[The Great Debates] A 7th Century War on Terror

This is an outstanding academic piece compiled by Brother Adnan Rashid (HafidUllah) with respect to the colloquial question in connatation to the amplification of the Islamic sovereignty after the bereavement of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) and prememinently under the tutelege of the meritoriously guided Chaliphs and the Ummayad Dynasty. Very articulate with a strong historical evidence base. Taken from The Great Debates (iERA) website which can be found by clicking here!

A 7th Century War on Terror

By Adnan Rashid

‘What is there now, I ask of delight in this world? Everywhere we observe strife; fields are depopulated, the land has returned to solitude…And yet the blows of Divine justice have no end, because among the blows those guilty of evil acts are not corrected…’ [1]

These are the words of Pope Gregory the Great (c. 594) who was a contemporary of the Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him). He was clearly wishing for divine justice to emerge in order to correct the evildoers i.e. the Lombard tyrants in this case. The Divine intervention was at hand:

“And We have sent you (O Muhammad [SA]) not but as a mercy to mankind”[2]

And mercy he was. The Messenger of Allah received the above revelation not long after the disturbing plea of the Pope and this revelation was a signal for the Prophet to initiate a war against terror and tyranny. Islam emerged as a power and in a very short period of time took over large portions of land from the surrounding establishments. Prophet Muhammad died in 632 CE and exactly a century later in 732 CE the Muslims had reached as far as Southern France and Northern China. This was the largest and the fastest expansion the world had ever known and it was made possible only by the justice and mercy the Muslims had to offer, as will be amply demonstrated in the following paragraphs.

It may be puzzling to some who may question how the Muslims were able to conquer such a large portion of land so rapidly without much difficulty? A Muslim believer would give an easy and simple answer to this question by quoting the Qur’an:

“Allah has promised those among you who believe and do righteous good deeds, that he will certainly grant them succession (to the present rulers) in the land, as He granted it to those before them, and that He will grant them authority to practise their religion which he has chosen for them(Islam).”[3]

History testifies that this is precisely what occurred and here one must note that the Arabs, at the time, were the least able people to achieve this, primarily, due to the lack of military equipment and resources. Carole Hillenbrand, a leading Arabist/historian from the University of Edinburgh, confirms this:

‘Much ink has been spilt on the phenomenon of the Islamic conquest, but few firm conclusions can be drawn…It seems unlikely that the Arabs possessed military superiority over their opponents. Certainly, they had no secret weapon, no new techniques. Indeed, in some military spheres they were inexperienced; they allegedly learned siege warfare, for example, from the Persians. They were also unfamiliar with how to fight naval engagements.’[4]

Even the contemporary Christian writers could not offer a reasonable explanation and attributed this rapid expansion of the Islamic governance to Divine intervention. John Bar Penkaye (690 CE), a contemporary of the early Islamic conquest, had this to say:

‘We should not think of the advent (of the children of Hagar) as something ordinary, but as due to divine working. Before calling them, (God) had prepared them beforehand to hold Christians in honour; thus they also had a special commandment from God concerning our monastic station, that they should hold it in honour. Now when these people came, at God’s command, and took over as it were both kingdoms, not with any war or battle, but in a menial fashion, such as when a brand is rescued out of the fire, not using weapons of war or human means, God put victory into their hands in such a way that the words written them might be fulfilled, namely, “One man chased a thousand and two routed ten thousand.” How otherwise, could naked men, riding without armour or shield, have been able to win, apart from divine aid, God having called them from the ends of the earth so as to destroy, by them “a sinful kingdom” and to bring low, through them, the proud spirit of the Persians.’[5]

Byzantines and the Persians were utterly uprooted by these ill-equipped nomads. European scholarship is still perplexed about the causes that led to the early Islamic conquest. To a sceptical historian or a conditioned rationalist, Divine intervention could never be entertained as a logical or even a scientific hypothesis. Such people require a historical justification, which is based upon political and socio-economic factors.

Tolerance or Terror

In light of this there is a very reasonable explanation: The Muslims, when expanding, treated the non-Muslim inhabitants of vanquished nations with a previously uncharted level of tolerance, which in consequence encouraged the non-Muslim societies to embrace the approaching armies with open arms. Professor Thomas Walker Arnold gives an interesting account of such an occurrence. He states:

‘When the Muslim army reached the valley of the Jordan and Abu Ubaydah pitched his camp at Fihl, the Christian inhabitants of the country wrote to the Arabs, saying: “O Muslims, we prefer you to the Byzantines, though they are of our own faith, because you keep better faith with us and are more merciful to us and refrain from doing us injustice and your rule over us is better than theirs, for they have robbed us of our goods and our homes.” The people of Emessa closed the gates of their city against the army of Heraclius and told the Muslims that they preferred their government and justice to the injustice and oppression of the Greeks…The fear of religious compulsion on the part of the heretical emperor made the promise of Muslim toleration appear more attractive than the connection with the Roman Empire and a Christian government…’[6]

Perhaps, it was these facts, which persuaded Thomas Arnold to conclude:

‘Of forced conversion or anything like persecution in the early days of the Arab conquest, we hear nothing. Indeed, it was probably in a great measure their tolerant attitude towards the Christian religion that facilitated their rapid acquisition of the country.’[7]

So the Muslims were in fact seen as liberators from the Roman/Byzantine tyranny. As far as the Syrian Christians were concerned, the Muslims were carrying out a noble war on terror.

Syria rescued from the Byzantine terror

Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, a Jacobite (or a Syrian Orthodox Christian) patriarch from 818 to 845 CE, also gave some reasons of this preference of the Muslims over Romans by the people of Syria. He stated in his chronicle, which covers the period from 582 to 842 CE, that Heraclius mustered 300,000 troops from Armenia, Syria and the Roman heartlands to expel the Muslims out of Syria. Muslims decided to withdraw to reform their war strategy. However, whilst withdrawing, the Muslims decided, out of fairness, to refund the money, which they had taken as tribute from the Syrian Christians to protect them from any form of oppression:

‘Abu Ubaydah, whom Umar had put in command of the Arabs, ordered Habib b. Maslama to return to the Emesenes the tribute which he had exacted from them with this message: “We are both bound by our mutual oaths. Now we are going to do battle with the Romans. If we return, this tribute is ours; but if we 

are defeated and do not return, we are absolved of our oaths.” So they left Emessa for Damascus; and the emir Abu Ubaydah ordered Saeed b. Kulthum to return the tribute to the Damascenes likewise…To them he said: “ If we return victorious we shall take it back. But if we are defeated and prove powerless to save you from the Romans, here is your tribute, keep it. We for our part shall be absolved of the oaths which we have sworn to you.”’[8]

One must note that this was taking place in 7th century Syria where plunder, robbery and injustice were a common occurrence and what is mentioned above is quoted from a mid 9th century Christian source (which testifies that the Muslims did not abuse power and they did not betray the trust Christians bestowed upon them). Thomas Arnold adds, from an Islamic source (Abu Yusuf, Kitabul Khiraj [The Book of Taxes]), that

‘In accordance with this order, enormous sums were paid back out of the state treasury, and the Christians called down blessings on the heads of the Muslims, saying, “May God give you rule over us again and make you victorious over the Romans; had it been they, they would not have given us back anything, but would have taken all that remained with us”’[9]

It would be fair to assert here that those Muslims acted in accordance with the teachings of the Qur’an:

