Nachum Shiloh analyzes the place of Saudi social media in the Kingdom's rivalry with Iran.
On September 24, 2015, a major tragedy took place at the Mina pilgrimage (Hajj) site in Mecca. Hordes of pilgrims were trampled or choked to death as they surged towards the site where the annual stoning of Satan ritual takes place. As of writing, approximately 1100 deaths have been reported, with 900 people injured and nearly 1,000 missing. This tragedy occurred two weeks after the previous disaster in Mecca when a crane collapsed on the side of the large mosque, part of the Kaaba compound, causing the death of 111 people and the injury of 394 others.[1] The large number of Iranian pilgrims who were killed and injured in this disaster (as of this writing, 464 killed and 46 injured) led to a highly publicized confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Iran. This dominated the discourse on social networking sites (SNS), managing to over-shadow discussion of the failings that caused the tragedy.
Even though King Salman bin Abdulaziz maintained a thundering silence on his Twitter and Facebook accounts, and made no comment on the tragedy there,[2] senior Saudi officials did utilize SNS considerably in the wake of the calamity. Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir used his Twitter account to put across three main messages: First, the Saudi authorities do a great deal for the pilgrims and will continue to do so; second, the investigation ordered by Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef will be extremely thorough and all parties responsible for the tragedy will be held to account; and third, Iran, which is issuing an outcry and placing responsibility for the tragedy with the Saudi authorities, is merely taking advantage of human suffering to settle diplomatic scores with Saudi Arabia, and is inciting its pilgrims undergoing the pilgrimage. The behavior of Iran, according to al-Jubeir is consistent with its destructive activities throughout the Middle East, particularly in Syria and Yemen.[3]
The primary media outlet for the Saudi regime, al-Arabiya television network, used its presence on social networking sites to substantiate the claim that the major cause of the tragedy was the ruinous, unrestrained behavior of Iranian pilgrims. Video segments with diagrams and explanations uploaded to its Facebook page seemingly showed how Iranian pilgrims rushing towards the stoning site did not follow the designated routes, and disregarded guidelines and instructions of the Saudi security forces.[4]
Iranian SNS did not remain indifferent to events in Saudi Arabia.[5] Senior officials, led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, used their Twitter and Facebook accounts to ferociously attack the royal House of Saud. In tweets published on his English and Arabic language accounts, Khamenei demanded that Saudi Arabia take responsibility for the tragedy, and even sent a harsh threat of an Iranian response if the Saudi authorities showed any disrespect towards the tens of thousands of Iranian pilgrims, and did not fill their responsibilities in returning the bodies of the deceased to Iran.[6]
Beyond the official response, Iranians used SNS to express their shock at the tragic death of pilgrims, and accused the Saudi authorities of negligence that caused the disaster. Users uploaded pictures and videos from the site of the tragedy to Facebook and Twitter, shared anti-Saudi caricatures that were published in the Iranian press, and created disparaging hash tags targeting the Saudi authorities, including: “Death to the House of Saud,” “Saudi Arabia kills pilgrims” and “Negligent House of Saud.” Users also demanded that the heads of the Saudi government be brought to international justice, and called for a boycott of pilgrimages to the holy sites in Saudi Arabia. User responses even included expressions of hostility and racism towards Arabs, using slurs common among Iranians such as “lizard eaters” and “dirty Arabs.”
