Mina Tragedy Will Have Great Impact on End of Saudi Oppression-Sayyed Nasrallah

Marwa Haidar

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah lashed out at Saudi Arabia over its “disrespect to Muslims and Islam rituals” through Mina stampede, stressing that this tragedy will have great impact on the end of this historic oppression by Riyadh in the holy country. During a ceremony held in the first Night of Muharram, Sayyed Nasrallah hailed the Palestinian people for their courageous confrontations against the Israeli enemy in al-Quds, Gaza and d ifferent areas across the West Bank. His eminence voiced Hezbollah's full support for Palestinian people in its battle against the Israeli enemy. Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that Palestine is the central battle in the region, calling for supporting these people against the Israeli occupation with all forms. Sayyed Nasrallah congratulated the Muslim nation on the new Hijri Year, noting that Mina tragedy and the confrontations in Palestine are the two main events which took place in the region in the last few weeks. Palestine Central Battle Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that Palestine is the central battle in our region, as he hailed the courage of the Palestinian people. “The region witnesses active and popular movement to defend al-Aqsa in what seems like a Third Intifada,” the resistance leader addressed people commemorating the first night of Ashura ceremonies in Sayyed Shihada Complex in Beirut’s souther suburb (Dahiyeh). His eminence said that the Palestinian people once again surprise the world in producing a new form of resistance, referring to stabbing attacks carried out recently by Palestiians against Israelis. In this context, Sayyed Nasralla voiced Hezbollah’s full support for the Palestinian people, calling for a worldwide support for this courageous people. “Palestinian people have no choice but resistance, they are the leaders of this battlefield, let them decide their form of resistance.” Saudi Historic Oppression On the Mina stampede, Sayyed Nasrallah lashed out at the Saudi neglect during the Hajj season for this year. His eminence said that up till now the real toll of the incident was not disclosed by the Saudi authorities. “There are hundreds who are still missing. At least there is a Saudi incompetence in handling the Hajj pilgrimage for this year,” Sayyed Nasrallah said. The resistance leader noted that Riyadh has been firmly refusing that any country take part in the investigation into Mina stampede, stressing that participating in such probe is a just demand by any country whose nationals died in the incident. Talking further about the incident, Sayyed Nasrallah said that the pilgrims who were injured in the incident assure that they were left for hours without help, stressing in this context that the Saudi authorities have failed in handling the Hajj season for this year. His eminence slammed some countries whose nationals were died in the incident for being silent. Meanwhile, he praised the bravery of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei slammed the performance of the Saudi Arabia during the Hajj season. “The only loud voice against the Saudi performance was by Imam Sayyed Ali Khameni.” “Some countries whose nationals died in Mina stampede congratulated Riyadh for (what they called)“its competence in handling Hajj this year”,” Sayyed Nasrallah said. Riyadh even “did not apologize for the incident, but it released a statement in which it hailed the managing of Hajj for this year.” His eminence noted that the worst thing is that people could not talk about the incident. “They were intimated just like Imam Hussein’s family could not speak anything, cry or express sadness following Karbala.” “This tragedy in the holy country, in the holy month shows Saudi’s ultimate disrespect to Muslims and Islam rituals,” Sayyed Nasrallah said.” “Mina tragedy will have great impact on the end of this historic oppression carried out against the Muslim nation in the holy country… this oppression represent by this rule,” the resistance leader stated. Regional Issues Sayyed Nasrallah also briefly tackled the situation in several other countries: Yemen, Syria and Bahrain. He said that a new year comes as the US-Saudi aggression against Yemen continues, and as the “universal” war against Syria proceeds. His eminence praised the bravery and steadfastness of the Yemeni people against the Saudi aggression. He also slammed the oppression carried out by the ruling Al-Khalifa against the Bahraini people in the Gulf island. On Lebanon, Sayyed Nasrallah said that public sector is witnessing a state of paralysis “due to the malicious” performance of some Lebanese parties. However, he noted that despite the crises of trash and the security captives by the Takfiris in Syria, there still two advantages: the security situation in Lebanon, and the national dialogue between the Lebanese parties.

Putin at Moscow’s Grand Mosque opening ceremony

Mosques have become battlegrounds in more places than one can imagine. In the West, regimes are refusing permission for Muslims to open new mosques. In the US, there were planned protests against mosques in many cities last weekend. They fizzled out when few people showed up. In Russia, meanwhile, a grand mosque was opened in Moscow by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Now that is an interesting turnaround.

September 23, 2015. President Vladimir Putin, front third right, during the visit to the Moscow Cathedral Mosque after the ceremonial opening. Third left: Ravil Gainutdin, Chairman of the Russian Mufti Council. Second right: President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Moscow, Crescent-online

While western governments have imposed restrictions on the opening of mosques in their countries, Russia is forging ahead welcoming them.

This is quite a turnaround in the attitude of various regimes. For decades, the West painted Russia as a “totalitarian state” that did not allow religious freedoms. The West touted its plurality and openness. No more. Muslims are under attack everywhere.

Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin opened one of Europe’s biggest mosques in Moscow, warning against the lure of extremists.

