Paul Goble
Staunton, February 19 – Apparently in order to save money, Moscow has decided to end government-paid-for treatment of tuberculosis and venereal diseases, a decision that, given the large number of cases in the Russian Federation, will contribute to that country’s continuing demographic decline.
In a comment on the “Svobodnaya pressa” portal today, Oleg Koen and Aleksandra Koen note that the Russian government has just released a list of diseases for which Russian citizens can receive free treatment. Gone from this year’s list, they point out, are sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis (svpressa.ru/blogs/article/39242/).
What drove officials to take this step, the authors say, “is not clear,” given that both of these categories of disease represent a far greater public health threat than do many of the diseases that Russians can still obtain government-supplied treatment without making any payment.
From now on, they note, Russians will have to pay for treatment of gonorrhea and syphilis, both of which are widespread in that country. In the past, they could get “free treatment at dispensaries at their place of residence.” Now, if they are diagnosed with one or the other of these, they will either have to pay or not get cured.
“In the capital and major cities, more or less well-off citizens will turn both to government institutions and private clinics,” the Koens say, even though the costs can range up to 17,000 rubles (580 US dollars), a price that will put treatment beyond the reach of many ordinary Russians.
Moreover, they point out, “the quality of treatment will correspond to the distance of the region from civilization, that is from cities with at least a million residents.” But the requirement that Russians pay for such treatment will exacerbate another obstacle to seeking medical attention for such problems.
As in the past, “the main obstacle for cures will be not money and not the time it takes ot travel to an oblast center but the banal lack of desire to receive such treatment.” As the Koens note, “it is no secret many Russians from childhood relate to doctors with care and view people in white coasts approximately the way they do Judeo-masons, witches and NKVD executioners.”
Trusting such people was unthinkable in Soviet times, and “for certain Russians hardly anything has changed. The introduction of paid services will become another reason not to visit the doctor’s offices,” with some trying to make use of often ineffective folk remedies and others choosing not to be treated at all.
The situation with regard to tuberculosis may be even worse, the two write. TB is “a social disease,” one that is “most widespread” among “the least well-off and least defended strata of the population,” including those in prisons and those in the military. To that has been added Gastarbeiter communities where infections are rife.
According to the Russian health ministry, the Koens report, there were about 82 tuberculosis cases for every 100,000 Russian Federation citizens, with 117,227 new cases registered in that year, the fewest in the Central Federal District and the most in the Far Eastern FD.
Mortality from tuberculosis in 2007, they say, was 18.1 per 100,000 residents. That means that every year approximately 25,000 Russians die from this disease, “three times more” than the rate in Europe. In fact, 85 percent of Russian deaths from infectious and parasite disease are now from tuberculosis, a disease which can be treated effectively.
“If an individual suffers from venereal diseases and is not cured,” the Koens say, “that individual in essence brings harm exclusively to his own health and – potentially – to his possible sexual partners. But if one is speaking about tuberculosis, then the social danger that someone ill with that presents is high.”
Curing tuberculosis varies in cost. The World Health Organization suggests that most ambulatory TB cases can be treated for about 3,000 to 5,000 rubles (100 to 180 US dollars), but in the case of antibiotic resistance tuberculosis, the cost can rise to “several thousand or even tens of thousands of dollars.”
Other countries recognize this threat and provide public health support for cures. The Koens survey the cases of the US, the UK, Singapore, China, Australia, Canada and even Belarus. In every case, they say, the government provides more assistance for tuberculosis victims than Russia now proposes to do.
Indeed, “even in the very poorest countries, the situation is better than in Russia,” they note, reporting that in Afghanistan and even in The Gambia, the governments continue to assume responsibility for combating this public health scourge. And now, despite all the words from the top leaders about taking care of the population, Moscow is making the situation worse.
“These changes,” the Koens point out, “directly affect approximately one in every 1,000 residents of the Russian Federation and indirectly all those with whom this one tenth of one percent who are infected comes into contact.” If one reflects that this is an airborne disease, “that is practically any person” at all, something that should give Russians pause.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Window on Eurasia: Russians Must Acknowledge that Muslims Made Russia Possible, Gainutdin Says
Paul Goble
Staunton, February 19 – The problems that exist between Orthodox Christians and Muslims in Russia will only be overcome when the former acknowledge that the latter have the right to call themselves “representatives of the Russian state and indigenous residents and to demand equal treatment,” the head of the Union of Muftis of Russia (SMR) says.
