Arab nationalists generally rejected religion as a main element in political identity, and promoted the unity of Arabs regardless of sectarian identity.

In the years after 1982, these began to reassess the balance of Lebanese, sectarian and pan-Arab identities.

These informative conclusions have been worked by scholarly personalities of different ethnic, religious and sectarian identities.

The collaboration of artists transcended the ethnic and sectarian identities.

While they serve as useful new social networks, the groups are largely based on sectarian identity, helping to reinforce increasingly homogeneous districts.

Ethnic and sectarian identities are hardening and violence is spiraling, as shown again in Saturday's horrific Baghdad market bombing.

"The Baghdad security plan will not provide safe haven for all outlaws, regardless of their political or sectarian identities," he said.

Very rarely has sectarian identity been a life or death matter, the way it is now on some of Baghdad's streets.

We are entering an era in which ethnic and sectarian identities could easily breed new violence and new conflict.

Such sectarian identity might be Buddhist, Christian, or any of the religious movements that originated within the Chinese cultural sphere.