How do Sunnis and Shias in Iraq 'identify' each other?

[karlrschneider]

Is it strictly based on the neighborhood? Do they wear different sorts of clothing? Talk differently (as in different accents or words)? Maybe it's analogous to the Prots and Catholics in Ireland in some way, but I never quite understood that either. I mean how do they figure out which people they want to kill? (It's a serious question)...

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

1. I believe that names are important. Both family and given. nt

[karlrschneider]

8. That's pretty scary (but I can believe it).

sheesh...

[flyingfysh]

15. that's why so many carry multiple ID cards

One with a Sunni name, one with a Shiite name. Then they can pull out whatever is safest.

[Redstone]

2. I asked this a while back. The answer, it seemed, was that in any city or other

community, everyone knows who "us guys" and "them guys" are.

I'm inclined to believe that, based on the answers I got when I posted that question.

Redstone

[Kelly Rupert]

3. By names and neighborhood.

Baghdad has fragmented. There are Sunni neighborhoods and Shi'a neighborhoods. Blow up a car in a Shi'a marketplace or outside a Shi'a mosque, and you're sure to kill only Shi'a. Abduct 50 men from their homes in a Sunni neighborhood, and they'll all be Sunnis.

[htuttle]

18. Yup, same way as they tell the difference in Ulster

[gulfcoastliberal]

4. Surnames on ID are one way, as are neighborhoods.

Iraq is also splitting up geographically.

[readmoreoften]

5. Sunnidar. Shiadar. /nt

[karlrschneider]

6. I guess I need to LOL at that....it does seem to make some sense.

;-)

[smalll]

12. No doubt. They've done studies. Studies!

:rofl:
(Beat me to it- :banghead:)

[readmoreoften]

25. Oh, they've done studies. Well that settles it.

In Austin they've been doing an ongoing study of lesbian forefingers. Lesbian forefingers, researchers believe, are shorter than their ring fingers like men. It indicates a wash of male hormones in the womb. I'm a high femme lesbian and none of the lesbians I know have forefingers shorter than their ring fingers. I guess we're all confused.

[mondo joe]

32. Really? Could you provide a link?

To the study that says ALL lesbians have shorter ring fingers?

[readmoreoften]

40. No link. Research it. A lot of my friends participated in the study, though

And in Austin a few years back, they were paying lesbians $40 to get their fingers measured at UT Austin. I knew a lot of folks who did it, but I never got around to it myself. Saw something on BBC news about it a few years ago.

[mondo joe]

43. I know about finger length studies. What I don't know is why you think

your falling outside the findings of the study would be relevant.

The study indicates a trend - not a rule.

[readmoreoften]

53. How about-- every single person I know falling outside of the study.

The premise is that lesbians are flooded with male hormones. This idiotic idea is predicated on the notion that lesbians are more masculine than heterosexual women, which has more to do with the assumptions of the heterosexual male researchers than anything else. The frame of the experimentation itself is ridiculous. Garbage in, garbage out.

Bad science does exist, you know.

[mondo joe]

56. To the contrary - the study doesn't say that.

And androgen exposure isn't the premise - it's a theory that explains the findings. And the findings are empirical. The trend is that the finger length ratio among lesbians tends to be more like the finger ratio of men. You may not like that - and you obviously don't - but that's the fact.


You're arguing against the study because you don't like it. That's no better than Bushco ignoring the science about global warming or sex education.

Furthermore, everyone you know is not a study - and it's not empirical - that's worse than bad science.

[readmoreoften]

57. Oh good grief! Hyperbolize much? As if scientists never dispute one another!

Cool, so you'll agree that all men are rapists as well, including yourself. That was also an empirical study. The same study also empirically discovered that young children and women are less harmed by rape than women of childbearing years. A few years back they proved that gay male brains are like women's brains. Good thing we have scientists who eventually critique the junk science. The biologist Ann Fausto-Sterling has debunked QUITE a bit of so-called gender science.

