One of the staples of Saudi television is coverage of visits by the monarch or members of the royal family to military bases, where the officers proceed to offer congratulations on the successful hosting of the Hajj.
I suppose those visits will be conducted as scheduled, but I wonder if the congratulations will be as fulsome. Because this year, because of the heat, some 1000 people died. It’s not as bad as the stampede at Mina, when 2400 pilgrims died in 2014, but it’s pretty bad. Every country is reporting these deaths, but the blame is settling, like a cloud of noxious gas, on Egyptian travel agents. It’s as if the 58 deaths of Pakistanis were also caused by Egyptian travel agents.
I haven’t had occasions to deal with Egyptian travel agents, but I imagine they’re overweight, and chewing on something, not to mention that they’re greasy. And I’m sure they refuse to be surprised by anything. No wonder about 600 Egyptians are supposed to have been killed. Saudi Arabia allows each country a number of pilgrims, and anyone beyond that number has to go illegally. The authorities also prescribe certain minima which must be observed, like hotel accommodation, and issue each legal pilgrim a wristband, which identifies him or her. So if a pilgrim keels over for any reason, he’s taken to a first aid station, where the wristband is scanned, and not just the patient treated, but the country’s Hajj mission and any accompanying relatives, are informed.
Unfortunately for a lot of people, Egyptian travel agents try to sneak people in outside the system, so as to shave money from the price of the Hajj. Egypt is actually a good place to do this, because it is just across the Red Sea, and some Egyptian hajjis just come in for the gathering at Arafat. And even those who perform the initial circumambulation of the Kaaba, the farewell circumambulation, as well as spend the night in Muzdalifah and stone the Satan at the Jamarat in Mina, try to sneak in, I suppose they regard the Saudi-imposed limit much as the ID card condition in Pakistan imposed by the Ruet-i-Hilal committee for the sighting of the moon:
Something imposed by man, not the Almighty.
What Saudi Arabia lacks in somebody like Ali Amin Gandapur. Someone who could order the Dera Ismail Khan WAPDA to reopen a shut grid station. And then get back to Peshawar, where instead of trying to placate the federal government, he fired off another salvo, and tried to roll it over. He would have sorted out pilgrims about to die, and made them stay alive \. Or perhaps he would have given it up as a bad job, and beaten up Mian Shehbaz Sharif, which is what PTI supporters are apparently waiting for him to do. So They must see the PM on the floor, while Ali Amin, leaning into his back, twists his leg, until Shehbaz not just taps out, but orders the Cuptaan’s release.
Mian Shehbaz Sharif was exchanging Eid greetings with various Muslim counterparts, and he should have paused while talking to Anwar Ibrahim, Prime Minister of Malaysia. Anwar has been PM since 2012. He came to office later than he should have, because he was already 70. But starting in 2009, when he was Deputy PM, he got rapped on a sodomy charge. He overcame that, then he overcame another one. He was tried for both offences, found guilty, had his convictions upheld, and finally got off through a Royal pardon.
Well, there are no sodomy allegations against Imran, though there have been a number of rumours. He should take heart, and remember a comeback is possible. And being over 70 is no barrier.
Footnote to these notes: It seems they’re up to it again in Tamil Nadu. Yes, no less than 56 people have died in Kallakurichi district, from drinking methanol-laced country liquour. The brewers put in ethanol to enhance the punch, even though it has been methylated, which means methyl alcohol has been added which is poisonous.
Funny, it seems this always happens in Tamil Nadu, nowhere else. Not in Dallas for instance, where a Jewish woman tried to drown two Palestinian children in a pool in an apartment complex there. It seems not enough kids are being killed in the Gaza Strip.
