The drawing of borders early last century brought together many previously autonomous societies to be ruled under one governmental structure, against the will of the societies involved. This often results in violence as smaller sects within a country attempt to gain power for their own group, which has to be drawn away from another group.
From NPR's All Things Considered. Unending sectarian violence continues to push Iraq closer to the brink of an all-out civil war. Iraq's Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, a Sunni, has lost two brothers and a sister to the fighting.