Science is a process; every study isn't some kind of infallible truth. A lot of these studies are BS and quite a bit of them end up getting debunked. My money is that this study will be as laughable as phrenology in 50 years.

All studies aren't created equal.

[mondo joe]

58. Scientists dispute each other - by using science.

Not by saying "this is BS because I don't like it".

I don't know anything about your rapist study so I can't comment on it.

If you have a criticism of the methodology of the study, by all means post it. "It's junk" is not a meaningful rebuttal.

[petronius]

36. I'm a guy, and one of my forefingers is longer than the ring finger,

and one is shorter. What does that make me? I'm so confused... :shrug:

[readmoreoften]

41. I would assume that makes you gay. Welcome to the wonderful world of homosexuality.

Don't worry. I'm straight according to my forefinger. You never really can tell who you are until science tells you.

[mondo joe]

44. Let's try to be a little bit intellectually honest here please.

There is no study that says your forefinger determines your orientation.

There are studies that show distinct trends by orientation, which do indicate that orientation is innate.

[readmoreoften]

54. Can't you take a f'king joke? Is my humor losing its "credibility"? Is it not "fair and balanced"?

No one is saying that these people are saying that someone becomes a dyke because of the size of their forefingers. Just because you like the outcome of a study, doesn't mean its good science. Scientists have also done studies that show that all men are potential rapists based on the DNA of the scorpion beetle (see A History of Rape) and that's garbage research too.

With the rate that butch lesbians are becoming gay transmen, it's pretty obvious that these theories are framed miserably.

[mondo joe]

55. I can take a joke. It helps when it's funny, though.

And I don't like or dislike the outcome of the studies.

That's an improper response to a study. If there is fault with the methodology, by all means criticize that.

[petronius]

50. Thank God for science!

My wife is going to be surprised, however... :rofl:

[mondo joe]

47. Your finger doesn't make you anything. But what you are may very well

correspond with finger length. Except you're a guy - and per the studies I know of, the finger length ratios in gay to straight men don't vary as much as they do with women.

[petronius]

51. I know that - I was being facetious

In fact, I think this whole sub-thread - back the the 'shiadar' - is intended to be tongue-in-cheek. I took RMO's initial post to be making the same point that you explicitly stated regarding the fallacy of applying general trends to specific members of the population...

:hi:

[Clark2008]

7. The above are accurate, but also, surprisingly, the same way

gang members ID one another - head gear. Each village has it's own style of covering - the colors and patterns on the head-dresses represent a village or province.

[ToolTex]

10. Well, somehow it must easier than the Israelis and the Palestinians

checking in a crowd to see which are circumsized and which aren't.

Cutdar?

[karlrschneider]

14. Hold on there a minute, I know you aren't Jewish.

:rofl:
:D

[ToolTex]

17. Shhh.

(I'm undercover doing intelligence work).

[karlrschneider]

19. You gonna need those covers in a couple more hours!

I am sending frizzing rain snow and locusts down that way as we type!
:evilgrin:

[ToolTex]

23. Damn you Charlie Brown! It was 80° F here today.

Suppose to be 20 by morn. (Cutdar will be useless in that kind of weather, as there will be nothing external to dar on.)

[karlrschneider]

26. Was here too, I went to the gro store at noon wearing shorts & T shirt.

Now it's 31F and spitting little frozen balls. Like mine.
:rofl:

[ToolTex]

39. Those locusts arrived.

:hide:

[Clark2008]

28. That's funny (but not accurate)

I was married to a Muslim man - he was circumsized. Trust me. :)

Oh - I'm now married to a Jewish man - I'm equal opportunity, ain't I? :7

[Retrograde]

42. aren't many Muslim men circumcised as well? (n/t)

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

9. As old as time, Capulet/Montague

Hatfield/McCoy
Shark/Jet
Hutu/Tutsi
or
Catholic/Protestant

It is a tribal thing, and the only ones who can really tell are them.

