this is what makes Egypt’s conflict so frightening: It is not between sects but within one sect. In Syria or Lebanon, the lines are clear for those who insist on seeing them: Sunnis are Sunnis and Shiites are Shiites. In Egypt, however, it’s never entirely clear who is “Islamist” and who is “secular,” to say nothing of the many shades in between. Because their numbers can’t be defined, each side claims the vast majority of Egyptians as their own. The conflict, then, isn’t between fixed identities but rather fluid ideas of what the state is and what it should be.