striving for poetry in motion: International day of People with a Disability

Hey Bertha, You've come a long way, babe ...um or have you??

A Rainy Morning via 3quarksdaily

A young woman in a wheelchair,wearing a black nylon poncho spattered with rain, is pushing herself through the morning.You have seen how pianists sometimes bend forward to strike the keys,then lift their hands, draw back to rest, then lean again to strike just as the chord fades. Such is the way this woman strikes at the wheels, then lifts her long white fingers,letting them float, then bends again to strike just as the chair slows, as if into a silence. So expertly she plays the chords of this difficult music she has mastered, her wet face beautiful in its concentration, while the wind turns the pages of rain.

by Ted Kooser
from Delights and Shadows 
2004

To the non-literature lovers out there, this may come as a shock to you, but time you found out nonetheless: just as humans are divided into 'dog' people and 'cat' people, 'anchovies on pizza' people 'gawwwwdNO no anchovies on pizza' people, so to our world is divided into 'Charlotte Bronte/Jane Eyre' people and 'Emily Bronte/Wuthering Heights' people. And never the twain shall meet.

Can you pick where my preference is going to fall?
I  think you can. Perhaps even digress to bust out yr best Kate Bush moves, over to you Noel:




Ahh Noel


Quite frankly Jane Eyre has annoyed the hell out of me from ever I remember first reading it in my teens. I was always appalled at how a principled serious girl like Jane Eyre could so blithely excuse Rochester's abominable treatment of Bertha, the rather unwell woman, uh not to mention that little detail of you-no-know-no um being his wife, he imprisoned.

But for a long time, this attitude to disability, ongoing illness and chronic medical conditions has been seen as par for the course and unexceptional. There is a disconcerting proportion of the English canon condoning and contributing to just such attitudes. Thank gawds for the likes of Jean Rhys and the Wide Sargasso Sea is all I can say. Well, actually here's a few more things I have to say:


Well, it's back: today is International Day of People with Disability (IDPWD) - doesn't that just 'roll' off the tongue... not. Hmm perhaps it's kind of appropriate that it has such a clunky acronym.

The IDPWD website explains that its objective is for the UN-sanctioned (sanctioned?? sounds like a war zone, then again perhaps not so far from the mark either...) to:

increase awareness of the benefits of the integration of people with disability in every aspect of political, social, economic and cultural life.

Rather a shame then that the very language used, perpetuates that Us And Them dichotomy inherent in a medical model of disability.

If you're wondering what the hell the medical model of disability is, here's one definition (from The Open University):

Medical Model:
Under the medical model, disabled people are defined by their illness or medical condition. They are disempowered: medical diagnoses are used to regulate and control access to social benefits, housing, education, leisure and employment.

The medical model promotes the view of a disabled person as dependent and needing to be cured or cared for, and it justifies the way in which disabled people have been systematically excluded from society. The disabled person is the problem, not society. Control resides firmly with professionals; choices for the individual are limited to the options provided and approved by the 'helping' expert.

The medical model is sometimes known as the ‘individual model’ because it promotes the notion that it is the individual disabled person who must adapt to the way in which society is constructed and organised.

The medical model is vigorously rejected by organisations of disabled people, but it still pervades many attitudes towards disabled people.

Some of the year's model examples:
I blogged briefly about IPWD last year in relation to the startup of the national Australian broadcaster's 'Ramp Up', a portal for all things disability related and today is its first birthday. Happy birthday Ramp Up.

Lots has happened in the disability universe since then, not least around a National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) model for Oz.

On the one hand, the Labor Party just endorsed the NDIS at its conference today and committed to the design of the NDIS - then again a very similar scheme was tabled for parliament the morning of the Whitlam Dismissal and consequently through no fault of its own disappeared from sight for 30+ years. Let's just say, pause for thought under the current wobbly Slippery minority government... just sayin!

Meanwhile, on the other hand the current Labor government also, and rather more quietly, just announced new tables for disability assessment that come into effect 1 January 2012 for those applying and receiving federal disability income assistance that involve rather a lot more hoop jumping and 'the view of a disabled person as dependent and needing to be cured or cared' for those who requesting such help.


Example II
On the one hand, new building standards came into affect for access to new buildings, on the other hand they were so watered down and contain so many exceptions and yeahbutnobutwhatifs that Vicky Pollard would be proud. Thereby promoting the 'notion that it is the individual disabled person who must adapt to the way in which society is constructed and organised'.

More examples, a different model?
I could go on with the neo-liberal dodginess n doublespeak...
Instead how about resisting disabling black and white attitudes, and what better than subverting attitudes by proffering, indeed insisting upon the vitality of literature, music and poetry in motion that acknowledges all sorts, about all sorts, with all sorts but resists insisting on any particular sorts?

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
Crispin's day.

 - putting the gender bias neatly and conviently to one side ahemm ... it is from Henry V’s Eve of Saint Crispin’s day speech via the eloquent Kristin Hoggett, a poet, a poet agony aunt and a woman who considers poetry to have saved her life after a dire accident - you can read her thrilling example of the success of poetry in motion over at The Smart Set.

Bless!


**This blog post is particpating in the blog carnival for IDPWD - thanks to Carly Findlay's blog hop for International Day For People with Disabilities - find out more and particpate too by checking out her tres cool blog at Tune into Radio Carly. Enjoy.