23 - 29 August 2001
Issue No.548
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 23 - 29 August 2001 Issue No.548 |
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Sound in mind
I have been thinking about the distance that separates us from the developed, technologically advanced countries -- a distance that manifests itself in science, civilisation and even the collective habits that go into the making of an epoch.
While societies that have benefited from the modern leaps and bounds of science -- which have improved the quality of life, curing disease and reducing pain -- are undoubtedly ahead of us, circumstances are such that nobody can tell with any degree of certainty how far they have left us behind. Is the difference between us and such societies a difference of 50 years, 500 or 5,000? There are no longer any reliable criteria or trustworthy measures in current circumstances, at a time when obstacles, suspicions and repressive forces have increased exponentially.
What was allowed only decades ago, and even accepted with alacrity -- cornea transplants, for example -- is now an object of debate. It may come as a surprise that numerous Arab and Islamic societies made their decisions about such issues years ago, issuing laws with which to regulate the procedures in question. Developments are no sooner sanctioned by scientific and religious authorities (the issue of surgical transplants, notably, has yielded definitive conclusions) than new bouts of controversy crop up.
Developed societies, on the other hand, long ago managed to reconcile their religious codes and social traditions with what they saw as humanity's right to reap the greatest possible benefit from scientific and intellectual advances. A patient, for example, should not have to travel long distances, spend large amounts of money or put up with undue complications in order to receive the cornea, heart, liver or kidney transplant that could qualify him for normal life, and thus prevent him from becoming utterly dependent on society.
While we loiter at the doorstep of the medical revolution -- through which the rest of the world passed confidently many years ago -- discussing whether or not transplants are permitted by religion and investigating the possible damage they could cause the poor and the dispossessed members of society, scientifically advanced countries are discussing human cloning and the possibility of developing human foetuses on which to conduct experiments that would offer new insight into disease and deformity.
One should not be led to believe that the reason for this is that American society, for instance, is no longer governed by religious principles and received moral codes; that assumption is absolutely false. The developments in question generated months of debate. Yet American society soon settled on a level-headed agreement to make human cloning in any form illegal. The legislation nonetheless provides for the use of cells taken from laboratory-developed foetuses for research purposes.
This kind of level-headed agreement is what we, too, should work to achieve. For if we do not address effectively the moral and religious challenges posed by scientific and social progress, the distance separating us from the rest of the world will increase yet further, leaving us alone in the dust.
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