Latte Activism: Hajj Is Not Your Protest Prop

Yeah. This is the the latest thing that I've seen. The argument is, that since, Saudi Arabia buys weapons from the same companies that send weapons to Israel, Therefore, Muslims should not make Hajj. This is the latest brilliant idea coming from the collective brain trust of American Muslims. And they're they're liberal, non Muslim camouflage neo con partners.

Saudi Arabia is buying weapons from the American military industrial complex. That makes Saudi complicit in genocide. It's the that's being committed by America in Gaza. And therefore Muslims should boycott the Hajj and boycott Umrah. I mean, can you even count the number of ways that this is stupid?

Honestly. I mean, there's just start with the basic economics of Hajj and Umrah. Okay? Whether this correlates in any way whatsoever to weapons purchases. The money that Saudi Arabia makes from the Hajj and makes from the Umrah does not go into the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, the PIF.

The money that's taken from Hajj and Umrah pays directly for the incredibly costly and incredibly complex infrastructure that's required for hosting millions of people. You know, at least half of the Hajjaj on any given year are either middle aged or senior citizens. They've saved up for years in order to be able to go. So that's gonna be nearly, you know, somewhere around 600,000, 500,000, half a million elderly people. Just think about that for a minute.

Think about all of the services that those people need when they make Hajj. Hajj is very rigorous, tens of thousands of wheelchairs for example they need. They have at least 25 mobile hospitals that I know of, over a 170 health centers that are set up around Mina and Arafah and so on. Fully staffed, specialized units, specifically for heart attacks and strokes and heat exhaustion and so on. Thousands of paramedics, rapid response teams, okay, air ambulances, free dialysis centers, insulin distribution centers, oxygen tanks, golf carts, buggies and so on for the sick and for the elderly, free of charge, you know.

Especially designated tents in Mina and in Arafa for the elderly that are air conditioned, that are closer to the facilities and so on, that have medical staff on standby, free meal distribution, twenty four hour hotlines in case anybody goes missing, any elderly person wanders off, you've got sign language interpreters, you've got guides for the blind, you've got GPS tracking bracelets for the Hajj who might have serious medical issues and so on. I mean, have you ever even thought about how much infrastructure is involved in hosting the Hajj? It's mind boggling and it's very expensive. This is not a profitable endeavor for Saudi Arabia. They spend literally tens of billions of dollars every year on this, on maintaining this, on on on supporting this.

Do you understand? The the profit that Saudi Arabia gets come from whatever the Hajjaj themselves might spend when they are there. You know, meaning on restaurants, on hotels, on souvenirs and so on, tourist stuff. And that doesn't go to the PIF either, that goes to local businesses. The PIF, the sovereign wealth fund is funded by oil wealth, it's funded by asset sales and by debt, not by Hajj and Umrah.

The money that is spent by the Hajj when they go on Hajj or when they go on Umrah, that does not go to buying weapons from The United States, period. I mean, do you know how budgets work? Do you did you even bother to look into it? The military spending budget for Saudi Arabia is one thing. Okay?

That's one department. The Hajj and Umrah budget is another thing and that's another department. These are two separate governmental departments. Two separate sources of funding. Military spending is funded by oil revenues, it's funded by taxes, by investment, and by the PIF.

0% of that budget is derived from the Hajj and from the Umrah. Revenues from Hajj and from Umrah are reinvested into Hajj and Umrah infrastructure. You boycott the Hajj and the Umrah, all you do is deprive the Muslims of Hajj and Umrah and and their ability to make dua in the Kaaba, in the prophet's masjid, and you hurt local businesses of the Muslims. That's all you achieve by that, by calling for that. I'm not even talking about the the the clueless narrative that Saudi Arabia buying weapons from American companies means therefore that Saudi Arabia is complicit in genocide.

I'm not even talking about that, you know. Since these are the same companies that are also supplying weapons to Israel, then that means Saudi Arabia is complicit. That's so ignorant it's laughable. Like, you even understand how investment works? How leverage works?

You know? That's how you pay off the military industrial complex, you understand? That's what they're doing, it's transparent. That's been the most powerful driver of American foreign policy for decades, the military industrial complex. And paying them off is what has given Saudi Arabia and given the Gulf countries as much autonomy as they have right now.

