Diversity Manifesto 2005 – Book Review
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The French anthropologist Louis Dumont had wrote in his work “Homo Hierarchicus”
If equality is conceived as rooted in mans very nature and denied only by an evil society, then as there are no longer any rightful differences in condition or estate, or different sorts of men, they are alike and even identical, as well as equal.
(Dumont L. 1980:16)
In other words in a free-democratic status quo all people are equal. However during the past centuries humanity went through dramatical changes in which specific social groups have faced great oppression and hardship for the color of their skin, their sex and/or disabilities. Taking the diversity manifesto as a starting point I will go deeper into Disability culture in the UK, examining its socio-political context and try to link the recent policies to practice.
The diversity manifesto was written in 2005 by the National Campaign for the Arts in partnership with EQ in order to promote diversity and equal opportunities policies in the UK by raising awareness of people that work within the Arts sector as well as the government concerning diversity issues. This was attempted by giving great emphasis on right education and access to it, supporting imaginative and innovating teaching methods and techniques and continues its endeavors until today.
Taking a brief overview, one can undeniably uncover that disabled people are one of the most marginalized and oppressed groups in human history as abled-society used to segregate its severely impaired members into special institutions such as separate schools and segregated transportations (Barnes C. 2003,p.10). Nevertheless this exclusion played a significant role in the galvanization of the Disability movement and as a result disabled people came together to form their own organizations in order to promote their rights as citizens and then after united to fight for equality. This politicization of disability which took part in the 1960s and 1970s strengthened disabled peoples pride for their identity and self-determination. As Vic Finkelstein stated in his speech “Disabled People and our Culture Development”: people with impairments used to feel ashamed about their disabilities ending up supporting the dominant culture, rather than their own. Thus they were trying to hide their disabilities and promote only their abilities (Finkelstein, V. 1987. in Barnes, C. 2003a). However the disability rights movement influenced, inspired and motivated them to express their experience of disability and struggle, via the Arts, helping Disability Culture to emerge. As a result Shape was the first disabled led organization founded in 1976 as part of this movement and its aim was to provide opportunities and support for disabled artists, to improve the access to culture and enhance their cultural image. However Shape was just the beginning of this development of disability organizations as today there are 9 disabled led organizations and further 359 disability focused ones in the UK (ACE, 2009).
At this point it is worth mentioning that Disability is a very sensitive issue which has a broad meaning and therefore it has to be defined before going any further. All these years there were arguments concerning the definition of disability as many disabled people around the world had different views about it. Two exact opposite models exist that tried to define disability; on the one hand it was the “medical model” – physical disability and on the other hand the “social model” – social exclusion (Wikipedia Encyclopedia, 2010b) (Wikipedia Encyclopedia, 2010c). It wasnt until 1995 when the Disability Discrimination Act provided for the most generally accepted definition of disability, which was however further updated in 2005. According to the DDA disability model, disability is
A physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on a persons ability to carry out day-to-day activities.
(Public and Commercial Services Union, 2005)
The same problem exists concerning the meaning of Disability Culture, as there are different approaches in diverse societies and cultures. Professor Steven Brown points out in his Editorial “What is Disability Culture” that “Disability” as well as “Culture” are very complicated words which have different meanings in diverse cultures and therefore it would be better to say that there are many different cultures of disabilities. He goes on to state, that “Disability culture is a set of artifacts, beliefs and expressions created by disabled people to reflect their own life experiences.”(Brown S.E, 2001)( Ingslad, B. & Reynolds, S. 1995). Nevertheless not all disabled people accept the term disabled. For example, most deaf people do not accept the term “disabled” and they distinguish themselves as members of a different community with their own language and therefore their own well-established Deaf culture. Professor Colin Barnes claims in his paper “Effecting Change; Disability Culture and Art” that this factionalism has been a huge hurdle for the relations between Deaf people and the disabled peoples movement (Barnes C.a 2003, p.11) (ACE, 2003, p.5). Although in the last 30 years where disabled people have made vast steps towards to their inclusion in society, discrimination issues still exist. This discrimination may result from physical as well as social and economic barriers, which prevent them to fully and equally participate in society. Therefore, a necessity to link the existing policies to practices was born.
Exclusion often begins with the education system, as disabled children are forced to participate into segregated special education systems. As Martin Luther King Junior once stated in his “Beyond Vietnam” speech:
True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring (King, M.L, 1967 ).
In other words society must proceed to deep and radical changes from the root of the problem, in order to achieve efficient and permanent results. Disabled children within a special school receive an inferior education with a limited curriculum than the one in mainstream schools, which will be a major handicap in their later life compared to their able-peers. In addition special schools segregate disabled children not only educationally, but also socially as they isolate them and dissuade their ability to make able friends. According