Mr. Lightfoot's view is echoed at the high school, where racial clashes, student walkouts and wild rumors have pitted some of the 1,450 white students against the 12 black students.

These clashes pitted these groups along ethnic lines as well as on political lines.

A statement by the military described that "a violent clash on Sunday afternoon pitted" Central African troops against "an unidentified group of armed men attempting to launch an assault on the site of mining company Areva".

Immediately after Islam's glorious early years of expansion, a great intellectual clash pitted rigid literalists against more rationalist interpreters.

After violent clashes pitting FORD supporters against police and government supporters, the KANU government accepted multi-partysm in 1991.

Much like the impassioned tug of war over Elián González, the child who was ultimately returned to his father in Cuba, the clash over Anna Mae pits the perceived superiority of American culture over that of another country.

It went on: "Recent power struggles, armed clashes, and demonstrations do not pit Palestinians against Israelis so much as Palestinians against each other; the chaos is a product not solely of Israel's policies, but of Palestinian ones as well.

"Recent power struggles, armed clashes, and demonstrations do not pit Palestinians against Israelis so much as Palestinians against each other," the report stated.

Ostensibly, said Timothy Garton Ash, an Oxford professor of European history, the clash has pitted two sets of values - freedom of expression and multiculturalism - against each other.