Due to Irish emigration these tensions can be found in other regions of the world, including Scotland (with some fans of football clubs such as Rangers and Celtic and Hearts and Hibs indulging in sectarian chants) (see: Sectarianism in Glasgow), Newfoundland, Canada's Maritime provinces, New York State, Ontario, Liverpool, Birmingham and elsewhere.
In countries where the Reformation was successful, this often lay in the perception that Catholics retained allegiance to a 'foreign' power (the Papacy), causing them to be regarded with suspicion.
Northern Ireland has introduced a Private Day of Reflection,[4] since 2007, to mark the transition to a post-[sectarian] conflict society, an initiative of the cross-community Healing through Remembering[5] organisation and research project.
The main sectarian conflict in Iraq is between Shia and Sunni Muslims, and it has led to large amounts of discrimination, bloodshed and instability.
[8] The second perspective believes that the Ba’ath regime tried to suppress sectarianism by implementing policies such as prison sentences for destroying, religious materials, places of worships or rituals.
[10] More recently, the Sunni minority have been expressing feelings of increasing marginalisation by the Shia-led government led by Prime minister Nouri Maliki.
[6] The United Nations Human Rights Investigators, operating in Syria determined the Syrian civil war an overtly sectarian conflict.
[11] The civil war has changed the sectarian distribution of Syria, due to large amounts of displacement and ethnic cleansing in specific areas.
[12] The rebel-controlled zones, are dominated by Sunni Arabs, and the minorities who lived in these areas have either been forced to convert to Sunnism or have fled.
Lastly the Kurdish dominated zones, existing mainly along the northern border is controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
In the 1940s, after his appointment as interim president to supervise the parliamentary elections, President Ayoub Tabet tried to put in place a new election law that would allow Lebanese emigrants (with a Christian majority) to participate in the electoral process; this law caused a sectarian uproar (from Muslims) and a dispute occurred over the distribution of parliament seats.
[citation needed] Reform Jews, on the other hand, often view the orthodox as being intolerant of them and of other religions, placing legalistic rules such as the observance of the Sabbath above ethical obligations, being cult-like and hostile to change.
The Monty Python film The Life of Brian has a well-known joke in which various Judean groups, who to an outsider are indistinguishable, are more concerned with in-fighting than with their nominal aim of opposing Roman rule.