‘Verily, Allah commands that you should render back the trusts to those, to whom they are due; and that when you judge between men, you judge with justice. Verily, how excellent is the teaching, which He gives you! Truly, Allah is ever all- Hearer, all-Seer.’[10]

Dionysius of Tel-Mahre confirms the accuracy of Abu Yusuf:

‘So the Arabs left Damascus and pitched camp by the river Yarmuk. As the Romans marched towards the Arab camp every city and village on their way which had surrendered to the Arabs shouted threats at them. As for crimes the Romans committed on their passage, they are unspeakable, and 

their unseemliness ought not even to be brought to mind…The Arabs returned, elated with their great victory, to Damascus; and the Damascenes greeted them outside the city and welcomed them joyfully in, and all treaties and assurances were reaffirmed. ’[11]

It is very clear from Dionysius’ testimony that the Romans were extremely oppressive towards the non-Chalcedonian Christian population of Syria, which caused this population to prefer the Muslim tolerance over the Byzantine terror. Muslims, in most, cases treated the minor Christian sects of Syria with maximum justice and sympathy, which enabled all parties to live in peace for the first time for a long time. For most of the Jacobite and Nestorian Christians in Syria, Muslim arrival was a God sent retribution against the Byzantine terrorist establishment.

Egypt saved from the Chalcedonian persecution

The same seems to have taken place in Egypt where, according to Dionysius, the Coptic Patriarch submitted Egypt voluntarily to the Muslims:

‘We have found in the tales and stories of Egyptians that Benjamin, the Patriarch of the Orthodox in Egypt at the time, delivered the country to the Arab general Amr b. al-As out of antipathy, that is enmity, towards Cyrus, the Chalcedonian (Byzantine) Patriarch in Egypt.’[12]

This enmity, however, was due to the persecution of the Orthodox Church in Egypt at the hands of the Byzantine Church. John of Nikiou (690 CE), who was a Coptic bishop in Nikiu (Egypt), confirmed the testimony of Dionysius:

‘When Muslims saw the weakness of the Romans and the hostility of the people to the emperor Heraclius because of the persecution wherewith he had visited all the land of Egypt in regard to the orthodox faith at the instigation of Cyrus the Chalcedonian Patriarch [in office 631/2-41], they became bolder and stronger in the war…And people began to help the Muslims.’[13]

And in some cases the Egyptians refused to fight the Muslims at all [14]. One must keep in mind that these are contemporary Christian sources testifying that the Muslims were actually being helped by the Egyptian Orthodox Coptic Christians to put the Chalcedonian Byzantine Christian persecution to rest. Alfred J. Butler, a leading authority on the history of Egypt, believed that the Muslim arrival benefited both Christian factions by enabling them to live in peace together under the Islamic protection:

‘After all that the Copts had suffered at the hands of the Romans and the Patriarch Cyrus, it would not have been unnatural if they had desired to retaliate upon the Melkites [the Romans]. But any such design, if they cherished it, was sternly discountenanced by ‘Amr, [the Muslim conqueror of Egypt] whose government was wisely tolerant but perfectly impartial between the two forms of religion. Many facts might be cited in proof of this contention…So that the two forms of Christianity must be imagined as subsisting side by side under the equal protection of the conquerors.’[15]

It is evident from the testimonies cited above that the Muslims came as a mercy for the wider Egyptian population. The Coptic Christians in Egypt were also a target for the Byzantine terror and it was this terror which caused the Copts to join the Muslims against their co-religionists. ‘Amr bin al-‘Aas (may Allah be pleased with him) had established a peaceful abode for all parties and this he did by implementing the Shariah Law in Egypt. Thus the real operation “Enduring Freedom” was accomplished successfully in the land of Pharaohs.

Spain liberated from the Visigothic tyranny

Muslims landed in Spain in 711 CE and many sources testify that they were welcomed by the population, as their reputation preceded them. This was due to the severe persecution afflicted upon certain communities by the Visigothic Kings. Under these kings’ rule (following their conversion to Catholicism from Arianism), the Jewish community, in particular, was severely oppressed. The Catholic hierarchy in Spain held many ecumenical councils to solve political and religious disputes and in these councils (many held in Toledo), severe edicts were issued against the Jews of Spain. One of the clauses in the text of the proceedings of the 4th Council of Toledo (633 CE) states,

‘We decree that the sons and daughters of the Jews should be separated from the company of their parents in order that they should not become further entangled in their deviation, and entrusted either to monasteries or to Christian, God fearing men and women, in order that they should learn from their way of life to venerate the faith and, educated on better things, progress in their morals as well as their faith.’[16]

Zion Zohar, an American Jewish historian, confirms the Jewish appreciation of the Muslim arrival in this way:

‘Thus, when Muslims crossed the straits of Gibraltar from North Africa in 711 CE and invaded the Iberian Peninsula, Jews welcomed them as liberators from Christian Persecution’. [17]

And what did this liberty bring for the Jews in the subsequent centuries? Was this liberty similar to the one the U.S government has delivered to the Iraqis, resulting in mass murder and abuse of prisoners, or was it a freedom that was deeply ingrained in Islamic values such as justice and tolerance? Zion Zohar has an answer:

‘Born during this era of Islamic rule, the famous Golden Age of Spanish Jewry (circa 900-1200) produced such luminaries as: statesman and diplomat Hasdai ibn Shaprut, vizier and army commander Shmuel ha-Nagid, poet-philosophers Solomon Ibn Gabriol and Judah Halevi, and at the apex of them all, Moses Ben Maimon, also known among the Spaniards as Maimonides [who is Known as the second Moses among the Jews].’[18]

Thus the Jews were treated with fairness and Justice in Islamic Spain unlike the rest of Europe and it was this fair treatment which produced the famous Golden Age for the House of Jacob, which they appreciate to this day.

Heinrich Graetz, a 19th century Jewish historian expressed similar sentiments regarding Muslims in Spain:

‘It was in these favourable circumstances that the Spanish Jews came under the rule of Mahometans, as whose allies they esteemed themselves the equals of their co-religionists in Babylonia and Persia. They were kindly treated, obtained religious liberty, of which they had so long been deprived, were permitted to exercise jurisdiction over their co-religionists, and were only obliged, like the conquered Christians, to pay poll tax (Dsimma)’[19]…Jewish Spain became “the place of civilization and of spiritual activity- a garden of fragrant, joyous, and happy poetry, as well as the seat of earnest research and clear thought.” Like the Arabian Christians (the Christians who lived amongst the Mahometans) the Jews made themselves acquainted with the language and literature of their conquerors, and often got precedence over them. But whilst Arabian Christians gave up their own individuality, forgot their own language- Gothic Latin- and could not even read the creeds, and were ashamed of Christianity, the Jews of Spain were so little affected through this contact with Arabs, that it only served to increase their love and enthusiasm for their mother tongue, their holy law, and their religion. Through favourable circumstances Jewish Spain was in a position at first to rival Babylonia, then to supersede it, and finally to maintain its superiority for nearly five hundred years.’[20]

In Islamic Spain, even the Christians preferred Islamic government (based upon Shariah Law) over that of the Franks. This assertion appears to be quite reasonable when the views of Reinhart Dozy, an authority on the early Islamic Spain, are taken into consideration:

‘The unbounded tolerance of the Arabs must also be taken into account. In religious matters they put pressure on no man…Christians preferred their rule to that of the Franks.’[21]

