There is a
war going on at the moment between various factions within the disabled
community in the UK; a war that seems quite unique to the UK’s culture of
disability politics. And every one
is having their say: from Professors and Government Ministers to front-line
demonstrators and Internet artists.
What is at
stake is who is the legitimate voice of disabled people. The content of the debate revolves
around the meaning and nature of various models of disability. Disability has for many centuries been
seem as an individual problems – a medical model - but the development of
a social model of disability in the 1960s displace the ‘medical
model’ to interpret disability as a process of society and nothing
whatsoever to do with the body of an individual. The pathological nature of any individual
‘abnormality’ was re-framed as ‘impairment’ by the
social model.
At the
heart of the war is the struggle for control of definitions and meanings, which
in mud slinging personal abuse amounts to little short of a war. Leading voices, such as Professor Colin
Low of the RNIB and the Disability Rights Commission, have been publicly
proclaiming in recent weeks that disability rights have gone too far and is
calling for an inclusive model of definitions which is closely linked to the
medical model of disability. In
response leading disability figures in the politicised disability movement,
such as representatives of the British Council of Disabled People, have
responded that people such as Professor Colin Low are merely distorting the
facts to suite have own needs and agendas.
The war of
words and actions will go on for many years to come one suspect’s. What is interesting is the opinion and
news sections of the newspaper and television industry’s complete
avoidance of what is being said or happening within the closely knit world of
Disability Politics. This is as
much to do with ignorance as it is anything else; but one thing that is clear
is that it also has to do with self-interest.
The old
guard proponents of the medical model of disability, which sees disability and
impairment as a personal tragedy, are the large charities (RNIB, RNID, Scope,
Leonard Cheshire Foundation and the like). The very same charities which spend tens of millions of
pounds every years feeding news organisations with fully written stories,
opinion and copy that fill the pages of all newspapers. The Guardian, for example, has over the
past few years had a number of whole supplements written by Scope (formerly, in
name only to many disabled analysts, the Spastics Society). In addition, charities are very keen to
give awards to leading social welfare correspondents of the broadsheets for
what is in reality non-critical ‘supportive’ coverage. The Leonard Cheshire Foundation has
been very successful at this, ensuring almost no critical comment of its
activities, with its Enabled Awards.
Lets take,
for example, the non-coverage of the demonstrations by politicised disabled
people last week at the offices of Leonard Cheshire Foundation (at Millbank,
right next to Labour Party HQ) and at the Minister for Disabled People’s
annual reception for disability oragnisations at a top hotel in
Kensington. Little, to no,
coverage was seen of it at all.
Yet, for example, the reaction of the supposed next Home Secretary David
Blunkett to the disabled activists trapping him in a Hotel ballroom would have,
if publicily seen, ended his current career yet alone his future one.
Mr
Blunkett’s emotional outbursts and shoving and pushing of wheelchair
users out of the way was an indication of his inability to deal with his own
impairment when confronted by disabled people totally at ease with who and what
they are. The over-reaction of
both Blunkett and Maragret Hodge (to shouts of ‘Scab and Stooge’)
was a surreal moment of delight for the demonstrators and one of fear and
anxiety for Blunkett and Hodge, which, if seen, would have undermined their
careers.
The
Leonard Cheshire Foundation provided similar evidence also of the media’s
inability to deal with an opinion which conflicts with its own interests both
business wise and politically.
Leonard Cheshire has been the key organisation in disability politics
for the past forty years primarily because the politicised disability movement
in the UK arose out of and in opposition to the very practices and existence of
the Leonard Cheshire Foundation (namely ‘Cheshire Homes’).
The
current domain name dispute over www.leonard-cheshire.com (and the
vastly more superior and amusing anti-use of all variations of the domain name www.leonardcheshirefoundation.com/net/org/co.uk
to link to anti-hunt, pro-gay and porn sites) between the Charity and the
individual Dr Paul Darke is again indicative of the limited awareness of the
issues by newspaper editors. The
web site is question used to details alleged corruption by the Charity and the
complicity of government ministers which are far more significant than the
facts which led to the resignation of Peter Mandelson this year. Yet no coverage of the site or its
allegations has appeared in any of the supposedly ‘quality’
newspapers.
2001