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WORLD ISLAMIC
ASSOCIATION FOR MENTAL HEALTH
May
2001 |
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CONTENTS /
SOMMAIRE
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OBITUARY - PROFESSOR
OMAR SHAHEEN (1930 – 2001)
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LETTER TO ISRAELI
MENTAL HEALTH WORKERS: DR. M. F. SENDIONY.
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WORLD ISLAMIC ASSOCIATION FOR MENTAL HEALTH: Minutes of the
Board Meeting on 7th February 2001 - under the chairmanship of
Prof. Dr. Omar Shaheen. |
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OBITUARY - PROFESSOR
OMAR SHAHEEN (1930 – 2001)
Monday 26th February
2001, a patient who was treated by Dr. Omar Shaheen is crying her eyes out
when she knew of his death.
This attests to the amount of compassion
he had for people with mental disturbances. This humanitarian attitude to
mental patients was a welcome change from an all too prevalent cold, clinical
approach, which regards patients as experimental subjects rather than people
in need of treatment.
For more than half a century,
Dr. Shaheen was engaged in a brave battle for what he believed was a just
cause. To anybody who knew him well he was the embodiment of a “driven”
spirit. Such drive couldn’t have lasted for so long without being fuelled by
hope, lots of it. And it was this essential optimism, his close friends say,
which made him the charming and charismatic psychiatrist he was.
He was a man who had the
courage of his convictions. He could stand up and be counted. I remember back
in early 1990’s he clashed with a very high ranking official over a proposal
of the transfer of Abbassia mental hospital and the sale of its land at
a very high price. He was honest
but blunt. He was so outraged that he embarrassed the minister in front of a
huge crowd of eminent psychiatrists.
He led a group of mental health
workers against this unsound project. He sided with the oppressed. He was
afraid that this might lead to the establishment of psychiatric ghettos made
up of homeless former de-institutionalized patients. He fought the good fight
and won. Thanks to his courage Abbassia hospital continues to contribute to
the Egyptian community as a center of psychiatric training and treatment.
A month before his death we had
a meeting of the board of the World Islamic Association For Mental Health.
This meeting was attended by Dr. Shaheen, Dr. Osama El-Rady, Dr. Ahmad Abou
EL-Azayem, Dr. Ola Shaheen, (his daughter and who is at present a professor
of psychiatry at Cairo University), and myself. During the meeting Ola
complained that her dad worked for 16 hours a day. He was workaholic. He
loved his work.
However, he never cared to
drive any financial benefit from the positions he had occupied. The list of
NGO’S he belonged to or headed would fill entire pages. They span the gamut
of activism, between the mental patients’ welfare organization to those
involved in the protection of children and drug and alcohol abuse. He had
also headed and attended countless International Conferences, presented
papers on subjects as varied as “The Islamic Approach to the Treatment of
Opium Addiction” in Australia
1989 and “The Role of the Intifada in Promoting the Mental Health of the
Oppressed Palestinians”, in Auckland New Zealand, 1989.
It would be pointless here to
offer a more detailed description of Dr. Shaheens’ volunteer activities. He
was the president of WIAMA, as well as the Egyptian Psychiatric Association
and the Egyptian Mental Health Association. He also played a vital role in
the Egyptian Medical Syndicate. Anything that improves his county’s mental
health was his business”.
His dynamic personality and
hard work were translated into outstanding achievements in the whole Egyptian
community. During his long academic career he established psychiatric
education and training all over Egypt. More interestingly, the achievement he
was most proud of are his students Many Egyptian psychiatrists today, are his
disciples.
Now that his life is over, most
people will agree that his life was spent in a long, brave and daring struggle,
yet must equally have provided him with personal satisfaction. Mental health
was the subject he most cherished. The huge crowd coming from across the
community to pay a last tribute to this remarkable man at Shazelya Mosque on
the 28th of February 2001, was one proof of the validity of his
choice, and of the love and respect his legionary qualities earned him among
his patients, his students, his colleagues, and the whole Egyptian community.
What Egypt needs at this juncture is a comprehensive compilation of his
varied contributions, his admirably independent vision of mental health and
Islamic culture - the enlightenment and hope he professed.
Dr.
Mohammed Farouk El Sendiony
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LETTER TO ISRAELI
MENTAL HEALTH WORKERS: DR. M. F. SENDIONY.
Israeli mental health worker’s
main job is to promote mental health. However, they are in a very difficult
situation, they can’t promote the mental health of the Israelis at the
expense of the Arabs. The mental health of the Israelis and that of the
Palestinians are inseparable. They will never achieve optimal mental health
for the Israelis without achieving it for the Arabs.
Unfortunately, the mental
health of the Palestinians is at its lowest ebb. This reflects negatively on
the mental health of the Israelis.
The Israeli government has
ordered the occupation army in the West Bank to tighten the blockade on
Palestinian towns, villages and hamlets, apparently in an effort to bully and
starve the estimated 3 million inhabitants into surrender.
All I can tell you is that the
Israeli army is turning Ramallah into a huge concentration comp. True, we
don’t have the gas chambers, but the suffering, the narrow horizons, the
claustrophobia and the depression are very real.