Ulick R. Burke, a prominent historian specializing in the history of Spain, reached a similar conclusion:

‘Christians did not suffer in any way, on account of their religion, at the hands of Moors…not only perfect toleration but nominal equality was the rule of the Arabs in Spain.’[22]

This tolerance had an immense impact on the Christian population of Spain, many of them converted to Islam and those who did not adopted the Islamic culture in regards to literature and lifestyle. This is emphatically substantiated by the 9th century Spanish Christian writer, Paul Alvarus (who was writing in the 850’s at Cordova):

‘The Christians love to read the poems and romances of the Arabs; they study the Arab theologians and philosophers, not to refute them but to form a correct and elegant Arabic. Where is the layman who now reads the Latin commentaries on the Holy Scriptures, or who studies the Gospels, prophets or apostles? Alas! All talented young Christians read and study with enthusiasm the Arab books; they gather immense libraries at great expense; they despise the Christian literature as unworthy of attention. They have forgotten their own language. For every one who can write a letter in Latin to a friend, there are a thousand who can express themselves in Arabic with elegance, and write better poems in his language then the Arabs themselves.’[23]

Most of the aforementioned opinions indicate that the Muslim arrival in Spain liberated the masses from a deep slumber of ignorance and oppression. Prior to the Islamic emergence, the Catholic Spanish establishment was known for persecuting the Jews and minor Christian sects. The Muslims changed all of that and what followed was the appearance of a true renaissance that enabled Jews, Muslims and Christians to live in peace for centuries. Maria Rosa Menocal, one of the authorities on medieval European literature, decided to title her work (which describes how the Abrahamic faiths co-existed peacefully during the Islamic era) the “Ornament of the world”[24]; the phrase was used by Hroswitha (a 10th century German nun) to describe Islamic Spain[25]. Thus, Islam came as a mercy for the people of Iberian Peninsula, who welcomed the new rulers as liberators for the tyranny of the Visigoths.

A 7th century War on Terror

One may question as to why was it that the Muslims were invading these lands and removing the already existing governments from power? It must be recognized that most of the 7th/8th century powers were guilty of oppression against their own subjects. The Qur’an provides one of the reasons, which caused the early Muslims to intervene:

‘And what is wrong with you that you fight not in the cause of Allah, and for those weak, ill-treated and oppressed among men, women and children, whose cry is: “Our Lord! Rescue us from this town whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from You one who will help”’[26]

The Muslims were thus charged to carry out a war on terror in order to liberate the weak and oppressed and they duly fulfilled the Qur’anic injunction (it has been substantiated above that the populations of some of the countries Muslims took were severely oppressed by their rulers and it was due to this reason that they welcomed the Muslims as liberators). However, in this 7th century war against terror there was no oil or re-construction/destruction contracts involved. An objective approach to the subject will lead to similar findings. Perhaps the views of the Nestorian Patriarch of Khurasan in the 7th century, Ishoyabh III, will help elucidate upon this more. He addressed a letter to Simeon, the Primate of Persia, where he wrote:

‘and the Arabs, to whom God at this time has given the empire of the world, behold, they are among you, as ye know well: and yet they attack not the Christian faith, but, on the contrary, they favour our religion, do honour to our priests and the saints of the Lord, and confer benefits on churches and monasteries.’[27]

Usually exploitation and plunder of resources follows an invasion, as can clearly be seen in the case of the colonial period and modern day Iraq (Iraq’s most precious Baghdad museum was plundered following the US invasion (2003) and the 7000 years history of Mesopotamian civilisation was lost). Did Muslims follow the same precedence? Adam Smith, the 18th century founding father of modern capitalism (whose portrait is illustrated on the back of the current £20 note), did not think so:

‘The ruin of the empire of the Romans, and, along with it the subversion of all law and order, which happened a few centuries afterwards, produced the entire neglect of that study of the connecting principles of nature, to which leisure and security can alone give occasion. After the fall of those great conquerors and the civilisers of mankind, the empire of the Caliphs seems to have been the first state under which the world enjoyed that degree of tranquillity, which the cultivation of the sciences requires. It was under the protection of those generous and magnificent princes, that the ancient philosophy and astronomy of the Greeks were restored and established in the East; that tranquillity, which their mild, just and religious government diffused over their vast empire, revived the curiosity of mankind, to inquire into the connecting principles of nature.’[28]

Adam Smith (1723-1790) was one of the most outstandingly intelligent economists of his time. His works such as “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” and “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” are thought to be among the cornerstones of Western literature. The latter work (which is the most popular work in the field of economics to this day) seems to be very much concerned with an inquiry into how certain nations acquire prosperity. Some of the ways of acquiring prosperity and scientific advancement, which he expressed in the aforementioned quote, are security, the sense of tranquillity and justice; and Adam Smith believed that the mild, just and religious government of the Muslim Caliphs (who governed with Shariah Law) revived the curiosity of mankind to attain all kind of benefits from nature. The critics and the so called modern reformers of Islam need to pay heed to Adam Smith’s words and see whether he was reasonable in his conclusion in this regard. If Islam enabled mankind to achieve a high level of prosperity in those days, it still contains the potential to repeat the same today. One has to observe, in the light of history and contemporary reports, whether the present war on terror really is a war on terror or the 7th century Islamic war on terror better qualifies to be called “a war on terror”. If one was to examine objectively, one will find the 7th century war on terror to be a better choice, as today we do not see any positive outcome of the so called “21st century war on terror” but in the 7th century Muslims weakened the Byzantine, Persian and Visigothic terror to replace it by what, in the case of Spain, Adam Smith describes as scientific enlightenment for Europe:

“The victorious arms of the Saracens [Latin synonym for a Muslim] carried into Spain the learning as well as the gallantry, of the East; and along with it, the tables of Almamon, and the Arabian translations of Ptolemy and Aristotle; and thus Europe received a second time, from Babylon, the rudiments of the sciences of the heavens. The writings of Ptolemy were translated from Arabic into Latin; and the Peripatetic philosophy was studied  in Averroes [Ibn Rushd] and Avicenna [Ibn Sina] with as much eagerness and as much submission to its doctrines in the West, as it had been in the East.”[29]

