draft text agreed by Shia and Kurdish parties'; 'the Sunni marchers in Baquba danced and sang chants'; &c.

Hold on, I forget: What kind of Muslims were they...?

On the other side, you didn't know bits of paper could have religious affiliation or ethnic identities, did you? Oh, yes. What's on the table, the BBC explains, is a 'Shia-Kurdish draft'.

Short of sending an underpaid runner round your house to smack you in the face and shout 'Shias and Sunnis hate each other!', the BBC couldn't make its point much less subtle. This kind of essentialism is crass at the best of times. What makes today's little performance so disgraceful is that, even more than usual, it is a gross misrepresentation. As other media outlets have had the decency to make clear, 100,000 Shias marched against the constitution and occupation too. The BBC has to mention these southern protests, so grudgingly mutters about rallies 'to show ... support for the radical cleric Moqtada Sadr and to demand the government improve public services'. That's it. Their opposition to the constitution, let alone the fucking occupation, is written out. In fact, though, as the estimable Channel 4 News shows (wmv file), masked insurgency fighters - you know, the ones constantly described as Sunni extremists - gave a press conference today, specifically to praise Shia leader Sadr for his opposition to the charter.

None of this, of course, is to suggest that there's no sectarianism in Iraq. However, the reduction of all politics to it is i) a crude strategy to discredit the drive for self-determination, and ii) a fucking lie. It's trivially obvious that the entirely legitimate desire to get the US out can and does cut across sectarian boundaries: the question is why does the BBC try to obscure that even when it's so blatant? This report doesn't explain or even describe the situation... so what the fuck is it for, except to consolidate the misrepresentative narrative of sectarianism? And just who does that benefit?