The military industrial complex does not want to alienate their biggest foreign customers. That's why Egypt has been able to defy The United States and reject their demand that they accept the expulsion of Palestinians into Sinai, that's why. And same with Jordan. It's the reason why Iran was able to literally launch missiles against Israel without that immediately escalating into a replay of the Iraq shock and awe campaign. Because your biggest foreign customers do not approve of that policy.

You understand? They're literally paying off the military industrial complex to make them withdraw from the region. And this is again, this is so obvious, it's so transparent that it's embarrassing to have to explain it. It's leverage and we have seen the use of that leverage time and time again if you pay attention. Those arms purchases are buying autonomy.

Now The US can't pressure Saudi Arabia for example, this cut ties with China, cut ties with Russia. They can't say anything when Saudi Arabia aligns with BRICS. They can't object meaningfully when Saudi Arabia decides to sell oil to China in Yuan. They can't demand that Saudi join them in trying to stop Houthi attacks from the Red Sea, on and on. They can't do anything now when Saudi Arabia makes deals across Europe, investment deals trying to they're they're tying investment to recognition of a Palestinian state and they're getting more and more countries to align with that.

You can't force normalization so called on Saudi Arabia now without complying to Mohammed bin Salman's insistence on the establishment of a Palestinian state. I mean, come on. Do you understand politics at all? Do you even follow what's happening in the region? What are you why are you even talking?

Honestly, you know. Saudi Arabia has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Gaza since October 2023. Hundreds of millions of dollars directly from the government, not to mention hundreds of millions of dollars coming directly from private citizens, from local businesses and so on. Exactly those same people who you would hurt by boycotting the Hajj and boycotting the Omer. Saudi Arabia stood with Iran against Israeli and American attacks.

They're doing everything that they can to try to get out from under the yoke of American colonial tyranny in the region and they are helping every other country in the region also to get out from under that yoke too. And you're gonna come out here, you're gonna come online attacking them while you're doing nothing but be a mouthpiece for our enemies. And everybody with any degree of knowledge about the political dynamics of the region recognizes that the current government of Saudi Arabian, Mohammed bin Salman is defying The United States and they are breaking their historical relationship of Saudi of Saudi's subordination to America. That's been broken. And one of the biggest factors that has enabled them to do that is precisely those weapons purchases that you are ignorant enough to blame Saudi Arabia for making.

You want our countries to emerge suddenly, magically, you know, with full independence and full sovereignty and full autonomy out of nowhere without actually going through the incredibly difficult process of building and securing that sovereignty and securing that independence practically. That's a process that you wouldn't even have the slightest idea how to begin if you were in that situation. Meanwhile, you're sitting over there in America, in the West, in literally the command center of the Gaza genocide and you're saying, you know what the real problem is? The real problem is Muslims going on Hajj. I mean, the evil companies that you're talking about, you know, the arms companies, the ones that you say Saudi Arabia is complicit because they do business with them, because they buy weapons from them, All of those companies, well those companies are right there in your neighborhood.

They're right there in your backyard. Their CEOs are there. Their shareholders are there. The politicians who who who take money from their lobbies, those are your politicians. They're right there with you.

Their factories are there, you know. But you think that not buying an overpriced latte at Starbucks is you doing the pinnacle of activism. That's you doing your utmost. And if Muslims worldwide would just agree to boycott a pillar of Islam, then maybe they could catch up with you and how dedicated and how devoted you are to the pro Palestinian cause, you know. Like Islam is just the same as an overpriced latte to you.

Look, I've had people contact me from The US, from Europe, from The UK, from Germany and so on, saying things like, you know, our protests have not been able to make an impact. So what else can we possibly do? Our mass protests, our street protests. First of all, your protests have had an impact. Boycotts, BDS has had an impact.

But I've talked about this before, you have to accurately understand what protests can and cannot do. What their real effect is and what their real effect isn't and cannot be. In all of these countries, in Europe, in the West, The US, UK, anywhere in Europe and so on. Understand that selling weapons to Israel, giving weapons to Israel is illegal by your own domestic laws. It's illegal to provide weapons to a country that's committing war crimes, that's actively committing war crimes, that's committing crimes against humanity, that's committing genocide, that's illegal by the laws of your own countries.