In an interview published in “Kommersant” today, Ravil Gainutdin points out that “Muslim peoples made possible the creation of the Russian state, that without Muslims there wouldn’t have been a Rus or a Russia and that in Russia [today] live more than 20 million Muslims” (www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1587146&NodesID=7).
On paper, he adds, the Muslims of Russia have “never had such rights as [they] have today,” but there are problems because “many Orthodox consider that theirs is the majority and that Russia is an Orthodox country.” To which, he says, Muslims respond “No, Russia is both Orthodox and Islamic” and note that “if we Muslims had not helped organize the Russian [principalities], there wouldn’t have been a Russian state.”
But most of his interview is devoted to the situation within the Russian umma and especially to the organizational structure of the leading Muslim institutions there. After the end of the Soviet Union, he notes, the unified system that had existed collapses in a way that can only be described as “chaotic and not systematic.”
“In every republic and region of the Russian Federation,” Gainutdin continues, there began to be established local spiritual administrations.” As a result, at present, there are “more than 70” MSDs, often competing with one another in particular regions and working at cross purposes more generally.
Over the last 20 years, three “major centralized” MSD-type structures have assumed a prominent role, subordinating most but not all of the 70 others. These are Gainutdin’s own SMR, the Central MSD based in Ufa and led by Talgat Tajuddin, and the Coordinating Center of Muslims of the North Caucasus, with a headquarters in Cherkessk and led by Ismail Berdiyev.
A few months ago, Gainutdin says, “the powers” attempted to create a fourth structure alongside these, the Russian Association of Islamic Agreement (RAIS), a body that was intended not to help Muslims unite but rather to contribute to further divisions among “the already existing regional muftiates.”
“Unfortunately,” the mufti said, “the fate of the Muslim umma for a long time has not depended on the Muslims themselves” both organizationally and financially. “First in the Russian empire and then in the Soviet Union for the administration of the affairs of Muslims was created and preserved a system” which was intended to divide rather than unite the umma.
“Russia is the only country in the world among those countries of the traditional distribution of Islam where there is not a single leadership for Muslims,” a lack of unity that the followers of Islam suffer from and that they would like to overcome if and when that becomes possible.
There have been various attempts at unification among the three main organizations, Gainutdin points out, and none of these three have backed away from talking about unity, even though that is difficult and even though the authorities, as they have done with the creation of the RAIS group, have thrown up roadblocks to the unity even they say they want.
Unfortunately, the Muslim groups cannot act independently because financing remains a problem, the SMR head said. First, these institutions lack the ability to finance themselves. Second, the waqfs have not yet been restored in sufficient number to ensure fiscal stability. Third, the government, being secular, cannot finance them directly.
And fourth, the funds that these groups had received from foreign Muslims in earlier times are now being funneled through a government-controlled Foundation for the Support of Islamic Science, Culture and Education, which gives the powers that be rather than the Muslims control over where such monies go.
Gainutdin adds that relations with the top leaders of the country, President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin are quite good. They “very clearly know the mechanisms and ways of working with the MSDs. And Muslims of Russia always feel support from the side of the political leadership of the country.”
But the mufti says, “one must acknowledge that there are cases when this general line is not carried out locally.” Instead, there “the local leadership, at times functionaries of mid-rank, considers it possible to dictate to the leaders of Muslim organizations their actions with regard to internal issues of the umma.”
Among other things, Gainutdin was asked about Wahhabism. He acknowledges that that trend within Islam “exists” internationally and in Russia, adding that “Wahhabism in the form of terrorism is a harmful ideology which is spreading in the North Caucasus.” But it remains “only an ideology” until it “promotes force and the shedding of blood.”
And in a final comment, Gainutdin points out that “the majority of Russians do not have a sufficient understanding about what kind of a religion Islam is and are invariably surprised when they hear that Islam recognizes Jesus Christ and in general together with Christianity and Judaism is an Abrahamic religion and that the three have common roots.”