Official and semi-official religious establishments in Saudi Arabia also participated in the online discourse following the tragedy. It is particularly worthy to note the response of Sheikh Dr. Mohamad al-Arefe, a cleric known for his extreme positions who sometimes confronts the authorities, and sometimes falls in line with them. Al-Arefe is extraordinarily popular in Saudi Arabia specifically, and in the Islamic world in general, as seen in the fact that he has 13 million Twitter followers and 19 million fans on Facebook. Al-Arefe claimed that meeting death in a place holy to Islam, and especially during the Satan stoning ceremony in Mina, is the most noble type of death that a believer can ask for himself. Therefore, someone who dies during the Hajj has fulfilled the commandment of pilgrimage to its utmost degree. This statement, which redirects the feelings of mourning and anger in a positive direction of religious development and making peace with faith and God’s will, went viral on SNS, helping the Saudi authorities avoid responding to the demands that they take responsibility for the tragedy.[7]
Severe criticism of the way in which Saudi authorities behaved before during and after the tragedy in Mina was indeed expressed on SNS, but it seems that it mostly came from users living abroad, rather than in Saudi Arabia. This was particularly conspicuous in the responses of Saudi Shiite religious leaders. Sheikh Hassan al-Saffar, considered a leader of the Shiites in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, talked in circles around the tragedy, and his Facebook page ignored it altogether. Conversely, Sheikh Ali al-Ibrahimi, who is from the eastern province but now seems to be living in either Iraq or Iran, attacked the Saudi authorities with a vengeance. In an interview given to an Iranian journalist and quoted on SNS, al-Ibrahimi claimed that the tragedy was nothing other than a massacre the Saudi government had planned in advance, and that the king is not truly “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques” (i.e., Mecca and Medina), but rather a traitor to them. Therefore, international intervention was necessary to protect future pilgrims.[8]
The non-religious Saudi opposition in Western countries also responded to the tragedy on SNS. A well-known anthropologist living and teaching in England, Madawi Al-Rasheed, used her Twitter account to attack the Saudi authorities for not taking responsibility for the tragedy, and added that the development of the Hajj complex undertaken supposedly for the benefit of the pilgrims were actually intended to enrich members of the royal family.[9] Immediately thereafter the journalist and member of the Saudi opposition, Ali al-Ahmed of the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington tweeted: “If the Saudi Arabian authorities were innocent in the Mina tragedy they would invite the United Nations and the countries from which the deceased pilgrims came to join in the investigation of the events.”[10]
Overall, the discourse about the tragedy in Mina on Saudi SNS was largely dictated by the “great game,” namely the geopolitical and religious rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Government officials therefore found themselves in the same camp as the official and semi-official religious authorities, and even liberal and opposition groups within the kingdom preferred to keep a notable silence. It remained for the overseas opposition to be the sole online voice in articulating genuine criticism of the government on SNS.
Even though King Salman bin Abdulaziz maintained a thundering silence on his Twitter and Facebook accounts, and made no comment on the tragedy there,[2] senior Saudi officials did utilize SNS considerably in the wake of the calamity. Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir used his Twitter account to put across three main messages: First, the Saudi authorities do a great deal for the pilgrims and will continue to do so; second, the investigation ordered by Crown Prince Muhammad bin Nayef will be extremely thorough and all parties responsible for the tragedy will be held to account; and third, Iran, which is issuing an outcry and placing responsibility for the tragedy with the Saudi authorities, is merely taking advantage of human suffering to settle diplomatic scores with Saudi Arabia, and is inciting its pilgrims undergoing the pilgrimage. The behavior of Iran, according to al-Jubeir is consistent with its destructive activities throughout the Middle East, particularly in Syria and Yemen.[3]
The primary media outlet for the Saudi regime, al-Arabiya television network, used its presence on social networking sites to substantiate the claim that the major cause of the tragedy was the ruinous, unrestrained behavior of Iranian pilgrims. Video segments with diagrams and explanations uploaded to its Facebook page seemingly showed how Iranian pilgrims rushing towards the stoning site did not follow the designated routes, and disregarded guidelines and instructions of the Saudi security forces.[4]
Iranian SNS did not remain indifferent to events in Saudi Arabia.[5] Senior officials, led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, used their Twitter and Facebook accounts to ferociously attack the royal House of Saud. In tweets published on his English and Arabic language accounts, Khamenei demanded that Saudi Arabia take responsibility for the tragedy, and even sent a harsh threat of an Iranian response if the Saudi authorities showed any disrespect towards the tens of thousands of Iranian pilgrims, and did not fill their responsibilities in returning the bodies of the deceased to Iran.[6]
Beyond the official response, Iranians used SNS to express their shock at the tragic death of pilgrims, and accused the Saudi authorities of negligence that caused the disaster. Users uploaded pictures and videos from the site of the tragedy to Facebook and Twitter, shared anti-Saudi caricatures that were published in the Iranian press, and created disparaging hash tags targeting the Saudi authorities, including: “Death to the House of Saud,” “Saudi Arabia kills pilgrims” and “Negligent House of Saud.” Users also demanded that the heads of the Saudi government be brought to international justice, and called for a boycott of pilgrimages to the holy sites in Saudi Arabia. User responses even included expressions of hostility and racism towards Arabs, using slurs common among Iranians such as “lizard eaters” and “dirty Arabs.”
