Politicizing the Hajj, Ahmadinejad in Toga and Cuirass…………
“Vini, vidi, vici……..” Gaius Julius Caesar
Saudi media is complaining that Iran’s leaders are poised to politicize this year’s Hajj, something they had done in the past. A still shaky but increasingly vocal Ahmadinejad, in turn, had warned that Iranian pilgrims must be “treated appropriately”, otherwise he will take “appropriate decisions”. Ahmadinejad seems to gain more public confidence as the election controversy fades, even though his foes in Iran try not to let him and the world forget the days of last summer.
I have no idea how Iranian pilgrims are treated at the Hajj, but I imagine with no “apparent” difference than others. They are, however, kept under close scrutiny, and very likely shadowed the whole time, and I mean “the whole time”. This may tend to irritate some of the Iranians, most of whom are not there for political purpose and have no interest in shouting political slogans. But then again, Ahmadinejad himself would be shadowed the whole time if he were to show up in Hijaz wearing the regulation ihram (the Hajj toga). But he is not likely to shout political slogans at Hajj. And he certainly can’t say a Caesarian “vini, vidi, vici”; he would need to wear a cuirass for that, not a toga
The Hajj has been quite, politically, for some time, unlike the 1980s when the Iran-Iraq war and regional alignments led to intense insertion of political slogans in the rites by some Iranian pilgrims who tended to shout political slogans. This is fine; otherwise we’ll see the anti-globalism crowd showing up next, and you can't get more globalist than the Hajj (I have nothing against the anti-globalism crowd; they often make more sense than the uber-globalism crowd.). The Hajj should be for…… hajj-ing only.
Cheers
mhg
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