You understand me? But where are the lawsuits? Where are the official legal applications for transparency, for accountability, you know? In any European country at all, you could submit a dossier to the European Commission alleging that Germany for example, which is the largest arm supplier to Israel, Germany's breaching EU statutes. You could file a a parallel petition to the European Parliament and a complaint to the European ombudsman for maladministration.

There's lots of things you can do but you're not doing it. In America, you have the the Leahy laws, you have export control laws, you have the foreign assistance act, you have the alien tort statute which would actually allow Palestinians to sue United States officials. You could use SEC rules against those companies, you know. Like the fact that those companies have have failed to inform their shareholders of potential legal violations that those companies are committing by selling the weapons to Israel. I mean, on and on.

There are active, there are proactive, legal, institutional steps that you could be taking far and above just abstaining from a cappuccino or a big mac. Now, don't come on here talking about the Muslims. Don't come on here telling the Muslim world that they're not doing enough and that they should now stop fulfilling the duty of Hajj just because you're complacent over there, just because you're directionless over there, just because you can't get yourselves together enough to pursue legal resistance in a coordinated way, in a coherent way, in an effective way. I mean, have been some attempts in that regard. There have been some attempts but they're fragmented and most people don't even know about them.

For sure the people who are calling for Muslims to boycott the Hajj don't even know about them. Like I've talked about before, the civil rights movement, the protests of the civil rights movement were almost always undertaken to highlight either existing laws or laws that were not being implemented or to bring attention to ongoing court cases that they needed support for. The real success was through the legal process in the civil rights movement and that success was supported by public activism. But you just soaked in the mythology around the civil rights movement, around the civil rights struggle. So you think that all you have to do is go out into the street, you know, carry signs, shout slogans and what have you, have a march and that's gonna be enough to achieve change.

That's not how it ever worked. I mean, have you done for example to support the invocation of article six? To expel America from the United Nations? To stop the genocide by veto? To stop their subjugation of international law?

But you'll dismiss actual practical steps in favor of feel good steps, like a march or a rally or a hashtag or what have you. It's called a struggle because it is a struggle. It's not an afternoon. You understand? The money that you're saving by not buying that overpriced latte put that money into supporting a lawsuit.

Put that money into funding substantive efforts to help Palestine. But when you come on here telling Muslims that going on Hajj and going on Umrah amounts to them supporting genocide, well you've lost your mind. You've become a part of the same machinery that's trying to attack Islam and attack the Muslims all the time, morning, noon, and night. And I've said it before, you sound to everyone outside the West, to the Muslim, the main body of the Muslims in the world, you sound like you're coming in out of some kind of a cult. And you're protecting that cult by what you're saying and what you're doing and what you're calling for.

Look, caring about Palestine caring about Palestine does not automatically mean that you understand the situation. Just because your heart aches doesn't mean that your brain works. You know, if I'm walking down the road, and I see that someone's car has broken down and they're on the side of the highway. Okay? I might feel sorry for them.

I might really feel sorry for them. I really wanna help them. But look, I'm not a mechanic. I can't fix their car. And if I open up the hood and try to tinker around under the hood with their engine, I'll I'll I will definitely only make matters worse.

But you people are like, oh, you know, I've seen I've seen people pouring liquid, some kind of liquid into cars and after that the cars move. So that must be all you need to do. Let me pour my Mountain Dew over the engine that ought to make it work. I'll solve your problem. Honestly, it's that simple minded.

That's how simple minded it sounds to me. You're saying Muslims spend money on Hajj. Hajj is in Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia also spends money on American weapons and American weapons are also sold to Israel. Therefore, Muslim Hajjaj are funding genocide.

Are you okay? Keep Just keep walking. You understand? You don't know how cars work so just keep walking. That's the nicest thing that you can do for someone whose car broke down.