Official and semi-official religious establishments in Saudi Arabia also participated in the online discourse following the tragedy. It is particularly worthy to note the response of Sheikh Dr. Mohamad al-Arefe, a cleric known for his extreme positions who sometimes confronts the authorities, and sometimes falls in line with them. Al-Arefe is extraordinarily popular in Saudi Arabia specifically, and in the Islamic world in general, as seen in the fact that he has 13 million Twitter followers and 19 million fans on Facebook. Al-Arefe claimed that meeting death in a place holy to Islam, and especially during the Satan stoning ceremony in Mina, is the most noble type of death that a believer can ask for himself. Therefore, someone who dies during the Hajj has fulfilled the commandment of pilgrimage to its utmost degree. This statement, which redirects the feelings of mourning and anger in a positive direction of religious development and making peace with faith and God’s will, went viral on SNS, helping the Saudi authorities avoid responding to the demands that they take responsibility for the tragedy.[7]
Severe criticism of the way in which Saudi authorities behaved before during and after the tragedy in Mina was indeed expressed on SNS, but it seems that it mostly came from users living abroad, rather than in Saudi Arabia. This was particularly conspicuous in the responses of Saudi Shiite religious leaders. Sheikh Hassan al-Saffar, considered a leader of the Shiites in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia, talked in circles around the tragedy, and his Facebook page ignored it altogether. Conversely, Sheikh Ali al-Ibrahimi, who is from the eastern province but now seems to be living in either Iraq or Iran, attacked the Saudi authorities with a vengeance. In an interview given to an Iranian journalist and quoted on SNS, al-Ibrahimi claimed that the tragedy was nothing other than a massacre the Saudi government had planned in advance, and that the king is not truly “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques” (i.e., Mecca and Medina), but rather a traitor to them. Therefore, international intervention was necessary to protect future pilgrims.[8]
The non-religious Saudi opposition in Western countries also responded to the tragedy on SNS. A well-known anthropologist living and teaching in England, Madawi Al-Rasheed, used her Twitter account to attack the Saudi authorities for not taking responsibility for the tragedy, and added that the development of the Hajj complex undertaken supposedly for the benefit of the pilgrims were actually intended to enrich members of the royal family.[9] Immediately thereafter the journalist and member of the Saudi opposition, Ali al-Ahmed of the Institute for Gulf Affairs in Washington tweeted: “If the Saudi Arabian authorities were innocent in the Mina tragedy they would invite the United Nations and the countries from which the deceased pilgrims came to join in the investigation of the events.”[10]
Overall, the discourse about the tragedy in Mina on Saudi SNS was largely dictated by the “great game,” namely the geopolitical and religious rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Government officials therefore found themselves in the same camp as the official and semi-official religious authorities, and even liberal and opposition groups within the kingdom preferred to keep a notable silence. It remained for the overseas opposition to be the sole online voice in articulating genuine criticism of the government on SNS.
[4] facebook.com/AlArabiya?fref=ts
[5] We are grateful to our colleague Dr. Raz Zimmt, for providing the responses to the tragedy found on Iranian SNS.