[1] Pope Gregory I quoted by Mohammad Farooq Kemal, The Crescent vs The Cross, Lahore, 1997, P. 7.
[2] The Quran, Surah AL-Anbiya 21, verse 107.
[3] The Quran, Surah an-Noor 24, verse 55.
[4] Carole Hillenbrand, Muhammad and the rise of Islam, The New Cambridge Medieval History, 2005, vol 1, p. 340.
[5] John Bar Penkaye, quoted by Walter E. Kaegi, Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquest, Cambirdge, 2000, p. 216.
[6] T. W. Arnold, Preaching of Islam, London, 1913, p. 55.
[7] Ibid, p. 132-4.
[8] Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, The Seventh Century in the West-Syrian Chronicles, tr by Palmer, Liverpool, 1993, p. 156-7.
[9] T. W. Arnold, Preaching of Islam, London, 1913, p. 61.
[10] The Quran, Surah 4 An-Nisa, Verse 58.
[11] Dionysius of Tel-Mahre, The Seventh Century in the West-Syrian Chronicles, tr by Palmer, Liverpool, 1993, p. 157.
[12] Ibid, p. 158
[13] John of Nikiou, quoted by Petra M. Sijpesteijn, Egypt in the Byzantine World, Cambridge, 2007, p. 442.
[14] Ibid, see footnote 28.
[15] Alfred J. Butler, The Arab Conquest of Egypt and the Last Thirty Years of the Roman Dominion, 1902, Oxford, p. 447-8.
[16] The Jews in the Legal Sources of the Early Middle Ages, edited by Amnon Linder, New York, 1997, p.488.
[17] Zion Zohar, Sephardic & Mizrahi Jewry, New York, 2005, p. 8-9.
[18]  Ibid, p. 9.
[19] H. Graetz, History of the Jews, London, 1892, Vol 3, p. 112.
[20] Ibid, p. 220.
[21] Reinhart Dozy, A History of Muslims in Spain, 1861 (reprinted 1913, 2002), Delhi, p.235.
[22] Ulick R. Burke, A History of Spain, London, 1900, vol I, p. 129.
[23] Paul Alvarus quoted by Maria Rosa Menocal, Ornament of the world, New York, 2003, p.66.
[24] Maria Rosa Menocal, Ornament of the world, New York, 2003.
[25] Stanley Lane-Poole, The Moors in Spain, London, 1920, p. 144.
[26] The Quran, Surah An-Nisa 4, verse 75.
[27] Ishoyabh III quoted by T. W. Arnold, Preaching of Islam, London, 1913, p. 81-82.
[28] The Essays of Adam Smith, London, 1869, p. 353.
[29] Ibid, p. 354.

 

[Al Jazeera] US healthcare: Profits before patients

US healthcare: Profits before patients

What is the point of having the world’s best medical facilities if citizens don’t have the money to access healthcare? Rose Aguilar Last Modified: 24 May 2011 16:45

As many as 45,000 people in the US die every year because they can’t afford healthcare [Photo: Rose Aguilar] When Stan Brock started Remote Area Medical (RAM) in 1985, never in his wildest dreams did he think his services would be needed in the United States, the wealthiest country in the world. RAM began as an all-volunteer mobile medical clinic that provided free and immediate health care to people living in remote areas of the Amazon rainforest. In 1992, he was asked to bring the clinic to Knoxville, Tennessee. He was shocked by what he saw. “People were in desperate need of the most basic care,” he said at RAM’s most recent expedition in Oakland, California last month. “It didn’t occur to me when I first came to this country, but it wasn’t long before I could see there were similarities between people who don’t have access to healthcare in a place like the Amazon and people who have access but can’t afford it in America – and they’re all in the same boat.” An estimated 50 million Americans are uninsured and another 25 million are underinsured, meaning they can’t pay the difference between what their insurance will cover and the total cost of their medical bills. Someone files for bankruptcy every 30 seconds in the US because of a serious health problem, according to a Harvard University study. Since 1992, RAM has conducted 640 expeditions in the US. When the travelling medical clinic comes to town, the lines begin forming at around midnight. An average of 3,000 people are treated at a typical four-day event. Over 90 per cent of the patients are in desperate need of basic dental and vision care. Each clinic costs roughly $100,000 to run, requires over 1,000 volunteers, and takes an entire year to organise. When patients entered the clinic at the Oakland Coliseum, they were greeted by smiling volunteers, rows upon rows of dental chairs, optometric stations, and tables covered with medical tools, gloves, and equipment. When Milka Guiterrez heard that free healthcare was being offered, she moved her schedule around to get a good place in line. On Sunday night, long after her three kids were sound asleep, she left her house at 1am. She was number 474 in line. Shortly before patients began entering the makeshift clinic five hours later, Guiterrez ran home, grabbed her kids, and returned with her fingers crossed. She got lucky. She and her kids had eye exams and dental work. Her eight-year-old daughter Paloma was in pain from the drilling, but managed to crack a smile. “When I used to smile, there was yellow stuff everywhere,” she said wiping away tears. “I was so embarrassed. I stopped smiling when I was six. It hurts, but now I’m happy.” After 12 years with the US Postal Service, Anita Moore was hurt on the job and lost her health insurance. She got in line at 3:30am. By 6pm, she had her eyes checked, her teeth cleaned, two fillings, and four extractions. Six months ago, she had an injury and hasn’t been able to lift her arms above her shoulders. The pain went away after 15 minutes of acupuncture at the clinic. “I was so happy because I couldn’t lift. I was just shocked. Now I can move them around,” she said. “It’s a blessing.” Les Kuller, an unemployed construction worker who got in line at 5:30am, lost his health insurance when his wife passed away two years ago. He got a molar fixed, had his blood pressure checked, was given a pair of eyeglasses, and had chiropractic and physical therapy work. He was so touched by the care he received and the volunteers he met, he came back the next day to join them. “The least I could do is give back,” he said. “On one hand, this is so incredibly amazing that all these volunteers can pull this together. On the other hand, it’s a sad commentary about what the hell is going on in Washington and why the hell these knuckleheads can’t walk across the aisle and shake hands and figure this thing out.” Kuller says he hopes people standing in overnight lines for basic medical care “embarrasses the hell” out of politicians. I heard similar sentiments from several people receiving care at the clinic. When profit comes before care Democratic politicians proudly point to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the bill that was signed by President Obama in March 2010, as real progress, but Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), an organisation of doctors who support healthcare for all, say the bill is nothing more than a false promise of reform. Instead of eliminating the real problem, the new legislation will enrich and further entrench the profit-driven, private health insurance industry, and leave 23 million people still uninsured in 2019, according to PNHP. If Republicans have their way, the 45 million seniors and people with disabilities who rely on Medicare will see their out-of-pocket costs double – or do without treatment altogether. RAM founder Stan Brock doesn’t like to talk about politics. He’s too busy making sure people get treated. RAM’s next stop is in Pikeville, Kentucky. From there, he and his team will head to Cocke County, Tennessee, Wise County, Virginia, and Chicago, Illinois. Because he’s has had so many requests from all over the country, he sees no end in sight. This is what happens when profit comes before care. UnitedHealth’s first quarter profits this year rose 13 per cent to $1.35 billion from $1.19 billion last year. UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley’s total compensation of $101.96 million last year made him the highest paid executive in the country. The US is the only major country in the industrialised world that doesn’t guarantee healthcare to all of its citizens. It’s unconscionable that 45,000 people in the US die every year because they can’t afford care. Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who believes that the US should put patients over profits, recently re-introduced the American Health Security Act, which would provide every citizen with healthcare coverage through a state-administered, single payer program. Here’s a fact from the PNHP that never made its way through the noise machine during the so-called healthcare debate – which was shaped by the insurance industry from the beginning. It should be repeated over and over again. the bureaucracy and paperwork of the profit-making health insurance industry consume one-third of every healthcare dollar. Streamlining payment through a single-payer system would save more than $400 billion per year – which is enough to provide comprehensive, high-quality coverage for all. RAM’s Stan Brock says a single-payer system, as long as it covers dental and vision, would put him out of business in the US. “That would allow us to go back to the Amazon, Central America, Haiti – and other places where we belong.” Rose Aguilar is the host of Your Call, a daily call-in radio show on KALW in San Francisco. She’s the author of “Red Highways: A Liberal’s Journey into the Heartland.” The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

 

Noam Chomsky: My Reaction to Osama bin Laden’s Death

May 6, 2011

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic.

