new fault lines

"A Warning Against Unbridled Evil".

That was the unusual headline of a half page ad we were treated to in two local newspapers this morning. The signatories were 22 political, religious and charitable societies, all of the "Islamist" Sunni persuasion. The joint statement used strong language to denounce the London seminar, nay, the whole protest movement. It urged the authorities to act forcefully against those " who resort to mischief when no retribution is feared". The tortured and the exiled of recent past were called conspiring killers and saboteurs, said the statement by this lot of perrenial ruler boot and 3uqal lickers .

There wasn't the slightest aknowledgment of other dissenting views of their compatriots. It was a good example of a complete cycle of supply chain. The medium, the message, the target audience were all of the same bent. No one else mattered.

In Iraq meanwhile, mortars shells were fired at crowds of Shia mourners in Baghdad, killing 7 and injuring 36. Close to 30 others were also killed as a result of deliberately tainted food. And later, a stampede fueled by rumours of a car bomb on a bridge caused the death of a thousand, all of the Shia faith. The same day, the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq held a press conference, in which it accused the Shia-led government of perpetrating massacres against the Sunni community. No one else mattered.