Also present were Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas as the 20,000-square metre mosque was opened in the Russian capital.

“This mosque will become an extremely important spiritual centre for Muslims in Moscow and the whole Russia,” Putin said in a speech that was broadcast on television.

“It will be a source for education, spreading humanist ideas and the true values of Islam.”

Putin lashed out at extremist groups for their “attempts to cynically exploit religious feelings for political ends,” referring to the takfiri terrorists rampaging through Syria and Iraq.

“We see what is happening in the Middle East where terrorists from the so-called ISIL group are compromising a great world religion, compromising Islam, in order to sow hate,” he said.

The takfiri terrorists are backed by the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. Last month, Russia launched air strikes against these takfiri terrorists who are now on the run.

The mosque has turquoise-domes reviving Central Asian architecture that has made its mark in places like Samarqand and Bukhara. The mosque can accommodate more than 10,000 worshippers built at a cost of $170 million.

Taking more than a decade to complete it will help to serve Russia’s estimated 20 million Muslims. These are local Muslims as well as those that have come from places like Chechnya and Azerbaijan and are working in Moscow.

Understanding the Islamic revolutionary movement

by Catherine Shakdam-August, 2015

The revolutionary spirit of 2011 still burns in Bahrain, Yemen and a host of other places despite its subversion in Egypt.

Never since the destruction of the Ottoman Sultanate at the end of the First World War has the Muslim East and North Africa region (MENA) witnessed such radical changes in its religious, social, economic, and political map. Arguably born from a rebellion against and denunciation of the powers that be, this movement, which Western powers have been keen to label as the “Arab Spring” has been too often looked at from a neo-colonial perspective, thus restricting both the narrative and understanding of what should better be described as an Awakening or Renaissance movement.

An organic popular movement, 2011-events essentially saw the people rise against Western-backed and Saudi-propped regimes. More than a simple call for democratic change and social justice, 2011 saw not the birth of a new form of Pan-Arabism as some experts have suggested following the fall of former Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak, but instead a broad rejection of Western imperialism.

Free from the constraint of political ideology and religious dogmatism — those elements have come by way of manipulation as a means of oppression as well as justifications for violence — the 2011 movement bears the marks of a renaissance, an awakening, or coming of age of a people following centuries of enslavement.

And though the MENA’s revolutionary flame has been all but extinguished, its spirit can still be best observed in Yemen and Bahrain where popular resistance has been most fierce and stubborn in its refusal to bow to aggravated pressure: regional and international.
Since most experts and scholars have so far abided by Western paradigms when studying the events of 2011, the narrative has been biased and flawed, preventing proper grasp of the nature and characteristics of this metamorphosis that will ultimately sweep the “old world” away. Those dualities — traditional society versus civil society, and religious versus secular — that experts have discussed, are again the expression of Western imperialism, especially when secularism and the principles of civil society have been exploited as tools of repression and enslavement by imperialistic regimes.

The only real polarization is between the people of the MENA and Western powers aided by their puppet regimes such as Saudi Arabia. If Islam has found itself in the eye of the storm it is because its religious principles, which remain strong among Muslims in the MENA, stand defiantly against the globalists’ agenda.

Islam, more than the other monotheistic religions, has been declared the enemy of Western society now that secularism and atheism have become the new basis of this globalist dogma unfolding before our eyes. Of course, the role played by Wahhabism in introducing an extremist demonic ideology needs to be factored in as yet another tool of globalism toward the balkanization of the region.

Although experts and scholars alike have refused so far to see in the 2011 events the influence of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, it is becoming evident that some decades later Iran’s struggle for political self-determination has found a deep echo in the MENA region. There are undeniable parallels between today’s events and the metamorphoses Iran went through when it deposed the Western-imposed and backed Shah to place in its stead a political model of its own choosing that is in tune with its society and religious traditions.

As continuation of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the uprisings of 2011 might yet come to be remembered as the grand emancipation of the Arab people. Somewhere between President Jamal ‘Abd al-Nasir’s pan-Arab nationalism and Imam Khomeini’s Islamic walayah, the people of the MENA region are shattering old Western models to try and establish their own based on Islamic values. Bound by the same struggle against despotism and plagued by the same evil — extremism — the people of the region are learning to move together in this new found solidarity, slowly coming to the realization that they do not have to stand alone and are not alone.

Those formerly scattered resistance movements, this arc that was built throughout the decades to oppose Western alignment has gained more ground than any Western powers have cared to admit now that the minority is turning into the majority. From Libya to Syria, and from Iraq to Bahrain, people have sensed that change needs to happen on their terms and no longer to the tune of Western-backed politicians’ discourses. And where the “Arab Spring” was engineered to herald the occupation of the Muslim East (aka the Middle East) and exploitation of its vast natural resources, this coming revolutionary storm will neither suffer nor brook foreign patronage.

There is still untapped strength in Arabia’s Islamic heritage, in that the people share in a history of immense spiritual and intellectual wealth weaved around a faith that refuses segregation and embraces pluralism. It is merely a matter of time before this realization manifests itself into reality on the ground. There is only so much servitude a people can take before resisting injustice.