Just pass on by. Because no matter what you're gonna do or you're gonna try to do, you're gonna make it worse. I mean, are gonna be a Muslim in America? A Muslim in the West, accusing Muslims in the Muslim world of being Zionists? While you are smack dab in the middle of Zionism Central, Literally funding Israel with your taxes, voting for, campaigning for, pro Zionist politicians, Republicans and Democrats, and you're going online actively attacking Muslim governments because they're not able to do your job, what is actually your job to do.

They're not able to do that because your government oppressed them, exploited them for decades, invaded them, attacked them, undermined them, overthrew their leaders, sanctioned them, pillaged them. You understand? And they're trying to find right now, they're trying to find any way that they can to get themselves free while also trying to prevent worse and worst case scenarios from playing out and trying to help the Palestinians at the same time. Even when their own situations and their own circumstances are actually very fragile. While you're right there in the middle of it.

You understand? You're right there in the middle of it and you're scared to do anything that might make you so much as lose your job or get doxed, you know, or incur a fine or what have you. And you think you're doing the utmost just by foregoing a bubble tea from Starbucks? You're doing the opposite of what you need to be doing as a diaspora. You need to be building bridges, you need to be building solidarity with the Muslim world, and yes, with the Muslim power brokers in the Muslim world.

You understand the main way that The Gulf States have been able to gain influence, not just in the region, but also inside the West is through strategic investment. And now you want them to have less money? Who are you serving? Whose side are you on? That's why I've said you need to understand, you need to identify whose team you're actually on.

Because look, if The Gulf had not done what they have done over the past decade or so and what they've been doing ever since, 2023, if they had not done all of that. Okay? The Gaza would have been in Sinai for the last year and a half. Gaza would have already been, annexed by Israel. A multi country coalition would have already been engaged in a war against Iran and and demolished Tehran.

The Houthis would have been wiped out already. I mean, do you even understand or remember recent history? Bashar al Assad would still be in power in Syria grinding that country down Muslim by Muslim which is exactly what Israel wanted and said they wanted all the way back in the twenty tens if you remember. I mean they said that that's what they wanted. They literally said that that's what they wanted.

They just wanted an ongoing endless conflict with no winners, no outcome, just an unending grinding conflict and that's exactly what Bashar Allah gave them while never lifting a finger against the Zionists. Oh, you don't understand the region at all, but you feel free to talk about it. You are just a non mechanic who hates to see someone with a broken down car so you're pouring pouring mountain dew on their engine. Look, know your lane. Politics isn't for everyone and it doesn't have to be for everyone.

And I'm I'm saying that to the genuinely naive because we've also got a lot of people out here pushing this kind of foolishness who are not naive but who are malicious. Like I said, you have camouflaged neocons, people who want to see the Muslims bleed and there's no difference here between the right and the left in this regard. When we're talking about non Muslim westerners, there's no difference between the right and the left. You have a lot of malicious actors who are trying to destabilize our lands by pretending that it's because they care about Palestine. You understand me?

Pretending that they care about justice. When all they really want is to undermine our stability, they wanna undermine Palestine, they wanna undermine Gaza, they wanna undermine justice, and they wanna undermine peace. No. They are anti Muslim, they are anti Arab, they are anti Palestinian, and more than anything else, they are anti sovereignty for colonized people. But they play on the heartstrings of the naive, the good hearted, well intentioned Muslims, you know.

They say words in an order that we like and so we applaud and we share their content and we endorse their arguments. You need to stop. Because listen, it only takes one malicious person. One malicious person can put forward a kind of a cunning argument even if it doesn't hold up to any real scrutiny. But if 100 people who do not know how to scrutinize that argument hear it, then they'll amplify it themselves.

It just takes one enemy with a clueless army of well intentioned fools to spread fitna across the internet. Because that's the whole nature of discourse on the internet. That's what it's like. One person crafts the narrative and then thousands of opinion resellers spread it far and wide because most content online is nothing but duplication. So don't be a reseller of nonsense.

Don't be a reseller of fitna. And if you come across someone who is a reseller of nonsense and fitna, then you should block them. Because again, our governments have been slandered with debunked lie after debunked lie, and that should make you understand what the agenda is at play here. But you've let them normalize. You let them normalize the hatred against our governments to such an extent that just telling the truth gets you accused of being an agent for those governments.

