Instead, it is increasingly evident that stark political conditions have weighed heavily on the nature of either side's identity, indicating that that conformity is a powerful force in the Islamic world.

Social Perception and Social Cognition:

Social perception and social cognition are rampantly distorted in many parts of the Middle East. For many Shiite and Sunni combatants, a lack of access to education, history or the ability to critically assess global events can elevate the ability of clerics, political leaders and tribal warlords to manipulate followers into perceiving this as a centuries-old conflict. This produces a pattern of social cognition for those on both sides which only understands the conflict as that which may be characterized as having roots with the will of Mohammed himself.

In reality, "if you read the newspapers in the 1950s and 1960s, you don't see anything about Sunni-Shiite riots. There were peasant/landlord struggles or communists...
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