Huge numbers of pilgrims alone do not explain recurrence of fatal accidents – state must take blame for poor planning and incompetence
Sheer numbers, an ongoing construction boom, poor communication and inadequate emergency planning have all been contributing factors. Photograph: STR/AFP/Getty Images
Ian Black Middle East editor
Saudi Arabia’s latest disaster – the deaths of at least 717 pilgrims on the hajj – raises troubling but grimly familiar questions about organisation, safety and levels of competence in the kingdom during the showcase event of the Muslim calendar.
With an estimated 2 million people taking part in the annual pilgrimage, it was no surprise that overcrowding was identified as the main cause of the stampede. But its impact was magnified as it followed the deaths of more than 100 people due to the collapse of a crane in Mecca earlier this month.
Sheer numbers, an ongoing construction boom in the holiest city of Islam, poor communication and inadequate emergency planning were all contributing factors. Saudi critics also pointed to a lack of civic awareness and official accountability.
The hajj, in the words of the religious scholar Ian Reader, is “a striking case of an ancient religious practice transformed by modernity”. In earlier times, many Muslims fulfilling one of the five fundamental requirements of their faith died from disease, banditry and exhaustion while crossing the harsh deserts of Arabia. In recent years they have faced mortal danger while carrying out the sacred rites.
The number of pilgrims to Mecca has risen dramatically since the Arab-Israeli war and oil price rise of 1973. Official Saudi figures recorded 58,584 hujjaj in 1920 – a number that rose to 1.7 million by 2012.
Cheap air travel has been the biggest spur. Nowadays pilgrims fly into the bustling hajj terminal at Jeddah airport. Risks include terrorist bombings, riots and stampedes in the tunnels and pedestrian walkways leading to the Jamarat stoning pillars (representing Satan) – as well as the routine hazards of heat and disease.
Yet numbers alone do not explain the recurrence of fatal incidents: this year’s figures were down from the peak of 3.1 million in 2013, when country quotas were re-introduced. In some regions of Indonesia the waiting list for hajj is up to 17 years, according to one specialist website.
Huge building projects in Mecca and faster transport links have been developed to ensure speedier movement through the stages of the pilgrimage. “These developments … have enabled the authorities to increase pilgrim numbers and enhance the hajj’s contribution to the Saudi economy,” wrote Reader.
But critics claim that officials in Mecca are not adequately trained. “It is not negligence but the emergency procedures are not appropriate to the scale of this kind of incident,” a Saudi lawyer who knows the city well said. “They are doing their best but it is not very professional.”
Saudis complain generally that public services are poorly delivered. “Ministers and those under them should foster a new government culture based on quality service to customers, in essence the public,” the liberal journalist Khaled al-Maeena wrote earlier this year, calling for greater accountability in the era of King Salman. And royal decrees can be hard to understand.
Non-Saudis are far harsher. “To the natural challenges of hajj … are added man-made problems,” said Zafar Bangas, a Canadian Muslim commentator.
“These include legendary Saudi incompetence compounded by their arrogance. Even these would be tolerable were it not for the obscene prices they charge Muslims wishing to fulfill one of their Islamic obligations. Hajj has been priced out of the range of most Muslims today so that the greedy Saudi ‘royals’ can fatten their bank balances.”
Pilgrims often report that the experience is not a spiritual one. “It was not the first hajj I went on,” one Saudi who witnessed the disaster wrote to a relative. “But it is likely to be the last.”
In the words of a British Muslim: “I was in Mecca a few weeks ago and the whole place is a huge construction site. It really wasn’t very spiritual and it was logistically very difficult. I advised friends not to go.”
“Guests of God” – to use the resonant Arabic phrase for pilgrims – are supposed to be equal. “We are all barefoot, wearing the same simple white cloth. But now you know there are some people who can pay 1000 riyals per night for these expensive hotels in Mecca while others stay in tent camps and struggle in the heat,” one Saudi woman said.
Madawi Al Rasheed, a dissident Saudi academic at LSE, said the tragedy highlighted the inability of the Saudi authorities to handle vast crowds – noting that even small demonstrations are banned.
“It is a blow to the Saudi leadership because it undermines the legitimacy of their claim to to be the Guardian of the Two Holy Places [of Mecca and Medina – the king’s formal title],” she said. “Any kind of incident is bound to weaken its credibility in the Muslim world.”
Sir William Patey, Britain’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 2007-2010, blamed the numbers of pilgrims, not the government in Riyadh. “It’s not for lack of money. They [the Saudis] have spent billions on the pilgrimage,” he said.
“It’s true that Saudi Arabia is not the most coordinated place on earth, but they do focus on this. They don’t just say ‘stuff happens’. They are not lackadaisical. They do tackle issues, and there has never been the same disaster twice. But it is a huge logistical problem – unique in the world.”
TheGuardian
