Omar al-Jaffal, an Iraqi journalist, wrote a scary note on his Facebook page: “I can be killed just because of my name. Have you ever heard of someone fearing his own name?” The Iraqi poet Ahmed Abdul Hussein replied: “Mere names have become a pretext for killing people.”

The story seems similar to a movie recalling the events of the 2006-08 civil war in Iraq, when both armed Sunni and Shiite groups decided to set up checkpoints, catching and killing members of the other sect. They mostly relied on names and religious and historical connotations to identify their targets. For instance, Omar is a Sunni name, whereas Abdel-Hussein is Shiite.

Jaffal told Al-Monitor that “everything today reminds me of the civil war. [There are] unidentified bodies in the streets, bombs targeting the people brutally. Meanwhile politicians are preoccupied with signing peace documents that cannot be applied on the ground.”

Through this comparison, Jaffal tries to comment with despair on “the social peace initiative” that was signed by Iraqi leaders on Sept. 19, as a solution to the security and political crises that have beset the country.