Late last year, largely unnoticed in the west, Tunisia's president, Moncef Marzouki, gave an interview to Chatham House's The World Today. Commenting on a recent attack by Salafists - ultra-conservative Sunnis - on the US embassy in Tunis, he remarked in an unguarded moment: "We didn't realise how dangerous and violent these Salafists could be … They are a tiny minority within a tiny minority. They don't represent society or the state. They cannot be a real danger to society or government, but they can be very harmful to the image of the government."

It appears that Marzouki was wrong. Following the assassination of opposition leader Chokri Belaid last Wednesday - which plunged the country into its biggest crisis since the 2011 Jasmine Revolution - the destabilising threat of violent Islamist extremists has emerged as a pressing and dangerous issue.

Violent Salafists are one of two groups under suspicion for Belaid's murder. The other is the shadowy, so-called neighbourhood protection group known as the Leagues of the Protection of the Revolution, a small contingent that claims to be against remnants of the old regime, but which is accused of using thugs to stir clashes at opposition rallies and trade union gatherings.

The left accuses these groups of affiliation with the ruling moderate Islamist party, Ennahda, and say it has failed to root out the violence. The party denies any link or control to the groups. But it is the rise of Salafist-associated political violence that is causing the most concern in the region. Banned in Tunisia under the 23-year regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, which ruthlessly cracked down on all forms of Islamism, Salafists in Tunisia have become increasingly vocal since the 2011 revolution. Continue reading

Sources

• The Guardian
• Image: Mole

The problem for the Bahrainis is that their government is indeed "oppressive" and therefore lends itself to such easy substitution. Over the past 18 months, Bahraini security forces, aided by troops from Saudi Arabia, have engaged in a brutal crackdown against the island nation's own Syria-style uprising. Bahrain is home to the Arab Spring's forgotten revolution. Since February 2011, there have been near-daily protests against the regime, a repressive Sunni monarchy ruling over a Shia-majority country. These have been met with tear gas, live ammunition, mass arrests and torture. While the fighting in Syria is debated in the corridors of the United Nations building and reported on the front pages of the world's newspapers, the unrest in Bahrain is quietly ignored by our leaders and relegated by journalists to the box marked "news in brief".

"[The violence] has got worse," Maryam al- Khawaja, acting president of the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, tells me during a rare visit to London. "The Bahraini regime has made some superficial changes but the situation on the ground hasn't changed . . . Torture has moved from official torture centres to unofficial torture centres."

The death toll

Apologists for the Bahraini regime claim it is offensive to compare the moderate, pro-western king, Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, to the Assads or Gaddafis of this world. They point out that the death toll in Syria is far, far higher than in Bahrain. True, says Khawaja, "[but] one of the things you have to do is look at things per capita. Bahrain's population is 600,000 and you are looking at 100 people dead. If Bahrain had the same population as, say, Egypt, that's [equivalent to] more than 11,000 people dead in just a year and a half." Read more

Sources

• New Statesman
• Image: Muftah

Part of the tension causing the present conflict is the fact that Assad and his supporters belong to the minority Shia Alawite sect, about 10 per cent of the population, which lords it over the majority Sunni Muslims who make up 75 per cent of Syria's citizens.

Assad represents a very secularised stream of politicians now being challenged and overthrown in many Arab countries. His motivation is not religious, and is largely to do with a ruthless maintenance of political power which is at odds with the ideals of his religion.

Among Muslims worldwide, roughly 85 per cent are Sunni, and the remaining 15 per cent are Shia. Most Shia live in Iran and Iraq. The divide between these two 'denominations' of Islam is poorly understood by non-Muslims.

The scholar featured in this interview is a Shia Muslim who belongs to the Ismaili branch of Shi'ism. Dr Reza Shah-Kazemi typifies the blend of intellectual and spiritual approaches to faith that is a mark of progressive Shia Islam. He speaks about his vision for tolerance and dialogue with other faiths based on Quranic texts.

The divide between Sunni and Shia dates back to the early years following the death in 632 CE of the Prophet Mohammed. The dispute was over who could lead the Muslim community and had little to do with basic beliefs and practices. Sunni and Shia Muslims believe the same basic tenets, and worship and pray in the same way.

From the beginning the Sunni majority held sway, arguing that any close companion of the Prophet could be Caliph (leader). The Shia minority argued that only those of the Prophet's blood lineage could lead, and, like him, they would have special powers of inspiration and interpretation of the faith. Continue reading

Sources

• Peter Kirkwood in Eureka Street
• YouTube
• Image: It Happenz