Taking sides

One of the most chilling lessons of the history of the twentieth century is how deceptive domestic tranquility can be, when it takes only the right circumstances and the right demagogue to turn neighbor murderously against neighbor. Besides Nazi Germany, in Sri Lanka, in Indonesia, in the Balkans, and in sub-Saharan Africa, ethnic polarization and strife were stirred up by either fanatics or opportunists. Both “sides” [inevitably] lost—and they lost because they became sides, instead of remaining fellow countrymen with different cultures. 

—Thomas Sowell, Black Rednecks and White Liberals p290.