Cote d'Ivoire's Civil War

There was a very mysterious BBC broadcast today about Ivory Coast. Correspondent Liz Doucette shed almost no light on why the former French colony has been torn by civil war. Her "identity" explanation explained nothing at all. So I looked it up on Wikipedia. It's complicated, all right--but at least one element involves conflict with the predominantly Muslim north. George Packer discussed this element in a New Yorker interview:

Q:How much is Ivory Coast's civil war an ethnic fight—or a Muslim-Christian fight?

A: Ethnicity and religion are closely related in Ivory Coast—if you're a Bete, you're almost certainly a Christian, for example, and if you're a Senufo you're almost certainly a Muslim. There have been attacks on mosques and on Muslim leaders, and some supporters of President Gbagbo have used Christian as well as nationalist rhetoric. (The first lady, Simone Gbagbo, is an evangelical Christian, as are increasing numbers of city dwellers in the south.) Relations between Christians and Muslims throughout West Africa (with the serious exception of Nigeria) have generally been so laid-back and tolerant, however, that, even with a civil war going on in Ivory Coast, I didn't get the feeling that religious hatred was sweeping the populace. Ethnicity is a more powerful identifier in this part of Africa. But, even though the killing has taken place largely along ethnic and religious lines, this remains, more than anything, a political war. It's also a depressingly gratuitous war. Ivory Coast wasn't doomed by geography or history to go to pieces. It's been ruined by its class of leaders. And Ivorians are still stunned by the depth to which the country has sunk.