Big-Endians vs Little-Endians

In the course of his travels, Lemuel Gulliver met two warring factions in  Lilliput—Big-Endians and Little-Endians. Big-Endians broke their boiled eggs from the bigger end while the Little-Endians did the same from the smaller end. In earlier times, a crown prince had cut a finger while breaking the egg from the bigger end. Whereupon the emperor decreed that his subjects were ordained  to break their eggs from the smaller end only and default would result in stiff penalties. People resented this law and rose in revolt multiple times. These rebellions, often aided and fomented by the monarchy of neighboring Blefuscu, resulted in a loss of life of one emperor and thousands of Big/Little-Endians. At the time of Gulliver’s  visit, Lilliput and Blefuscu had been engaged in a war  for “six and thirty moons(three years).”

I came across this bulletin board while walking around in a modern Egyptian museum in Cairo and was reminded of the Big-Endians vs Little-Endians story. Here were two peoples with identical prophets but for the names, engaged in an eternal war. Their salutations (shalom vs Salaam), headgears (kippah vs taqiyah), rituals (brit millah vs khatna), and concepts of purity (kosher vs halal) are similar too. They agree even in their taboos (pork) but keep firing rockets at each other and have kept at it for decades! Unlike the Big-Endians vs Little-Endians story, there is no egg in play here let alone the big or small ends of the egg.

Jonathan Swift had used Big-/Little- Endians as metaphors for Protestants/Catholics and Lilliput/Blefuscu for England/France. I have examples from closer home in mind but desist from citing them lest I  hurt someone’s sentiments and go behind bars under UAPA/NSA.