By Noam Chomsky

It’s increasingly clear that the operation was a planned assassination, multiply violating elementary norms of international law. There appears to have been no attempt to apprehend the unarmed victim, as presumably could have been done by 80 commandos facing virtually no opposition—except, they claim, from his wife, who lunged towards them. In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress “suspects.” In April 2002, the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, informed the press that after the most intensive investigation in history, the FBI could say no more than that it “believed” that the plot was hatched in Afghanistan, though implemented in the UAE and Germany. What they only believed in April 2002, they obviously didn’t know 8 months earlier, when Washington dismissed tentative offers by the Taliban (how serious, we do not know, because they were instantly dismissed) to extradite bin Laden if they were presented with evidence—which, as we soon learned, Washington didn’t have. Thus Obama was simply lying when he said, in his White House statement, that “we quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda.”

Nothing serious has been provided since. There is much talk of bin Laden’s “confession,” but that is rather like my confession that I won the Boston Marathon. He boasted of what he regarded as a great achievement.

Micheal Scheuer, former chief of the CIA’s bin Laden unit, writes: “As to bin Laden himself, Americans have been told that he is many things, but virtually none of the portraits of him feature his piety, generosity, personal bravery, strategic ability, charisma and patience.”

There is also much media discussion of Washington’s anger that Pakistan didn’t turn over bin Laden, though surely elements of the military and security forces were aware of his presence in Abbottabad. Less is said about Pakistani anger that the U.S. invaded their territory to carry out a political assassination. Anti-American fervor is already very high in Pakistan, and these events are likely to exacerbate it. The decision to dump the body at sea is already, predictably, provoking both anger and skepticism in much of the Muslim world.

It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”

We might ask ourselves how we would be reacting if Iraqi commandos landed at George W. Bush’s compound, assassinated him, and dumped his body in the Atlantic. Uncontroversially, his crimes vastly exceed bin Laden’s, and he is not a “suspect” but uncontroversially the “decider” who gave the orders to commit the “supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole” (quoting the Nuremberg Tribunal) for which Nazi criminals were hanged: the hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, destruction of much of the country, the bitter sectarian conflict that has now spread to the rest of the region.

There’s more to say about [Cuban airline bomber Orlando] Bosch, who just died peacefully in Florida, including reference to the “Bush doctrine” that societies that harbor terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves and should be treated accordingly. No one seemed to notice that Bush was calling for invasion and destruction of the U.S. and murder of its criminal president.

Same with the name, Operation Geronimo. The imperial mentality is so profound, throughout western society, that no one can perceive that they are glorifying bin Laden by identifying him with courageous resistance against genocidal invaders. It’s like naming our murder weapons after victims of our crimes: Apache, Tomahawk… It’s as if the Luftwaffe were to call its fighter planes “Jew” and “Gypsy.”

There is much more to say, but even the most obvious and elementary facts should provide us with a good deal to think about.

Copyright 2011 Noam Chomsky
________________________________________________________________________

Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor emeritus in the MIT Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. He is the author of numerous best-selling political works. His latest books are a new edition of Power and Terror, The Essential Chomsky (edited by Anthony Arnove), a collection of his writings on politics and on language from the 1950s to the present, Gaza in Crisis, with Ilan Pappé, and Hopes and Prospects, also available as an audiobook.

To read more blog entries from Noam Chomsky click HERE . Read Guernica’s interview with Noam Chomsky here.

 

Reasons Behind the Japanese Tsunami

By: Shaykh/Dr. Haitham al-Haddad [Taken from here]

Muslims believe from divine scripture that the whole of mankind has been ennobled, and it is in that sense of shared humanity that Muslims feel saddened over the recent catastrophe that Japan has faced. It is the soft heart of the believer that requires him/her to reflect upon catastrophes such as the recent one where thousands have perished and thousands of others are still missing.

More than 1,000 bodies washed ashore on the first day in the north-eastern area hardest hit by the magnitude 8.9 quake that struck in the Pacific Ocean and triggered a devastating tsunami. Even on the fourth day search-and-rescue crews extracted more than 2,000 corpses with the Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan stating that this is Japan’s greatest national tragedy since World War II.

Such suffering can be very difficult to digest, and is true to note that many Muslims will ask: why did Allah allow this to happen? What is divine wisdom behind such a catastrophe?

The answer, as simple as it is, is given in the Qur’an,

“And if the people of the towns had believed and had the taqwa (piety), certainly, We should have opened for them blessings from the heaven and the earth, but they belied (the Messengers). So We took them (with punishment) for what they used to earn (polytheism and crimes, etc.). Did the people of the towns then feel secure against the coming of Our Punishment by night while they are asleep? Or, did the people of the towns then feel secure against the coming of Our Punishment in the forenoon while they play? Did they then feel secure against the Plan of Allah? None feels secure from the Plan of Allah except the people who are the losers.”^[1]

Of course, we might ask: but what did the Japanese do? They have never fought the believers – the state has formally renounced war as a sovereign right and bans settlement of international disputes through the use of force.

Many people assume that Allah only punishes people when they commit injustices towards others, yet Muslims must refrain from being so self-absorbed; Allah created mankind so that they may worship Him in line with His monotheistic nature, and deviancy from such a clear purpose only serves to anger the Most High. It is true that Japan is not like the US or many of its allies in that it refrains from waging direct war against others, yet their failure was the lack of submission to Allah and refusing to admit that all of the favours they are blessed with are given to them by their Creator. Japan has the world’s third-largest economy and is the world’s fourth largest exporter and fifth largest importer. Japan is also a leading nation in technology, machinery, biomedical research, and fundamental scientific research, having produced fifteen Nobel laureates. Some of Japan’s most prominent technological contributions are in the fields of electronics, automobiles, machinery, and leads the world in robotic production and use. Despite the luxurious lives they live, as a community they have never thanked Allah by submitting to him.

Denying the Lordship of Allah and refusing to submit to Him in worship is the biggest act of injustice,

“Or do you feel secure that He will not send you back a second time to sea and send against you a hurricane of wind and drown you because of your disbelief? Then you will not find any avenger therein against Us.”^[2]

The tragic event is without doubt a call from the Lord of everything that exists for people to submit to His Majesty and worship Him alone. It is a call for everyone to remember that this life is temporal and filled with suffering, and true enjoyment will only come with success in the afterlife.

“And this life of the world is only amusement and play. Verily, the home of the Hereafter, that is the life indeed (i.e. the eternal life that will never end), if they but knew!”^[3]

---

Notes:
Source; www.islam21c.com

Islam21c requests all the readers of this article, and others, to share it on your facebook, twitter, and other platforms to further spread our efforts.

[1] 7:96-99

[2] 17:69

[3] 29:64

 

 

The journey of sadness [Tsunami 2004] – The Wrath of The Most Severe in Punishment

Tsunami in 2004, Haiti & the floods in 2010 and now the Japanease quake in 2011. Astagfirullah Adheem, May Allah SWT forgive & protect us from His wrath and grant us a place in the highest level of jannah.

 

 

Corruption has appeared throughout the land and sea by [reason of] what the hands of people have earned so He may let them taste part of [the consequence of] what they have done that perhaps they will return [to righteousness].

[The Romans 30:41]

 

France’s ban on the Islamic veil has little to do with female emancipation

A focus on women’s rights is being used to justify intervention in religious and public life that would otherwise be unacceptable

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 26 August 2010 14.51 BST Joan Wallach Scott

Outlawing the wearing of the veil in public is part of a campaign to protect ‘true Frenchness’ and capture the xenophobic vote. Photograph: Fred De Noyelle/Corbis

If there were any doubt about the motivation for the ban on Islamic face coverings passed by the French national assembly in July, the Sarkozy government’s actions in August have laid them to rest.