[Karenina]

59. It is a tribal thing, and the only ones who can really tell are...

THEY.

The merchant class of Africans from DRC who have migrated into my neighborhood in the past 3 years or so can spot me at 50 paces as "NOT ONE OF US." Before the influx we had Ethiopians, Eritreans, Morroccans, all very friendly folk who subscribed to the "acknowledgement code." (Petra, the German wife of an African once asked me, "What is that about? My husband ALWAYS nods or greets people, I ask him if he knows them and he says "No." I explained it to her as best I could).

I wanted to make contact but FAILED repeatedly UNTIL the World Cup. It was Ghana vs U.S.A. I don't do TV and figured I could just go to the nearest kiosk and watch. WRONG! ALL they had was the OTHER GAME. (Swedes vs Italians IIRC). I rushed into EVERY African shop looking for a screen, screeching the score, asking if they were watching. FINALLY I found a MEN'S BISTRO that had BOTH GAMES on BIG SCREENS. I plopped my skinny black ass down in a chair. EVERYONE TURNED TO LOOK. A guy came in a blocked my line of sight greeting his friends and the man he was speaking to immediately corrected the situation. SINCE THAT DAY, the "acknowledgement code" has been in force. :rofl:

[Kelly Rupert]

11. If Chicago were to fall into civil war,

South Siders and North Siders wouldn't have a problem finding and killing each other.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

27. Yep, they don't now, either. n/t

[Kelly Rupert]

30. Well, usually not the killing part,

or I better start watching my back next time I'm north of Roosevelt...

[Lars39]

13. Possibly mosque membership rolls.

Seems like something about that was mentioned in the article scarletwoman posted the other day.

[ToolTex]

16. And it is all based on a disagreement between whether the prophet's

brother or his wife should have been followed after he died 1,100 plus years ago?

They don't let go very easily, do they? Sounds like they just want something to kill each other about.

[majorjohn]

20. Well, that was the reason for the split

but not the struggle.

[karlrschneider]

22. Remember Emo Phillips?

"I was walking across a bridge one day, and I saw a man standing on the edge, about to jump off. So I ran over and said "Stop! Don't do it!" "Why shouldn't I?" he said. "Well, there's so much to live for!" "Like what?" "Well... are you religious?" He said yes. I said, "Me too! Are you Christian or Buddhist?" "Christian." "Me too! Are you Catholic or Protestant ? "Protestant." "Me too! Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?" "Baptist" "Wow! Me too! Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?" "Baptist Church of God!" "Me too! Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you reformed Baptist Church of God?" "Reformed Baptist Church of God!" "Me too! Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?" He said, "Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915!" I said, "Die, heretic scum", and pushed him off."

[ToolTex]

33. Maybe religicide is the final solution for the survival of humankind.

n/t

[TexasProgresive]

21. Names mostly

In northern Ireland the fight is between ethnic Irish and ethnic Scots- and they each have a distinctive accent. It was never about religion.

[Clark2008]

29. Just like the Israel/Palestinian conflict isn't either

It's about land.

[majorjohn]

24. When you live in a place for a really long time

it becomes obvious to know who's who in your neighborhood, you also learn about other neighborhoods, cities, and what not. It's as simple as that.

[AlamoDemoc]

31. your question is legitimate one...

However, when our Commander-in-Chief went to war with Iraq, he never asked the same question. Indeed, now many westerners are beginning to understand Islam since 911 and much more since the invasion and the occupation of Iraq. Yet the warmongers in whashington had no clue the same question your asking now:
--------------------------------------------------------------------

'Ambassador claims shortly before invasion, Bush didn't know there were two sects of Islam'

In his new book, The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created A War Without End, Galbraith, the son of the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith, claims that American leadership knew very little about the nature of Iraqi society and the problems it would face after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

A year after his “Axis of Evil” speech before the U.S. Congress, President Bush met with three Iraqi Americans, one of whom became postwar Iraq’s first representative to the United States. The three described what they thought would be the political situation after the fall of Saddam Hussein. During their conversation with the President, Galbraith claims, it became apparent to them that Bush was unfamiliar with the distinction between Sunnis and Shiites.

