Hajj and the rekindling of the enduring legacy of dissent

By Abdussalam Nakua

Millions of Muslims from across the globe have converged on the Holy sites in Arabia to perform the annual pilgrimage, known as Hajj.

Unique even within Islamic ritualistic practice, Hajj is steeped in symbolism as it weaves the inwardly spiritual encounters with the outward expression of collective affirmation of the faith. 

At its core, Hajj is a reaffirmation of the monotheism as revived by Prophet Ibrahim.

Among his best-known descriptive names is “Haneef”, an Arabic term which is best translated as the quintessential dissenter ( literally “haneef” means bent limbs due to what is now known as Blount’s Disease and refers to someone who swerved away from the rest).

Paradoxically, the term “haneef” entered the Islamic lexicon as a reference to uprightness and monotheism. 

Since then and for millennia, dissension has been celebrated as part of human history.

Dissenters became catalysts for reform and agents of change as they challenged established religious orthodoxy, political structures, and scientific or medical expertise. 

For the past century, protest has emerged as a powerful expression of dissent and a viable option for political reform.

Notable examples are the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 and the workers’ rights movement, women’s suffrage movement, Greenpeace, and the environmental protection movement.

More recently, the Arab Spring #BlackLivesMatter, #IdleNoMore, and #MeToo are some of the prominent protest movements in the past decade.

Each found its strength in its capacity to amplify the collective voices of the protesting masses. 

Most recently, the dissent energy found its expression in challenging the war in Gaza and exposing the complicity of many Western governments in it.

Protests across the world demanded a halt to the gross and unprecedented violations of the established norms of international law and human rights conventions by the Israeli government.

These protests exposed the arrogance of power imbued by wealth and privilege.

This manifested itself, for instance, in the unchecked influence exerted by wealthy donors on educational institutions and the narrow interests of the corporate-controlled media institutions. 

More seriously, the willingness of the political and media institutions to pursue tactics that are reminiscent of the McCarthyism era in trying to silence any form of dissent.

Such tactics included: the use of the security and political machinery of the state to attack civil liberties through limiting Charter-protected rights.

Criminalizing political speech by imposing arbitrary limits on it.

The heavy-handed responses to campus protests in the U.S. and elsewhere, including Canada, are another naked attempt at silencing dissent.

Students and faculty were also targeted by doxxing, public shaming, surveillance, and reprisals from employers. 

Fifty years ago, the McDonald Commission, which was instituted to investigate the abuses by the RCMP during the October crisis, warned against stifling dissent and against government overreach.

It asserted that the freedom of legitimate political dissent “must not be compromised, whittled down, or balanced off to make effective security possible”. 

Reflecting on the long history of these protest movements, for dissent to remain an effective force for change, it must morph into a robust coalition, across movements and even across borders, to resist inequality, injustice, marginalization, oppression, and violence.

Its success must be measured in its ability to calibrate the power hierarchy and facilitate the redistribution of power and authority within society.

Hajj can be a great visual illustration of the collective power contained in the single actions by millions of individuals when they emerge as a purposeful collective, and a reminder that dissent can be a revolution in slow motion.

[Abdussalam Nakua is an executive with the Muslim Association of Canada. He serves on the board of directors for the Ontario Nonprofit Network].