The issue isn’t women’s emancipation, for all the pious rhetoric we’ve heard about equality being a “primordial value” of the French nation. It isn’t the danger that terrorists and robbers will hide behind burqas in order to blow up buildings or rob banks – the exemptions in the law for motorcycle helmets, fencing and ski masks, and carnival costumes quickly dispel that argument. And it isn’t about enforcing openness and transparency as an aspect of French culture.

Outlawing what the French call “le voile intégral” is part of a campaign to purify and protect national identity, purging so-called foreign elements – although many of these “foreigners” are actually French citizens – from membership in the nation. It is part of a cynical bid by Sarkozy and his party to capture the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim animus that has brought electoral gains to the rightwing National Front party and to disarm the Socialist opposition, which has so far offered little resistance to the xenophobic campaign.

The national assembly’s action came on July 13, as the country prepared to celebrate the birth of republican democracy in the revolution of 1789. Banning the burqa on the eve of the Fête Nationale provided a clear affirmation of true Frenchness.

It followed a year in which President Sarkozy included a minister of immigration and national identity in his cabinet. The title of the new post conveyed the message that if national identity were in trouble immigrants were the source. The president and his minister called for a countrywide conversation on the meanings of national identity. There were to be contests and town-hall meetings to articulate what it meant to be truly French. When that effort fizzled, they came up with more draconian measures. Sarkozy proposed, this month, to take away the citizenship of foreign-born French citizens if they were convicted of crimes such as threatening the life of a police officer. Children born in France to foreign parents (once presumed to automatically qualify for citizenship) would be denied citizenship if there were any evidence of juvenile delinquency.

This month, too, began the expulsion of the Roma, said to be illegally camped throughout the country and responsible for all manner of crimes. Despite an outcry from those who denounced the expulsions as echoes of Vichy (the government that collaborated with the Nazis in the 1940s), these activities have made “security” a prime focus for politicians and public opinion pollsters. Whether it will deliver another term to Sarkozy in 2012 remains to be seen.

The immediate effect is to conjure a fantasy spectre in which foreigners endanger France and are made to take the blame for all its economic, social and political problems. Instead of real solutions to economic stagnation, high unemployment, discrimination against minorities, violence in the banlieue, and a deteriorating educational system, to name a few, the country is offered a nightmare vision of veiled women and their male handlers, an enemy within the borders who must be uncovered and, in this way, disarmed.

That only a few thousand women wear face coverings in a country that has 4-6 million people from Muslim countries in its population raises the question of why this issue has become the focus of nationalist campaigns, not only in France, but in other western European countries as well. What is it about covered women that so draws the ire and fear of so many, some western feminists included? How have politicians, many of whom have worked hard to keep women out of political office, been able to use feminist themes of emancipation and equality in the politics of the “clash of civilisations”? Why has it been so easy to identify the veil as an instrument only of oppression, even when ethnographers and historians tell us it has multiple meanings, and when some women who wear it insist that they have chosen it because it positively signifies their femininity and their devotion to God?

One answer – and there are many more to be explored – is that the focus on Muslim women’s rights covers over some of the dangerous elements of the “security state”. The claim to be protecting women justifies state intervention in religious, family, and public life that would otherwise be unacceptable.

The same politicians who have long resisted laws on sexual harassment and the punishment of domestic violence become advocates for women when these are identified as Muslim offences. This puts aside the continuing issue of gender inequality as a national problem. And politicians demonstrate their prowess to their national constituencies by acting to protect these supposedly vulnerable women from the men who are said to violate their rights: the proposed law levies a small fine of €150 on a woman wearing a burqa in public, while the men presumed to have forced her compliance get a year in prison and a fine of €30,000.

The state’s role is figured as the protection of its citizens (the analogy is to gallant men protecting the weaker sex), even if that requires the suspension of liberties in the name of security – now the country’s highest priority.

Joan Wallach Scott is Harold F Linder professor of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study (US). She is the author, most recently, of The Politics of the Veil.

 

‘Israel is a Lunatic State’ – Dr. Norman Finkelstein on Gaza Flotilla Attack

 

Robert Fisk: Western leaders are too cowardly to help save lives

Independant, Tuesday, 1 June 2010

It is a fact that it is ordinary people, activists, call them what you will, who now take decisions to change events

Has Israel lost it? Can the Gaza War of 2008-09 (1,300 dead) and the Lebanon War of 2006 (1,006 dead) and all the other wars and now yesterday’s killings mean that the world will no longer accept Israel’s rule? Don’t hold your breath.

You only have to read the gutless White House statement – that the Obama administration was “working to understand the circumstances surrounding the tragedy”. Not a single word of condemnation. And that’s it. Nine dead. Just another statistic to add to the Middle East’s toll.

But it’s not.

In 1948, our politicians – the Americans and the British – staged an airlift into Berlin. A starving population (our enemies only three years before) were surrounded by a brutal army, the Russians, who had erected a fence around the city. The Berlin airlift was one of the great moments in the Cold War. Our soldiers and our airmen risked and gave their lives for these starving Germans.

Incredible, isn’t it? In those days, our politicians took decisions; our leaders took decisions to save lives. Messrs Attlee and Truman knew that Berlin was important in moral and human as well as political terms.

And today? It was people – ordinary people, Europeans, Americans, Holocaust survivors – yes, for heaven’s sake, survivors of the Nazis – who took the decision to go to Gaza because their politicians and their statesmen had failed them.

Where were our politicians yesterday? Well, we had the ridiculous Ban Ki-moon, the White House’s pathetic statement, and dear Mr Blair’s expression of “deep regret and shock at the tragic loss of life”. Where was Mr Cameron? Where was Mr Clegg?

Back in 1948, they would have ignored the Palestinians, of course. It is, after all, a terrible irony that the Berlin airlift coincided with the destruction of Arab Palestine.

But it is a fact that it is ordinary people, activists, call them what you will, who now take decisions to change events. Our politicians are too spineless, too cowardly, to take decisions to save lives. Why is this? Why didn’t we hear courageous words from Messrs Cameron and Clegg yesterday?

For it is a fact, is it not, that had Europeans (and yes, the Turks are Europeans, are they not?) been gunned down by any other Middle Eastern army (which the Israeli army is, is it not?) there would have been waves of outrage.

And what does this say about Israel? Isn’t Turkey a close ally of Israel? Is this what the Turks can expect? Now Israel’s only ally in the Muslim world is saying this is a massacre – and Israel doesn’t seem to care.

But then Israel didn’t care when London and Canberra expelled Israeli diplomats after British and Australian passports were forged and then provided to the assassins of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. It didn’t care when it announced new Jewish settlements on occupied land in East Jerusalem while Joe Biden, the Vice-President of its erstwhile ally, the United States, was in town. Why should Israel care now?

How did we get to this point? Maybe because we all grew used to seeing the Israelis kill Arabs, maybe the Israelis grew used to killing Arabs. Now they kill Turks. Or Europeans. Something has changed in the Middle East these past 24 hours – and the Israelis (given their extraordinarily stupid political response to the slaughter) don’t seem to have grasped what has happened. The world is tired of these outrages. Only the politicians are silent.

