Auron ka hai Payaam aur, mera Payaam aur hai, / Ishq key dardmand ka tarz-e-kalaam aur hai! (Iqbal)
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that without the best health insurance you were dead meat in America. But that is my personal fight in and with America. It has been for the better part of the last four decades.
There are nearly 90 million (almost one-third of the total population) “un”- and “under”-insured people in America. Don’t ask me who or what they are. They are basically people who lack healthcare or just don’t have enough of it.
When it comes to healthcare the rich have it and the poor and the not-so-rich don’t. I mean health insurance in America. The richest society on earth, populated by some of the most generous and kind-hearted people in the world, is caught in a trap that makes it a disaster for the poor and the un- and under-insured to get sick.
I have been saying forever: If you are smart, you don’t get sick in America. And you don’t grow old. Unless of course you are rolling in wealth.
That is my quick foray in the world of sarcasm.
I am not going to spend a great deal of time and space explaining what those words “un”-insured and “under”-insured mean. But suffice it to say that they both spell trouble for those who fall under either one of those categories.
Talking plainly, if you don’t have health insurance, or enough of it, you are in trouble every time you get sick and need to see a doctor or have to go to a hospital.
To me, however, healthcare is a fundamental human right. Health being a basic human condition, healthcare is a basic human need. That means society everywhere has an obligation to provide adequate healthcare to all human beings living under its aegis.
I have been fighting that fight all my life in America. American presidents have been fighting that fight for nearly 100 years. President Clinton threw himself in that fight – and lost. He and his wife came out bowed and bloodied from that fight – and learning all the wrong lessons.
I used to joke to my university classes on Public Relations, I still do, that Clinton took his ideas on healthcare from my lectures but he lacked a serious strategy. He forgot to ask me, I would say with a twisted smile on my lips, how to get it done.
And now President Obama has thrown himself in that fight. Again, in his speeches, you can hear the echo of the speeches I have been giving for the past 40 years on the subject of healthcare.
Will he succeed? Only time will tell. Also what will tell is if the ruling Democratic leadership and party have the political will and moral fibre to be true to what they believe deep down inside and profess outside.
If fear, greed and lack of moral will cause the Democrats to turn tail and run once again, the cause of healthcare in America would again be set back maybe by about 20-30 years.
STRAIGHT TALKER
He held himself erect. And he walked straight. He also talked straight talk. In general he radiated an air of efficiency and confidence. And yet when you really got close to him you saw that he carried the burden of the world on his shoulders.
He talked about how far the Muslims had deviated from Islam in almost all important aspects of their lives. He talked, almost in a monotone, how the general condition of the Muslims had degenerated over the years. And he talked, this time with greater visible emotion, how the human condition had gone from bad to worse in all of India.
And the rich, he said with great sadness in his voice, were becoming increasingly heartless and cruel and uncaring. They were amassing large fortunes and growing more indifferent by the day about the condition of the poor.
The condition of the poor in our society is worse than that of the animals, he said. You go anywhere and it is all the same. The rich seem to have everything and the poor seem to be wallowing in the most miserable conditions, lacking even the barest necessities of life.
I experienced a mix of emotions as I spoke with him. At times I felt he was all work and no feeling. And then I saw through his tough exterior and got a glimpse of the pain that seemed to gnaw at his heart. Not a personal pain at his own condition, but a most general and sublime pain born of a sweeping concern for his fellow human beings – both Muslim and non-Muslim.
That is how Muslims used to be, I told myself. They loved and they cared. And they served. And they were deeply hurt and troubled by the plight in which they found their fellow human beings.
They feared and loved Allah. And they were consumed by the desire to serve his creation. These were people who had dedicated themselves to love God in heaven and serve humanity on earth.
And that is how some of the best of them are even to this day.
These men and women are the salt of the earth I said to myself. They are the true saints of today. They are God’s Elect in modern times. May God Almighty bless them!
And the man I was talking about, the man with a straight walk and a straight talk to match, was none other than Mr. Ejaz Aslam, the Editor of Radiance Viewsweekly, the Muslim magazine that has been coming out of Delhi for the past nearly 50 years.
I wonder if, when and how Radiance will celebrate its 50th anniversary.
May God Almighty bless and guide and help the Radiance family to continue to carry out their most noble mission of loving God and serving humanity. They have been a beacon of light and hope in a night that has been so intensely dark for so long. They are truly a silver lining in a dark cloud.
And may God Almighty bless India, the land of my ancestors. And the land of great many noble saints who provided light and guidance to millions upon millions of people throughout the land. They cured the sick and freed human beings of all faiths from the clutches of all kinds of demons.
And may God Almighty bless America, the land I chose to raise my family in, like so many others both Muslim and non-Muslim. And may God Almighty bless all of his beautiful earth which he created for Adam and his progeny.
I say this because that is what Islam is: a blessing for everyone and everything everywhere in every possible way. And because that is who Muslims are: the unstoppable blessers of everyone and everything in the world.
Even though the world may not know it and even though often the Muslims themselves may not realise it.
[Write to the author at Drsyedpasha@aol.com. Also visit www.IslamicSolutions.Com and Listen to Pasha Hour International.]