Meanwhile, your insistence on lies and your insistence on spreading western Zionist anti Muslim anti Arab propaganda blatantly identifies you as an agent of our enemies whether you're doing it knowingly or you're doing it unknowingly. Whether you're malicious or whether you're ignorant, doesn't make any difference to me. That's what you're acting as whether you know it or not. I mean the saving grace is that no one in the Muslim world actually even takes you seriously, that's the good thing. This is something that a lot of westerners really can't wrap their heads around because of that main character syndrome.

Going on Hajj might be just like a latte to you but for the rest of us no, it's a dream come true when we get to make Hajj, when we get to make Umrah. It's the fulfillment of sometimes a lifelong aspiration and most Muslims in the world are not in that western cult and we recognize when we listen to you how completely disconnected you are from reality. I mean, I'm talking to you because I want you to be better. Not because you really have any power to to harm the rest of us. I'm talking to you because I'm trying to help you get out of that cult mentality.

I'm trying to help you actually connect with the 2,000,000,000 strong ummah, which is something that you are absolutely going to need to do if you hope at all to thrive in the in the in coming decades, the next ten, twenty years and you are absolutely not going to be able to do that as long as the wiring in your brain is so tangled up that it actually makes sense to you to tell Muslims to boycott the Hajj. Do you understand? It is a completely nonsensical take. It's nonsensical religiously, politically, economically and in every other kind of way. When you say something like this, when you call for something like this, all you do is isolate yourselves and you make the rest of the Muslim world boycott you, not the Hajj.

One dua for Gaza in the Kaaba surpasses anything and everything that you have ever done for Palestine. And now you have disgraced yourself by telling Muslims not to go. Why it's embarrassing. It's embarrassing how mixed up you let the West get you. You ought to be trying to help people go for Hajj and Umrah.

You understand? Not just for the religious value, not just for the value of their duas, but also because the Hajj and the Umrah are the biggest networking opportunities in the world for building connections with the Muslim world. The biggest opportunities for creating relationships and creating solidarity and you're coming out against that. You're coming out against it for reasons that don't even compute under any sort of analytical scrutiny because why? Why would you do that?

You know, buying weapons from Raytheon does not constitute complicity. It's purchasing leverage and we have seen how that leverage has been beneficial. But even if you can't wrap your head around that, even if you reject that reality, okay. The reality is that purchases. Money from the Hajj goes to Hajj infrastructure and goes to Hajj services that help Muslims fulfill their duty.

So what? Is your position that if people boycott the Hajj then Saudi Arabia won't have enough money to fund that necessary maintenance, to fund that necessary infrastructure for Hajj. So if they don't have enough money to do that, then what is it? Do you think that then they'll they'll have to pay for that out of their sovereign wealth fund, and they won't be able to purchase those weapons? And you think that's a good idea?

Is that your logic? Is that the logic at play here? If Saudi Arabia cannot diversify their economy through increasing local business revenues by the spending of the Hajjaj when those people come over, when they come over to visit the kingdom, when they come over to visit Saudi Arabia, you know, to visit the prophet's mosque, to visit Badr or Hud sites from the Syria and so forth. You think that you can undermine the Saudi plan for economic sovereignty and you think that that's a good idea? Think that's for the benefit of the Muslims?

See, that's what I meant when I've said solidarity is not a mood. Victory is not a mood, it's not vibes. It's practical solidarity, actually standing together as one solid structure with the rest of the against those who want to harm us. You can't talk about standing for justice if you are standing against the Muslims in any way whatsoever. If you're standing in Houston or in Chicago or in London or in New York or wherever and you're lobbying slanders against the Muslim world and telling Muslims not to go on Hajj and not to go on Umrah and you're trying to indict the Muslim rulers for what your governments are doing.

No. You cannot possibly claim to be standing on the side of justice. I'm so sorry. The blame and accountability goes in one direction and one direction only and everyone in the world knows exactly which direction that is. And the more you try to deflect from that, the more clear it becomes that you have aligned yourself with the blame worthy team.

And you really should take some time off. You should take some time off to reflect on what you're doing. Maybe you should make and pray for guidance.