Diplomatic storms

*Goldstone report, November 2009

Israel launched Operation Cast Lead in December 2008 with the declared aim of halting rocket fire from Gaza into Israel. More than 1,400 Palestinians were killed in the three-week conflict along with 13 Israelis. The South African jurist Richard Goldstone’s report into the conflict found both Israel and the Hamas movement that controls the Strip guilty of war crimes, but focused more on Israel. Israel refused to co-operate with Goldstone and described his report as distorted and biased.

* The al-Mabhouh assassination, January-May 2010

Britain and Australia expelled Israeli diplomats after concluding that Israel had forged British and Australian passports used by assassins to kill a Hamas commander in Dubai. Israel has neither confirmed or denied a role in the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in his hotel room in January. Britain said such misuse of British passports was “intolerable”. Australia said it was not the behaviour of “a nation with whom we have had such a close, friendly and supportive relationship”.

*Settlements row, March 2010

Israel announces plans, during visit by US Vice-President Joe Biden, to build 1,600 homes for Jews in an area of the West Bank annexed by Israel. The announcement triggers unusually harsh criticism from the United States. Washington said it damaged its efforts to revive the Middle East peace process. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the project was an insult. Netanyahu said he was blindsided by planning bureaucrats and apologised to Biden. Today’s meeting with Barack Obama at the White House, called off by Mr Netanyahu so he could return home to deal with the flotilla crisis, was supposed to be another part of the fence-mending between the two allies.

*Nuclear secrecy, May 2010

Israel, widely assumed to have the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal, has faced renewed calls to sign a global treaty barring the spread of atomic weapons. Signatories of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) last week called for a conference in 2012 to discuss banning weapons of mass destruction throughout the Middle East. The declaration was adopted by all 189 parties to the NPT, including the US. It urged Israel to sign the NPT and put its nuclear facilities under UN safeguards.

 

Critically appraisal of the current contract for community pharmacists in context of laissez faire economics

Alhamdulliah my summarative assessment for pharmacy management module, For those who want an easy read of Irish healthcare politics!

Critically appraisal of the current contract for community pharmacists [Regulations 2009] in the context of laissez faire economics

“If one rejects laissez faire on account of man’s fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action.”

Ludwig Von Mises

A very staunch advocate of state-free interventions, The Austrian economist Mises proposed similar theories to proceeding economists such as Adam Smith (1723-90) that the pursuit of self-interest being the ‘invisible hand’^1,2 would guide the economy to into achieving economic harmony. With the exception of a few sectors (primarily military, legal, judicial system and provision of adequate infrastructure), Smith describes in his magnum opus The Wealth of Nations the theory of laissez faire “Let (people) do (as they think best)”¹ being a ‘principle that government should not interfere with the actions of individuals especially in industrial affairs and in trade’¹. Smith proposes that such a model would ensure efficiency, productivity & quality. However with such a system that has dominated the global scene for 30 years³, has not gone without criticism in both national and international stage by the emergence of developing-world elites favoring rich-world corporations that is deepening the gap of inequality and resulting in increasing poverty and indebtedness worldwide³.

In light of the above paragraph, the Republic of Ireland has a mixed economy that is somewhat free from the problems that arise from both free-markets and command economies. The Irish government has control over the economy via production/consumption legislation, and fiscal policy, which allows for intervention to potentially rectify various failings of the market.

One sector in which the Irish government has phenomenal influence is the health sector. Under the Health Act 2004⁴ , the health service executive (HSE) was established for the provision of health and personal social services for everyone living within the state. It would act as the middle man in coordinating contracts between the pharmacies under various schemes that would fulfill its objective in improving, protecting and promoting public health in an accessible manner to all citizens residing in the country according to their levels of income. The different community schemes include: General Medical Services (GMS)⁵ with currently 1.3 million cardholders⁴ in the state, High-tech drugs (HTD) for provision of medication used or prescribed from primary setting, Drug payments scheme (DPS) for residents of the state who are illegible for GMS, European Economic Area (EEA) residents from member states that are on temporary visit to Ireland and Long Term Illness (LTI) for people who suffers from one or more scheduled disorders. Under such a contract, the HSE would reimburse the community pharmacy contractor a certain percentage of fees for the provision of medication including the trade price + mark up (under DPS/LTI/EEA schemes) + dispensing fee + VAT (if applicable).⁷

In 2007 the total expenditure on the provision of medicines under the umbrella of community drugs schemes was approximately €1.74 Billion which accounted for roughly 13.5% of the total healthcare budget⁴.

Taxes collected from residents of the state (both PAYE & health contribution from PRSI) and service fees collected from the HSE are among the revenue generators that have helped drive the community drugs schemes. The HSE has increased its spending on drug reimbursements over a period of 7 years⁵ with an increase in GMS claims by 9.7%, increase in DPS by 7.5% and LTI claims by 12.9%.⁴ However with this rapidly increasing expenditure (by 9.3%), newly designed costly medication development, greater patient population and various other factors it is inevitable that such policy is unsustainable in the long run especially in the current economic depression.

Pricing of the supply of medicines to the Irish health services came about after an agreement between the HSE & the umbrella body for pharmaceutical companies IPHA (Irish Pharmaceutical Healthcare Association) in September 2006 provided the template for the prices & reimbursement of medicines. In 2007 the reimbursement fees & mark-up for pharmacies cost the HSE approximately €283.83 million⁵.

In July 2009, the minister for finance Mary Harney made amendments to the contract for community pharmacists by reducing the payments reimbursed by the HSE due to community pharmacy contractors⁶. The dispensing fees for drug & non-drug items (excluding extemporaneous compounded products) was reduced significantly:

• Reduction in wholesalers reimbursement from 17.66% to 10%,⁷
• €5 dispensing fee for each of the first 1677 items dispensed by community pharmacy contractor in a month.⁶
• €4.50 dispensing fee for each of the next 833 items dispensed by community pharmacy contractor in that month.⁶
• €3.50 for each of the other items (balance) dispensed by community pharmacy contractor in that month.⁶
• Reductions in retail mark up for LTI⁷/EEA/DPS from 50% to 20%⁷.

The impact of the new pricing affects has a resultant domino effect on the pharmaceutical sector in various aspects: whether it is financial, patient, employees⁷.

Financially the pharmacy will have a much lower turnover as the price paid for the drugs is lowered, the percentage of value of turnover accounted for by the sale of prescription medication is 60.9%⁷, which does not include the sales for non-prescription items along with other goods and services. The gross profit margins will decline, costs for the drugs remains the same where as the sales will be reduced as will operating profits averages⁷.

The retail pharmacy sector as a whole is affected because the new pricing cuts means pharmacies whose revenue is low profits will cease to earn sufficient revenue for survival and hence might force a premature closure, large scale pharmacies profits will also be significantly reduced.⁸ This in turn will cause patients to have a lesser variety of choice for pharmacies and depending on where they live in the republic it might make it very difficult for them to access their local pharmacist. Fewer pharmacies in locality could result in lesser times for pharmacist to engage effectively with all patients due to constant demand on time.⁸ An independent research initiative was carried out (lead by Sean Dorgan) which proposed dispensing fees that would try to overcome some of these challenges mentioned above⁴.