Staunton, February 19 – The problems that exist between Orthodox Christians and Muslims in Russia will only be overcome when the former acknowledge that the latter have the right to call themselves “representatives of the Russian state and indigenous residents and to demand equal treatment,” the head of the Union of Muftis of Russia (SMR) says.
In an interview published in “Kommersant” today, Ravil Gainutdin points out that “Muslim peoples made possible the creation of the Russian state, that without Muslims there wouldn’t have been a Rus or a Russia and that in Russia [today] live more than 20 million Muslims” (www.kommersant.ru/doc.aspx?DocsID=1587146&NodesID=7).
On paper, he adds, the Muslims of Russia have “never had such rights as [they] have today,” but there are problems because “many Orthodox consider that theirs is the majority and that Russia is an Orthodox country.” To which, he says, Muslims respond “No, Russia is both Orthodox and Islamic” and note that “if we Muslims had not helped organize the Russian [principalities], there wouldn’t have been a Russian state.”
But most of his interview is devoted to the situation within the Russian umma and especially to the organizational structure of the leading Muslim institutions there. After the end of the Soviet Union, he notes, the unified system that had existed collapses in a way that can only be described as “chaotic and not systematic.”
“In every republic and region of the Russian Federation,” Gainutdin continues, there began to be established local spiritual administrations.” As a result, at present, there are “more than 70” MSDs, often competing with one another in particular regions and working at cross purposes more generally.
Over the last 20 years, three “major centralized” MSD-type structures have assumed a prominent role, subordinating most but not all of the 70 others. These are Gainutdin’s own SMR, the Central MSD based in Ufa and led by Talgat Tajuddin, and the Coordinating Center of Muslims of the North Caucasus, with a headquarters in Cherkessk and led by Ismail Berdiyev.
A few months ago, Gainutdin says, “the powers” attempted to create a fourth structure alongside these, the Russian Association of Islamic Agreement (RAIS), a body that was intended not to help Muslims unite but rather to contribute to further divisions among “the already existing regional muftiates.”
“Unfortunately,” the mufti said, “the fate of the Muslim umma for a long time has not depended on the Muslims themselves” both organizationally and financially. “First in the Russian empire and then in the Soviet Union for the administration of the affairs of Muslims was created and preserved a system” which was intended to divide rather than unite the umma.
“Russia is the only country in the world among those countries of the traditional distribution of Islam where there is not a single leadership for Muslims,” a lack of unity that the followers of Islam suffer from and that they would like to overcome if and when that becomes possible.
There have been various attempts at unification among the three main organizations, Gainutdin points out, and none of these three have backed away from talking about unity, even though that is difficult and even though the authorities, as they have done with the creation of the RAIS group, have thrown up roadblocks to the unity even they say they want.
Unfortunately, the Muslim groups cannot act independently because financing remains a problem, the SMR head said. First, these institutions lack the ability to finance themselves. Second, the waqfs have not yet been restored in sufficient number to ensure fiscal stability. Third, the government, being secular, cannot finance them directly.
And fourth, the funds that these groups had received from foreign Muslims in earlier times are now being funneled through a government-controlled Foundation for the Support of Islamic Science, Culture and Education, which gives the powers that be rather than the Muslims control over where such monies go.
Gainutdin adds that relations with the top leaders of the country, President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin are quite good. They “very clearly know the mechanisms and ways of working with the MSDs. And Muslims of Russia always feel support from the side of the political leadership of the country.”
But the mufti says, “one must acknowledge that there are cases when this general line is not carried out locally.” Instead, there “the local leadership, at times functionaries of mid-rank, considers it possible to dictate to the leaders of Muslim organizations their actions with regard to internal issues of the umma.”
Among other things, Gainutdin was asked about Wahhabism. He acknowledges that that trend within Islam “exists” internationally and in Russia, adding that “Wahhabism in the form of terrorism is a harmful ideology which is spreading in the North Caucasus.” But it remains “only an ideology” until it “promotes force and the shedding of blood.”
And in a final comment, Gainutdin points out that “the majority of Russians do not have a sufficient understanding about what kind of a religion Islam is and are invariably surprised when they hear that Islam recognizes Jesus Christ and in general together with Christianity and Judaism is an Abrahamic religion and that the three have common roots.”
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