Galbraith reports that the three of them spent some time explaining to Bush that there are two different sects in Islam--to which the President allegedly responded, “I thought the Iraqis were Muslims!”

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Ambassador_claims_shortly_before_invasion_Bush_0804.html
------------------------------------------------------------------
So what are the differences between Shia and Sunni Muslims?

read here: http://islam.about.com/cs/divisions/f/shia_sunni.htm

[Chomp]

48. This deserves a thread IMO.....nt

[stillcool]

34. they all get along fine...

In Amman

Iraqi refugees make Amman a virtual Baghdad
By HANNAH ALLAM
McClatchy Newspapers

AMMAN, Jordan - Retired doctors in the dapper black hats of old Baghdad slap down dominoes in smoky cafes. Construction cranes operated by Iraqi workers dot the skyline.
And when the dancing begins after midnight at Cafe Sultan, a sweaty singer gives a shout-out to Iraqi patrons, calling them by their home towns: "Where are you, Fallujah? Where are you, Karbala? Where are you, people of Baghdad?"
The answer is: Amman.

"This is Baghdad now," Elias said with a rueful smile. "I've been here three years, and I don't think I've talked to a Jordanian. My street is all Iraqi, my neighbors are all Iraqi. I don't feel like I'm in Amman."

"We wish all these places were still in Baghdad, but this is our fate," Hamdi said. "The smell of Baghdad, the taste of it, that's what I miss. The palaces, the rivers, the history. It was special."

The Iraqi consul in Amman puts the number of Iraqis here at 600,000, climbing to 800,000 when school is out and more families arrive for summer. At least that many more have fled to Syria, Egypt and other countries, testament to the viciousness of the war in their homeland. The departed represent about 5 percent of Iraq's population of 27 million.

In Baghdad, he said, U.S. officials harassed him because of his organization's name, and gunmen barred civilians from giving testimony. In Amman, however, a large poster on his office wall shows a boy throwing his sandals at a U.S. tank. The caption reads, "They said we'd receive them with flowers."
Two men recently released from prisons in Iraq spilled their stories to al-Qaisi. He never asked their sectarian affiliation.

http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/world/16120783.htm?source=rss&channel=montereyherald_world

[GreenZoneLT]

37. Yep, that WAS Baghdad

The sectarian murderers have mostly come into town from the more ethnically pure areas to south (Shiites) and west (Sunnis). But they've made people very distrustful in Baghdad, too.

Some people named Ali, which is a universally Shia name, or Omar (Sunni) have changed their names to something neutral like Hayder.

[ConsAreLiars]

35. Read "Anatomy of a Civil War" to learn how things work there.

http://www.bostonreview.net/BR31.6/rosen.html

An excerpt that addresses your question:

"One morning 14 bodies were found, all with ID cards in their front pockets identifying them as “Omar,” a Sunni name. It was a message. On another day a group of bodies were found with their hands overlapping on their abdomens, right hand above left, the way Sunnis pray. Another message. Many Sunnis were thinking of obtaining false papers with neutral names. And Sunni militias were retaliating, stopping buses and demanding the jinsiya, or ID cards, of passengers and executing those with Shia names."

[JCMach1]

38. It's not so hard

-name
-where you live
-Cultural appearance... Remember Sh'ia were and are an underclass in many parts of the Middle-East

[leftchick]

45. identity cards

and names.

[Bigmack]

46. Names and subtle stuff...

like figures of speech.

The Irish Catholics and the Irish Protestants apparently can tell each other apart easily.

Must be a variant of "gaydar".

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

49. I'm going to have to assume...

it's the same way the north vietnamese identified the south vietnamese.

[Renew Deal]

52. Since when was Trent Lott a DUer

:evilgrin: