Another Nigerian stampede survivor says I was pinned down - Vanguard News

[CJM1]

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/09/another-nigerian-stampede-survivor-says-i-was-pinned-down/

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[kenneth harrow]

this is pretty sad, esp given official saudi responses blaming the victims.
i should remind folks that in senegal the mourid hadj is to touba, the grand magal. no need to make the hadj to mecca to fulfill the obligation. and there are christian equivalents there as well. senegal gets it right, i believe.
ken

On 9/27/15 12:43 PM, 'CJM1' via USA Africa Dialogue Series wrote:

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/09/another-nigerian-stampede-survivor-says-i-was-pinned-down/

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[Segun Ogungbemi]

The AU should take a decisive action for the insult coming from the officials of Saudi Arabia. I hope The Federal Government of Nigeria must do something about this crazy religious obligation that leads to voluntary suicide in Mecca. 

Prof. Segun Ogungbemi

[kenneth harrow]

agreed

[Kasim Alli]

What exactly should (can) the AU and/or Nigerian government do in this case?

Sent from my iPad

[Mobolaji Aluko]

Kasim Alli:

To the extent that we have not heard that the Saudi Army was the one that shot these victims, this tragedy can only be consigned to an unfortunate accident that we wish should not recur. So to your question as to what AU/African countries/those countries affected/the Muslim Ummah should do:

(1)  demand for a thorough, honest and complete investigation of the incident, primarily to prevent a recurrence in the future.  Part of the deterrence for than non-re-occurrence is to punish those who through negligence allowed it to occur.

(2)  work out a limit to the crowd in any given space during these observations.  Just as an elevator has the maximum number of safe passengers, and a stadium has a given safe limit of spectators, don't these worship grounds have any limits at all?  These limits must be "actuarially" established, so that a stampede (if any)  should not cause these many deaths.

(3)  ask all participants to take a life insurance.  This can be initiated by the sending country, Saudi Arabia or the pilgrim himself/herself.  The dead don't gain from insurance; it is the survivors.

(4)  This may be politically incorrect, but too many Nigerians do repeat visit to Mecca, as if they have to stone Satan every year for Satan, already defeated, to be re-defeated!  There are people who go to Lesser Hajj, Greater Hajj and Middle Hajj EACH YEAR - three times a year.    Yet, the injunction is at least only once in a lifetime, not every year, Haba!  To limit the number of participants, there should be a tax for repeat Hajj - double/triple Alhajis and Hajiyas etc. -  escalating  each time you go again. 

Nothing stops all the above from being imposed on Jerusalem Pilgrims.

And there you have it.

Bolaji Aluko

PS: Kasim, how many times have you gone?

[Segun Ogungbemi]

Thanks Bolaji for spelling out what needs to be done. In addition, if an official or officials of Saudi actually accused Africans for the stampede, the statement must be withdrawn. Therefore, an apology is demanded from Saudi government. 
Prof. Segun Ogungbemi

[Klalli]

Bolaji:

Your opening statement actually explains the rationale for my question, which was a response to a suggestion that the AU/Nigerian government must respond to an "insult" from the Saudis (whatever the insult is). 

Now to your specific suggestions.

1. I will agree with your suggestion for a thorough investigation like the Iranians already requested.

2. The Saudis probably have procedures in place on crowd control and limits on number of pilgrims. This does not stop accidents from happening.

3. I definitely disagree with any government mandating life insurance in any circumstance in a free society, be it this case or any other case. It is too personal a 

    decision. To paraphrase Fela "Wetin concern government inside?". Nobody forces us to take life insurance or even travel insurance when we freely travel, why

    should this case be different.

4. My opinion is that governments should not pay for anybody to go on a religious pilgrimage. And it appears Buhari's body language is that this will stop at the federal 

    level. It should actually stop at all levels.  However, again as long as the government is not paying for the pilgrimage, government should not be dictating how 

    many times anybody can go on a pilgrimage or how a person performs their religion. Again "wetin concern government inside? 

5. I have not gone on the pilgrimage (yet). Have you gone?

Enjoy Otuoke. My regards to your family.

Kasim Alli.

[Anunoby, Ogugua]

Not much it seems to me. Anyone who chooses to travel abroad in private capacity must assume all the risks of that choice. What government may lawfully do is provide information to travelers at home and consular services to them in Saudi Arabia.

 

oa

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com]
Sent: Sunday, September 27, 2015 9:16 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Another Nigerian stampede survivor says I was pinned down - Vanguard News

 

What exactly should (can) the AU and/or Nigerian government do in this case?

Sent from my iPad

[kenneth harrow]

bolaji
the reports were that the princes' auto calvacade entailed shutting off exit streets. that's like locking exit doors in a club; it is illegal, it is cruel, it puts people at risk, and they die sooner or later.
don't blame the victims.
furthermore, all the arrangements were established by saudi authorities. don't they have responsibility?
ken

[Anunoby, Ogugua]

Not much it seems to me if they do not pay for trip. People choose to take that risk. They have full ownership of the consequences if there are any. All governments may do is provide information to the travelers at home, and consular services to them in Saudi Arabia.

 

oa

 

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com]
Sent: Sunday, September 27, 2015 9:16 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Another Nigerian stampede survivor says I was pinned down - Vanguard News

 

What exactly should (can) the AU and/or Nigerian government do in this case?

Sent from my iPad

[ibdu...@gmail.com]

Anyone who has done Hajj or visited Saudi knows that they do not care about life, especially the life/welfare of black folks. They are very very racists!

---

Sent from my iPhone

[Olayinka Agbetuyi]

And why must Satan be stoned only from Saudi Arabia? Was that his home?

Why not stone Satan in Sokoto or Ilorin?

Sent from Samsung Mobile

-------- Original message --------

From: Mobolaji Aluko

Date:28/09/2015 16:06 (GMT+00:00)

To: USAAfrica Dialogue

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Another Nigerian stampede survivor says I was pinned down - Vanguard News

[Segun Ogungbemi]

Have you been there? 

Prof. Segun Ogungbemi

[John Mbaku]

This is a poor choice of words--it is not always appropriate to paint an entire country as racist. My experience with Saudi Arabia and its government and peoples is that this is no official policy of discrimination against black people. Like other countries, the country has its share of bigots, but the statement made above is unfair to the country and its peoples. 

JOHN MUKUM MBAKU, ESQ.
J.D. (Law), Ph.D. (Economics)
Graduate Certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law
Nonresident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Attorney & Counselor at Law (Licensed in Utah)
Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor of Economics & Willard L. Eccles Professor of Economics and John S. Hinckley Fellow
Department of Economics
Weber State University
1337 Edvalson Street, Dept. 3807
Ogden, UT 84408-3807, USA
(801) 626-7442 Phone
(801) 626-7423 Fax

[Samuel Zalanga]

Interestingly, there is a testimony along what you have said from a South African pilgrim in a documentary film. The documentary film is produced by National Geographic and it is called "INSIDE MECCA." National Geographic confessed it was a rare concession that the Saudi authorities allowed them to document the HAJJ using four people or so as a case study: a) a White American woman that became Muslim; b) a Black South African; c) A Malaysian and one other person.

 I showed it in my class just to illustrate to students what French scholar Emile Durkheim meant by the concepts of the: sacred and profane, and how those categories come into existence and how they help people to organize their religious lives whatever the religion is.

 But in the process of watching the documentary I stumbled on information that I never anticipated or thought of. The Black African from South Africa was initially so excited about the pilgrimage but during the process, amazingly he confessed to the question of discrimination.

 For me, this is kind of problem is one that is encountered in many or all religions: the gap between the ideal and the actual or real. One person, a friend from Nigeria who went to Israel for pilgrimage told me that the tour guide in Israel did not see their pilgrimage as something about faith, rather it is a money-making venture, and that is it. There are persons also who propositioned women.

Any activity that has a human part of it, has to take into consideration human frailty. There are religious people who still remain human but assume they are perfect and blameless. Such people are thought to be living in an artificial world of "over-realized eschatology." They assume they are with God already or they are god, when they are still humans with human frailty, thus their eschatology is over-realized.

Samuel

Samuel Zalanga
Department of Anthropology, Sociology & Reconciliation Studies
Bethel University, 3900 Bethel Drive #24
Saint Paul, MN 55112.
Office Phone: 651-638-6023

[kwame zulu shabazz]

Agree with Ken. We can learn from the Senegal model. Africans should sacralize there own geography. Why continue traveling to a place that constantly denigrates you???

Forward ever,

kzs

[kenneth harrow]

official policy? seriously??

[Samuel Zalanga]

Your questions when properly understood are not just questions for Islam. The logic of the question when properly understood could be asked of many other things.

Why not pursue one's life or education in Africa but the U.S. or Europe? Are education and opportunities housed only in the U.S. or Europe for example? Can't these be achieved or acquired in Africa?  We should ask immigrants these two questions.  Why do people people in Nigeria go to the church or mosque and pray in their communities instead of just doing so in their bedrooms and on their beds? Some of them have expensive houses.  Does God only listens to prayers from the church and mosque? Why do some Catholic Churches do part or all of their worship in Latin? Why not use regular language? Why do people elevate the Holy Quran and Holy Bible even though there are other books on whose basis the modern world is built which both religious people and others enjoy and take for granted? There are books today in the market that are more expensive than the copies of the Holy Quran and Holy Bible, but why do people treat these other books so specially?

To understand religion is to understand the power of the sacred and profane and the power of "MYTH" in human existence and their struggle for meaning in life. The answers to these questions will never be the same for all or at all times. Different people will answer them differently.  "Myth" is not used here as a false story but the reality that in Kantian terms exists at the transcendental level which both reason and science cannot reach but only interpret.

When religion is understood very deeply, it is not about whether the beliefs are accurate or false per se. It is about the fact that people believe them and as they internalize them, they constitute a lens through which they view and interpret reality, they understand themselves, others, time, and space. In effect, this forms the foundation of their cosmology. The beliefs become their categories of mediation. Human beings may have beliefs that are not totally accurate, beliefs that may not be totally coherent, and may not explain everything etc. But they cannot afford to live without some beliefs, whatever their source. Even Sigmund Freud had beliefs that shaped his choices in life and whether they are correct of false is not the issue but how they have shaped his worldview and subsequently many other things.

There is a good example of why people do the kind of thing that people go to Mecca and Jerusalem and do (i.e., Pilgrimage) in the documentary film titled: "Sacred Journeys" with Bruce Feller --http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/sacredjourneys/content/home/

The documentary makes a case study (among others) of the "Osun-Osogbo" shrine. The documentary illustrates the meaning that people in Southwestern Nigeria attach to the shrine. They leave their houses and cities to walk distances to reach the shrine. Why? Because it provides a deep sense of meaning and connection to them, just as pilgrims in Mecca and Jerusalem do it for similar reasons. The best way to appreciate it is not to say whether it is false or right but the meaning it creates in people's lives, just as the ceremonies that the ancient Greeks conduct on behalf of their gods, including visiting Parthenon. I wish science and reason can create a deep sense of meaning but there are legions of scholars in the Western and non Western who appreciate science and reason but also see their limitation.

Of course now we have new "sacred places" like Wall Street competing with the old sacred places.  With regard to these new god and shrines that have been ushered in by modernity which is built on science and reason, there are two quotes from Max Weber that just illustrate the crisis we have found ourselves in, given that the more capitalism and modernity succeeds with the institutions undergirding it, the more meaninglessness or confusion humanity will encounter. Here is Weber reflecting on that:

"The calculability of decision making and with it its appropriateness for capitalism... is the more fully realized the more bureaucracy "depersonalizes" itself, i.e., the more completely it succeeds in achieving the exclusion of love, hatred, and every purely personal, especially irrational and incalculable, feeling from the execution of official tasks. In the place of the old-type ruler who is moved by sympathy, favor, grace and gratitude, modern culture requires for its sustaining external apparatus the emotionally detached and hence rigorously 'professional' expert."

And Weber is not a radical but part of the German establishment but key observer of key engine of modernity which is the process or rationalization, concludes with this pessimistic observation that when one reflects is baffling as we see it around us but as Herbert Marcuse argues, we are distracted from focusing on because the culture industry deliberately sublimates our consciousness and distracts us from thinking or fighting about reforming the system. Weber asserts:

"Imagine the consequences of that comprehensive bureaucratization and rationalization which already today we see approaching. Already now... in all economic enterprises run on modern lines, rational calculation is manifest at every stage. By it, the performance of each individual worker is mathematically measured, each man becomes a little cog in the machine and, aware of this, his one preoccupation is whether he can become a bigger cog.... It is apparent that today we are proceeding towards an evolution which resembles [the ancient kingdom of Egypt] in every detail, except that it is built on other foundations, on technically more perfect, more rationalized and therefore much more mechanized foundation. The problem which besets us now is not: how can this evolution be changed? -- for that is impossible, but: what will come of it" (All quotes from: pp.231-232 of Lewis Coser, Masters of Sociological Thought: Ideas in Historical and Social Context). Thus Weber argues that the future of humanity in Western civilization because of this unending process of rationalization that is at the core of modernity will lead to people living in an 'iron cage" rather than a "Garden of Eden" as Karl Marx predicted.

This is why modernity (science and reason) can impact religion but it will never eliminate it because there are certain fundamental questions that are at the heart of what it means to be human that science and reason will not provide. Of course people will answer these questions differently and until eternity they will never agree on one and even with war, some people will not abandon their own ways.  It is in this way that we can understand why religious people do what they do, and among them are often people who are highly educated and informed.

Thank you.

Samuel

[kenneth harrow]

the groves of oshun, as holy as you can get.

[kwame zulu shabazz]

Brother Samuel, 

I was concurring with Ken's observation that Muslims in Senegal have a model that other Muslims in African might consider replicating. Namely, they perform a local hajj to a sacred destination in Senegal. 

Forward ever, 

kzs

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[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

https://www.thecable.ng/survivor-medics-ignored

Anti-black racism is widespread in the Arab world. There is no need to sugarcoat or mitigate it. I have a long chapter on anti-black Arab racism in my book, Africa in Fragments. Afro-Arab solidarity is, with some exceptions, a huge myth. An African American cleric was shocked to encounter it and became a crusader against it in the American Muslim community. The chapter deals with both contemporary forms of this racism and the intellectual and political history of it. Meanwhile, here is yet another eye witness/survivor account of how rescuers and medics ignored black victims to care for "white ones.

TOP STORIES THE NATION BUSINESS INSIDE NIGERIA SPORT VIEWPOINT HOT CELEBS LIFE & LIVING TOP STORIES THE NATION BUSINESS INSIDE NIGERIA SPORT VIEWPOINT HOT CELEBS LIFE & LIVING SURVIVOR: How Saudi medics ignored black victims of hajj stampede to save the whites ⌂BACK TO HOMEPAGE SUBSCRIBE TO RSS FEED September 28 18:14 2015 Print This Article Share it With Friends 👤by Mayowa Tijani  0 Comments 30824 Advertisement 