The HSE had always intended to have a realistic, fair, transparent and affordable professional fee to be payable on a flat basis to contractors and striving to focus on the professional role of pharmacists in a much more patient orientated service⁴, It also had to take into account the increasing ingredient costs of developing medical technology and the increasing number of items per scheme⁴. However, it has been criticized for abusing its position of responsibility by intervening with the right of the pharmacists to negotiate with their suppliers for efficiencies in their business dealing⁴.

Nevertheless, the HSE also prevents price extortions from taking place by pharmacies to the public, which would have been very probable in a free-market economy. It also ensures that regardless of an economic boom or recession there is always an adequate supply of health service to the resident of the state. By providing these health care schemes, it has allowed for a very long period of time smaller scale pharmacies to establish and flourish where as a purely laissez faire environment would have seen it either bought off or shut down due to inability to keep up with the competition.

In comparison, the bastions of laissez faire, the USA have long been criticized for its healthcare insurance system due to the sad reality that it is too much of a financial catastrophe upon millions of Americans and has lead to productive excessiveness & waste⁹.

“One of the major threats to the American economy…increase in healthcare costs…. primarily because of the privatised healthcare system which is highly inefficient….leading to huge administrative costs, bureaucratization, surveillance costs and so on.” ⁶

Noam Chomsky [Professor emeritus, MIT, USA]

Estimations that 30% of the $2 trillion that is spent on the USA healthcare goes into unnecessary and in some cases harmful treatments⁹. For such a staggering investment the Unites states has minted hospitals with state-of-the-art technologies, but unfortunately also has a population whose health & life expectancy is far behind that of other industrialized democracies.⁹ Hence why the USA administration under President Obama has decided to enact the new Health reform law to bring about a strategic change in lowering the costs of Medicare & Medicaid and expanding the coverage to an additional 32 million Americans over the next decade.⁹

In conclusion although a review was needed for the reimbursement status due to the inability of the Irish government in sustaining such a growing sector in the long run. The current legislation will inevitably dent community sector thereby ensuring all pharmacies will need to analyze and implement long term strategic planning in order to survive the current economic downturn. It might result in better quality of service from pharmacies but will also resulted in closure of many that are unsustainable in this current recession which could create a new challenge for the government, of whether there will always be a supply of healthcare in rural and less developed regions around Ireland in order to prevent shortage of healthcare services. A purely traditional laissez faire policy will only bring about long-term deficit and exacerbate the cost of service just as the USA has experienced. Rather it’s about bringing the scales to equilibrium that is easier said than done.

References

1. O’Riordan T. Laissez Faire. University College Cork. [Citied 2010 May 2] ; Available from URL:  http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/Laissez-Faire
2. Sloman J. Economics. 6^th Ed. Introduction: Different Economic Systems. Pearson Education Limited: 2006, Page 24-25.
3. Random D, Baird V. People First Economics. New Internationalist Publications Ltd: 2009.
4. Dorgan S, O’Dea M. Independent Body on Pharmacy Contract Pricing. June 2008.
5. Barry M. Economics in Drug Usage in the Irish Healthcare Setting. National Centre for Pharmacoeconomics.
6. Health Professionals (Reduction of payments to community pharmacy contractors) Regulations 2009. S.I. No. 246 of 2009.
7. Gallagher P. Senior Cycle 6 Pharmacy Management. Lectures 1-4. Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland: 2010.
8. Lawlor B. Acquiring and financing a pharmacy. Senior Cycle 6 Pharmacy Management. Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland: 2010.
9. Tumulty K, Pickert. America, The Doctor Will See You Now. Times Magazine. 5^th April 2010.

 

Two Witnesses to Sayyid Qutb’s Hanging

Two Witnesses to Sayyid Qutb’s Hanging

Scholars, propagators and reformists who give their lives for the path of Allah, because of their sincerity to Him, are ranking high in the hearts of people.

Of these propagators and thinkers is Sayyid Qutb, whose hanging left a profound effect in those who knew him and realized his firm belief. Of those affected were two Policemen who witnessed his execution (in 1966).

One of the two is the narrator of the following story:

There were matters which we had not thought of and which made a total change in our lives. Every night, we were receiving in the military prison persons or groups of old and young people and women. We were told that these were traitors cooperating with Jews and that it was a must to extract their secrets. The only way to do this was through severe persecution!

This was enough to alter the complexion of their bodies by various types of sticks and whips. We were doing this in the firm belief that we were doing a sacred duty. However, we soon found ourselves facing unexplainable things. We found that those “traitors” were strictly performing their prayers at night with their tongues continually repeating the name of Allah even under persecution.

Some of them even died under whipping or while wild dogs attacked them, but they were smiling and continually mentioning Allah’s name.

Accordingly, we became doubtful of what we were told, because it was unbelievable that such devout believers were traitors collaborating with Allah’s foes!

We secretly agreed, myself and my brother, to avoid harming them as much as possible, and to give them all assistance we could afford. With the grace of Allah, our stay in that prison did not last long. Our last assignment was to guard a cell where one of them was confined. He was described to us as the most dangerous of all, their mastermind and plotting leader. He was called Sayyid Qutb.

The man was so pained by persecution to the extent that he was no longer able to stand on his feet. They used to carry him to the Military Court looking into his case. One night, orders came to hang him. They brought him a sheikh to remind him of Allah (before being executed).

Early in the morning of the following day, we, my brother and I, held his arms and took him to the closed car to which some other detainees were taken. Moments later, the car headed for the place of execution. Behind us, there were some military vehicles carrying armed soldiers to guard the detainees.

In no time, each soldier took his assigned place armed with his firearm. Officials there had prepared everything including installing a hanging post for each prisoner. There, a rope was put around his neck and a hangman stood waiting for orders to remove the stand underneath the accused. Under a black flag, there stood the soldier assigned the job of hoisting it at the time of execution.

The most awesome were the words uttered by each one of those about to die, to his brothers giving them good tidings about meeting them in Paradise, together with Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and His Companions. These words were terminated by the touching cry: “Allah is greater, praise be to Him.”

In these dreadful moments, we heard a car approaching. The guarded gate was opened and there emerged a high-ranking officer who in a high pitch voice gave an order to the hangmen to stop.

He proceeded towards Sayyid, ordered that the robe be removed from his neck and the patch from his eyes. Then he addressed himself in a trembling voice: “My brother, Sayyid, I am bringing you the gift of life from the patient and merciful President (the then Egyptian President). One phrase which you will sign would pardon you and your brothers.”

He did not wait for the reply, opened a notebook he was holding and said: “write, my brother, only this phrase (I was wrong and I apologize)”.

Sayyid looked up with his clear eyes. A smile which one cannot describe appeared on his face. He told the officer in a surprisingly calm tone: “Never! I would not exchange this temporary life with a life which will never disappear!”

The officer said, with his tone of sorrow: “But this would mean death, Sayyid!”

Sayyid replied: “Welcome to death in the path of Allah .. Allah is Great!”

This shows steadfastness of faith. It was impossible to continue that dialogue. The officer signaled to hangman to carry out execution.

Soon the body of Sayyid and his brothers, oscillated. The tongue of each one of them had just uttered the phrase which we could not forget and whose impact we had never felt as we did in that situation, “There is no deity, but Allah, Muhammad is His Prophet.”

This way, we became pious and God-fearing. We invoke Allah to remain as we are, faithful to Him.

From: “Repenters to Allah”
By: Muhammad Abdul Aziz Al-Musnad
Translated by Dr. Muhammad Amin Tawfiq