Daily Times

One distinguished reader of my articles has asked me to scribble something about the plight of his father, who went to Saudi Arabia six months ago to perform pilgrimage but since then has lost in the wilderness of the desert. Despite his appeals to various authorities, he is yet to find any clue about his octogenarian father. For me, conformation of this agonizing saga is a near impossibility yet such happenings are not uncommon in a state governed by primitive laws.

The name of Saudi Arabia is synonymous with totalitarianism. A dynasty ruled by few sagging monarchs who are neither accountable to its own people nor to the associations having fancy name[s] such as ‘Human Rights associations’. For the Muslims of the world the land where the movement of Islam took its first strides will remain holy until eternity. Who is more sanctimonious, the human being for whom religion, any religion came into being or the place where the process of his emancipation began? For every thoughtful mind, this very simmering question would always remain a cause of bewilderment.

Can God, being the spirit of billions of galaxies be confined to the cities such as Rome, Riyadh or Jerusalem? It is an extremely pertinent question not to be cast aside sarcastically. If supposedly that remains the case then the natural reply to this query is that He is accessible to a wealthy minority, which can pave its way to his ‘House’.

No religious-idealism can escape the plague of market economy. For the Saudi hierarchy beyond a source of permanent income Hajj has no other meanings. For the oil producing countries, honeymoon period is over and future does not seem exceptionally bright. The steep decline in the oil prices, the easy accessibility of Iraqi and Libyan oil to the US market and with the popularity and availability of alternative energy resources, only the oil Mafia is keeping this environmentally lethal source of energy in vogue. Saudis are not alien to this reality; despite the ‘decadence factor’, the war in Yemen is not one — dimensional. It is not about the maintenance of hegemony in their neighbourhood but the ambition of carrying an oilrig through Yemen closer to the Gulf of Aden, cannot be ruled out. From here, Saudi Arabia will find itself in far superior position to control the probability of Iranian access to the European markets.

As the ritual of Hajj is considered mandatory, it must be performed in the congenial atmosphere. Then how come innocent human beings are left to be convicted without charges or trails? Can a regime, be allowed to walk away with a false premise of treating the pilgrims according to its own culture?

It is giving the wrong signals to the world. A world which has already turned into an inferno. Violence has many shapes, a war unleashed against the innocent people is a violence, which cannot be condoned or tolerated in any form.

Under these circumstance what can be done for a person eclipsed in the thin air of Saudi Arabia. He may be languishing in any dungeon named as prison, leaving the contention aside that the whole of this totalitarian state is itself a dungeon.

This society is deeply afflicted with the malaise of racism. The superiority of Arabian race is imbued in its mindset. It does not recognize a person of any other origin — unless he is a white man carrying their burden — as a human being. Those who do not care to slaughter the Yemeni kids why would they spare an octogenarian. Yet one must not give up. Asking for any help from an impotent non-existing state would be useless. The grieved family can lodge a petition, involving the Amnesty International & other Human right organization working in the West. Yet the long-term solution lies with the upsurge of the proletariat who alone can unfetter the world from this repressive order. “The point” Nazim-Hikmat says however “is not to surrender”.

The writer is based in Australia and has authored books on socialism and history. He can be reached at saulatnagi@hotmail.com