SUNDAY 7TH JUNE, 2015 – UWI TODAY
19
Towards Social Integration: Rights, Roles, Recognition of Persons with Disabilities Conference
Toward s S o c ia l I nt e gr at i on
The Leap from
Disabled
to
Enabled
B y P r o f e s s o r G e r a r d H u t c h i n s o n
This is a modified version of a paper presented by
Professor Gerard Hutchinson
at a conference hosted by
The UWI Network and Outreach for Disability Education and Sensitization (NODES) and the Disability Studies Unit (DSU)
, UWI, St Augustine on April 23 and 24, 2015.
The conference theme was
“Towards Social Integration: Rights, Roles, Recognition of Persons with Disabilities.”
Lifting the burden of disability
and therefore positively
impacting on the future of disability requires that we see
ourselves differently and acknowledge the inherent flaws
of the human condition. Disability is as much a biological
reality as it is a social construction. A recent story about the
delayed reopening of the School for the Blind in Santa Cruz
implied that because the children were blind, the officials
at the Ministry of Education were less than dedicated to
seeking the best interest of the children and the school.
Ironically the building of the Blind Welfare Association
has also been closed for repair for an inordinately long
period of time.
It would appear that people with disabilities function at
themargin of society, objects to be pitied, derided or laughed
at, sometimes all at once. Our Immigration Act Section
7.2 speaks to prohibiting from entry to the country: idiots,
imbeciles, feeble minded, dumb, deaf, blind and those who
would be a charge on public funds. How this judgment is
made and how it affects those who are disabled when they
travel is unclear.
Oscar Pistorius hasmade the leap fromdisabled to abled
(some reporters say super abled) because of technology.
With his blades for legs, he competed against non-disabled
athletes at the London Olympics and reached the finals of
the 400 metre race after being a successful paralympian. He
described being anxious and self conscious when he was at
home with himself and the blades came off. He also said
that he felt embarrassed when people saw him without his
prosthetic legs. He had a congenital disease that caused him
to have both of his legs amputated above the knee in early
childhood. Technology whether it be prosthetics, robotics
or simulation will eventually overcome the physical effects
of disability but how does it remove the self adduced sense
of being inferior, less than, looked at, marginalized and of
course stigmatized as a result.
Neurodiversity is one concept that might address that.
Neurodiversity, a term coined by Judy Singer, is defined as
atypical neurological wiring being viewed as an acceptable
form of human difference just like age, class or gender. It
arose out of her research on autism. Being neurologically
different then and being seen as such should not be a basis
for prejudice or disadvantage. It should be seen as a unique
way of being; not a disease to be cured. However as the
example of Oscar Pistorius demonstrates, the perception of
disability is internalized by those so affected and is difficult
to overcome. This is especially so when the disability is
something visible.
Even when it is not visible as in mental illness, it
becomes socially isolating. John Derby, analysing the visual
representations of madness from antiquity to the present,
highlights three common threads. Paternalism, ableism
and speciesism – these represent the sense that people
with mental illness need to be taken care of, are not able to
function in life like everyone else and are not quite human
when they are ill. This sense of not quite human explains
the popular and ongoing propensity to suggest that mental
illness is a form of demon possession. Derby argues that
these perspectives on the mentally ill act to justify multiple
overt and subtle forms of oppression that may be sometimes
masked as care. Identifying mental illness as disability
creates a shift in meaning for the treatment of those so
diagnosed. Although they might appear to be physically
healthy, their inability to meet societal expectations for
behaviour and productivity become justification for social
isolation and stigmatization. It is a delicate line to draw
and tread. The provision of services and support for those
with mental disorders juxtaposed with providing the
encouragement to function as individuals, can enable them
to take full responsibility for their lives.
Erich Fromm in his book “To Have or To Be” suggests
that the choice of possessions and material well being over
self actualization and self awareness is the fundamental
problem of the modern world. The concept of disability is
primarily informed by the inability to be as productive as
the non-disabled, meaning the inability to have. However
we all have the capacity to be and we all have to deal with
our internal and unseen disabilities in order to fulfill that
capacity to be. The burden that people with disabilities are
made to carry is a by-product of the inability of those who
do not believe they are disabled to look inside themselves
and accept that we are all flawed in one way or another. The
need to engage with others’ weaknesses with compassion
and respect, not judgment or discrimination, is paramount
if we are to continue to live with ourselves. The survival of
our species depends on our capacity to accept difference,
including those who are neurologically different.
Our Immigration Act Section 7.2 speaks to prohibiting from entry to the
country: idiots, imbeciles, feeble minded, dumb, deaf, blind and those who would
be a charge on public funds. How this judgment is made and how it affects those
who are disabled when they travel is unclear.