The Jews are a people with a
tragic history of persecution and genocide. Bound by their ancient faith to
the land of Palestine, their “return” to a homeland promised by British
imperialism was perceived by the Western world (responsible for the worst
excesses of anti-Semitism) as a heroic and justified resolution for what they
suffered. However for years and years few paid attention to the conquest of
Palestine by Jewish forces, or to the Arab people already there who endured
its exorbitant cost in the destruction of their society, the expulsion of the
majority, and the hideous system of laws – a virtual Apartheid – that still
discriminates against them inside Israel and in the occupied territories.
Most television viewers today
have no idea about Israel’s racist land policies or its spoliation’s, tortures,
systematic deprivation of the Palestinians just because they are not Jews. As
a black South African reporter wrote in one of the local newspapers here
while on a visit to Gaza, Apartheid was never as vicious and as inhumane as
Zionism: ethnic cleansing, daily humiliation, collective punishment on a vast
scale, land appropriation, etc., etc.
You as Israeli mental health workers bear the
“responsibility by providing a cover for the Israeli government. Where are
you? Don’t you see what is happening?
Israeli Jews and Palestinian
Arabs are locked in Sartre’s vision of hell, that of “other people”. There is
no escape. Separation can’t work in so tiny a land any more than Apartheid
did, Israeli military and economic power insulates them from having to face
reality. This is the meaning of Sharon’s election, an antediluvian war
criminal summoned out of the mists of time to do what” put the Arab in their
place? Hopeless.
Therefore, it is up to the
Arabs and Israelis to provide the answer that power and paranoia cannot. We
would have to provide a solution to the conflict that, in Edward Said’s and
in Mandela’s words would assert our common humanity as Jews and Arabs. The
Arab Israeli conflict is one of the great moral struggles whose goal finally
is coexistence, tolerance and assertion of our common humanity.
Al Tagreba Al Nageha (The
Successful Experiment), The Change In The Concept of Mental Health In the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Osama El-Rady, 2001,
This is a firsthand account by
Dr. Osama El-Rady of his long experience as a pioneer and founding father of
modern psychiatry in Saudi Arabia. It is a thoughtful, well-written and
comprehensive review of the mental health system in Saudi Arabia. It provides
an interesting perspective from which to view the history of Western
psychiatry as well as an opportunity to consider some ways in which
psychiatric profession can be involved in contributing to the development of
an Islamic psychiatric system.
Saudi Arabia now has a modern
psychiatric system with inpatient and outpatient facilities in every part of
the kingdom. Yet 50 years ago there were no psychiatric hospitals, mentally
ill persons were housed in various residences without organized treatment
programs. A remarkable transformation (roughly from the eighteenth to the
mid-twentieth century) was brought about largely through the efforts of Dr.
Osama Al Rady, the present author of this book.
Dr. Osama Al Rady is Western
psychiatric trained, he is a member of the American Psychiatric Association.
Yet, he adjusted psychiatry to the Islamic cultural context. Hence he
innovated Islamic group psychotherapy. He mobilizes Islam in the prevention
and treatment of drug and alcohol abuse.
Dr. Al Rady has to be
congratulated for his efforts in Islamic mental health. This book must be
translated into English so that mental health workers who can’t read Arabic
benefit from his wisdom and experience.
q
WORLD ISLAMIC ASSOCIATION FOR MENTAL HEALTH: Minutes of the
Board Meeting on 7th February 2001 - under the chairmanship of Prof.
Dr. Omar Shaheen.
Minutes of the Board Meeting on
7th February 2001
On the 7th of
February 2001 the Board of WIAMH convened in Cairo at Conrad Hotel at 7 P.M.
under the chairmanship of Prof. Dr. Omar Shaheen.
The following members attended
the meeting:
1- Prof. Osama El
Rady, first WIAMH President.
2- Prof. Omar
Shaheen, WIAMH President.
3- Prof. Farouk El
Sendiony.
4- Prof. Ahmad
Gamal Mady Abou El-Azayem.
5- Prof. Ola
Shaheen.
It was decided unanimously that
the next International WIAMH Congress to be held in Aden on the 24, 25 of
October 2001. Dr. Maan Abd Al Bary was nominated as the Congress Head in
cooperation with Dr. Abou Baker
Badahdah.
“DARE TO CARE”
The World Health Organization
(WHO) regional office for the Eastern Mediterranean celebrated World Health
Day this year at its new premises in Nasr City in Cairo on 7 April 2001.
Mental health was selected as the theme for the year 2001, with the slogan,
Stop exclusion, dare to care.
The main ceremony was
inaugurated by Dr. Hussein Al Agazairy, WHO’S regional director, Dr. Ismail
Sallam, the Egyptian Minister of Health and Population, Dr. Hamdi El Sayed,
chairman of the Doctors Syndicate and Dr. Ahmad Abou El Azayem, WFMH
President. Prior to the official inauguration, a seminar was held on the
media and mental health.
Three days later, journalists
and mental health professionals from throughout the region discussed their
role and possible cooperation for the promotion of mental health and the
prevention of mental illness.
A report on the meeting,
including its recommendations, will be displayed on WHO’S regional Web site.
A short film, Mental Health: 7 Days 7 Faces, directed by Omid Mohit and
produced by the WHO Eastern Mediterranean office, was shown on both
occasions.
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