One of the fortunate survivors of last week’s high-casualty hajj stampede has revealed that paramedics who came to rescue survivors were racially favoured “to whites over blacks”. An indigene of Osun state Nigeria, but based in Warri, Delta state, the survivor who spoke to TheCable, said he was stuck in the midst of dead bodies for more than two hours, but there was no help from paramedics, who “favoured whites over blacks”. “I tried to escape, but it was impossible. I was stuck in the midst of many dead bodies; some people were climbing over me to find an escape. I struggled to get myself up to the waist level. “From my toe to my waistline, people were all over, I could not get up. I just sat up to avoid further stampede. Almost everyone around me was dead. “I was calling the Saudi police and paramedics on the scene to help me, they didn’t respond. I was stuck there for more than 2 hours; they were busy helping whites, with no response to my plea. “They left black people and were carrying whites; I begged them for a long time, but to no avail.” PAIN, TRAUMA, SURVIVAL Having been to Umrah (lesser hajj) four times, he was attending the main hajj for the very first time and found it eventful. “One of the men at the scene of the incident was moving with his wife, but she was deeply involved in the stampede and had died just beside my legs, while he sustained injuries,” he said. “The man who was hit by the rude shock of his wife’s death said I should wake his wife up; we kept waking her together but she was dead. Her husband began crying and in his trauma, he bit her with his teeth. But she was gone. “The husband began beating me to wake his wife up, I was shocked. It almost resulted in a skirmish between us but I understood he was in deep shock and pitiable trauma.” While waiting for help, other pilgrims helped him and some others by pouring cold water on them to prevent dehydration. He said: “One pilgrim threw his phone to me, so I could place a call to anybody who could be of help. The phone fell on a dead body; I picked it up, but there was no one to call. And I couldn’t have called Nigeria.” The survivor (pictured close to rescue workers) seated atop dead bodies After hours without help, he eventually passed out but woke up to find himself at a hospital in Arafat. “As I woke up, I saw drip (intravenous fluid) on my body. I was fed and dressed up, well-treated at the hospital. I saw more than 80 people – including a Yoruba woman residing in Sokoto – at the hospital with various degrees of injuries.” A businessman in the oil industry, he was glad to have survived the unfortunate event, especially as his worried son called him from the US after seeing a footage of him in the midst of many dead people. PROBES, AFRICANS AND COMPENSATIONS A lot has been said about Africans being the cause of the second worst tragedy in hajj stampede history, but nothing has been said about compensating families involved. Though President Muhammadu Buhari’s has said through Garba Shehu, his special assistant on media and publicity, that “it is not within our powers to question the will of God”, the survivor wants the government to probe the issue. “I heard them say we Africans caused it, but that’s not true. The whites who faced us, because they said the Prince was coming their way, were the ones who caused the tragedy.” “For Nigerians who died in the stampede, it’s only God who understands all. It’s left for the Nigerian government to look into this. Iranians have been protesting due to their mass death, over 100, but we don’t know Nigeria’s death toll yet.” On compensations, he said: “No talks on compensations yet. Just the crane accident victims have been said to get compensated”. As at Monday, it had been confirmed that at least 54 Nigerians were killed in the stampede, trailing behind Iran, which has lost over 140 citizens. Follow us on twitter @thecableng Copyright 2015 TheCable. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.thecable.ng as the source. Tags ArafathajjMuhammadu BuhariSokotostampedeUmrah 30824 Advertisement Social Comments Advertisement ⚏TOP STORIESVIEW MORE ARTICLES     SURVIVOR: How Saudi medics ignored black victims of hajj stampede to save the whites Read Full Article    

Read more at: https://www.thecable.ng/survivor-medics-ignored-black-victims-hajj-stampede-save-whites

[Anunoby, Ogugua]

Poor choice of words may be but correct characterization of reality. Every member of a society does not have to be racist for the society to be correctly characterized as racist.

Racism does not have to be codified in law for it to inform how some regard or treat others. That discrimination and racism are unlawful is not to say that a system and her institutions are not biased in favor of one or other community based on race.  Discrimination and racism are at the end of the day in the hearts and minds of people both of which significantly, shape their thoughts - attitude, values, and actions- character.

There is such a thing as institutional and systemic racism neither of which is lawful in most countries, but rule.

 

oa

[Anunoby, Ogugua]

Symbolism matters in the affairs of men and women and more so in politics and religion. It should be seen for what it is. Satan has been stoned millions of people in Mecca for centuries. Has it changed anything? I doubt that it has.

