APARTHEID against blacks in South Africa has crumbled like the Berlin Wall. Discrimination, against women is lessening. But people with disabilities find themselves still segregated, out on the margins of society and expected to be grateful for crumbs of charity. Until recently, they had no voice and, no power. They were looked on as having little value.
It may have disappeared in South Africa, but apartheid still exists for disabled people throughout the world.
Disability harnesses you into exclusion. This makes you frustrated and angry. What did you do to deserve this?
In dissolving disability apartheid, we are not talking about providing special buses or special schools however wonderful or expensive these may prove to be. We are talking about inclusion replacing exclusion and rights replacing charity.
As Danny Kaye is reported to have said to the Queen of Greece "The normal person has yet to be found and when found, analysed." The same could be said of the able bodied person the perfect able bodied person has yet to be found and when found, exposed as a fraud. Everyone carries a ration of imperfection, whether it be physical, mental or spiritual. We are all more or less disabled.
The foundations supporting disability apartheid are weak and can be shattered it is fear, supported on the twin pillars of inadequacy and dependency, that keeps the barrier in place. We are all afraid of difference. The outsider threatens the established order and makes us feel inadequate.
One solution lies in anti discrimination legislation but success here will remain superficial unless underlying attitudes change.
There are two models of disability that must be reformed the first is the medical model and the second is the charity model.
The medical model limits disability to that which can be described and treated by a doctor, followed by rehabilitation and discharge. Under this regime, the doctor is all powerful. The medical model may be useful when relevant and professional, but it has no place in telling us how to live as responsible citizens fully involved in society. Disability is a social, economic and ethical, not a medical, problem and should be treated as such.
The charity model is equally destructive. Some people need others to be dependent on them, to comfort them and make then feel better and so become givers of charity. But charity postulates dependency, expects gratitude and denies equality. The do gooder feels. "good" and seldom stops to consider the well being of his victim.
When I first went blind I innocently expected to be consulted about what help I might need. Doctors could do, so I was spared the intrusion of the medical model. On the charity front, however, people were shocked when I never thought about gratitude but instead empowered myself and told them what I needed to adapt to a new way of life. How could a charity run mostly by sighted people expect to know what blind persons want?
The sad part is that many good people are involved. It seldom dawns on them that what we want is to live fully in the community, accepting our limitations while exploiting our special talents. We want inclusion, not exclusion, offered and received with mutual respect. By definition, this is not what charities are about ...
Civil rights for people with disabilities is no longer a pipe dream. A European Day of the Disabled would have been unimaginable in my childhood. Progress is steady, though slow. Here in Ireland in the future there will be the proposed government sponsored Council for the Status of People with Disabilities as well as the voluntary Forum for People with Disabilities, various other self help groups and some charities which are currently modernising themselves. We, the disabled, are also changing and learning to accept our limitations. We are trying to shake off the shackles of inadequacy and dependency to emerge from the margins and play a full part performing our rightful duty within society.
AS we become stronger, we may be able to offer a helping hand to pull our able bodied friends away from their inadequacies so they no longer need us as dependents. It may be that the able bodied will come to lean on us for support instead of the other way round. Civil rights only exist when linked with civil duties, and our duty is to lead so called able bodied citizens away from their imaginary world of physical and mental perfection into the true world where we all have to live together and share our imperfections.