There are also cultural and economic benefits to Saudi Arabia of the Hajj. Mohammed loved his home town and his people. He changed their history and guaranteed their long-term cultural domination of others. He conceived of and created an alternative (competition) to Judaism and Christianity, the dominant religious movements in his part of the world, in his day. He made Mecca a competitor holy city to Jerusalem- the dominant holy city of his day. He was a smart man. He was a strategic thinker. I am not being cynical I might add.

He was a great man. I actually admire, respect him.

 

oa

[Bode]

when this happened over a decade ago, I remember my late professor at Ife, professor Oyin Ogunba saying to me no traditional worshipper in Africa would engage in the affront of stoning satan in the first place….

Bode 

[ibdu...@gmail.com]

I have been to Saudi for Hajj/lesser Hajj six times. Your question really sucks--pathetic!

---

Sent from my iPhone

[Ayo Obe]

The racism question in Saudi Arabia rather reminds me of the racism question in Brazil.  While Islam posits an ideal of universal fraternity, Brazil presented as a "rainbow nation".  And because each country presented itself as having already achieved these ideals, it was in denial about any deviation from the ideal, and had little or no plan to actualise them.  Yet behind the facade, one saw in Brazil language such as "good appearance" or insistence by people such as Pele that they are "brown", rather than "black", and it became apparent that occupants of favelas and slums are predominantly one colour so that the line between race and class becomes blurred enough to allow racists to take refuge under mere snobbery.   

Clearly some Arabs are racists, and in the case of Saudi Arabia - when it comes to policies such as situating black African pilgrims further away from key venues, or reserving ambulances for non-black stampede victims (as alleged - I don't know whether that was a medical decision or a racist one) - failure to acknowledge that there may be a racist element in arriving at those policies rather guarantees that nothing will be done to address or correct them.

I listened with outrage to a radio interview with a British pilgrim who had clearly bought the Saudi line that the stampede was caused by African pilgrims who didn't follow directions or understand instructions.  The clear implication was that these were the unwashed illiterate masses.  It is particularly painful because I suppose nobody will say that Hajiya Bilkisu Yusuf, or the two Court of Appeal judges that Nigeria lost in that stampede were incapable of understanding directions.  Fortunately that sour taste was removed by a British travel agent (responsible for organising pilgrimages) who expressed his outrage at the suggestion that alleged inability to understand instructions was the cause of the many hundred deaths, or that the dead should in any way be blamed.  Rather he pointed to the low quality of personnel deployed by Saudi Arabia to "assist" or protect pilgrims, saying they were often army conscripts who spoke only Arabic and knew little or nothing about their obligations, responding to most requests for directions about how to get to any particular place by pointing ahead and saying "down there".

Ayo

[Anunoby, Ogugua]

What was the question if I may ask?

 

oa

[Anunoby, Ogugua]

“…President Muhammadu Buhari’s has said through Garba Shehu, his special assistant on media and publicity, that “it is not within our powers to question the will of God”

www.thecable.ng

 

Oh my goodness. Is the government of Iran questioning the “will of God’ by doing what a responsible government should do in a case such as this one? Is there is any more to say?”

 

oa

[kenneth harrow]

moses is right about this. it wounds my heart to have to concur, but there is definitely racism, racism against black people, in the arab world. north africans make a distinction between themselves--as arabs--and black people, whom they call africans. they do not consider themselves "africans."

to be fair, there are many anti-racists as well, which is normal. it is a struggle, and honorable people need to be given their due for engaging that struggle. but we have to remember the historical roots, the millenia of the slave trade, the low status of slaves, occupied by black africans, in n. africa and much of the arab world. we have to remember oman and zanzibar. the zanj coast. the swahili trade.
as with racism anywhere, there is a deep and long history that accounts for it, and whose consequences we have to combat.

the blaming of africans, or nigerians, for this latest stampede in mecca is of a piece with the racist attitudes, and it is very painful to read
ken

[Oyinlola Longe]

Bode,
Hope he wasn't confusing esu with Satan?
O.