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Disabled, But Equal

 

                                                                                                                                    By Girma Feyissa

  

Most of us tend to think that a  person’s physical disability is a  God-sent demeaning fate and that the victims deserve some kind of altruistic response and nothing more.  This is wrong. Physical disability can come from an incident that can be encountered by any of us at any time, even after reading this article. A physically disabled person has every right stipulated in the Human Rights Convention. It is a pity that when governments or human activists struggle for the empowerment of women or the rights of children or even the rights of animals, they rarely include the equal rights of physically disabled human beings.  

These are people who have been with us our whole lives and most likely will always be with us until posterity. Physical disability could be in-born or be acquired in later years. Physically able men may lose their limbs while walking on explosives or snap shots or deliberate shots at point blank while on public demonstrations. The impairments can sometimes last only until surgical rectifications could be made. Or they can be long-lasting health problems that one has to accept and live with till death.
 

Recently I was watching ETV’s weekly show on social relationships and family matters. It was about one of the happiest families, headed by a blind man who has proved himself to be the best husband and a loving father. People like Steve Wonder, Teshome Asegued and Yirdaw Tenaw are celebrities in their own right. I remember seeing an intellectual blind undergraduate girl being interviewed recently. I can go on citing similar examples. But these are exceptions rather than the rule. The general attitude of society towards physically disabled people depends on our perceptions, shaped since childhood.
 

We were told to be good to disabled people. We give alms to the physically disabled or perhaps help the blind cross the roads with the vanity of being able to protect someone from the traffic hazards. We develop a kind of patronizing feeling so much so that there are times when people amuse themselves to see disabled paupers fighting one another over mouthfuls of donation food at churchyards. Although we may feel great sorrow deep inside us, we have heard time and again that there are criminals who deliberately damage the sound eyes of children to make them blind in order to make a living out using these blind children. This is disgusting you would say, but it is true.
 

This perception has to change for the better. As I see it, the issue at stake is not a moral issue or that of passion or befriending the physically disabled. It is a responsibility and a challenge that we must carry out to respect and honor their human rights of equality.

We see many physically disabled people creeping on all fours. There are times when even at the door gates of big hospitals like Black Lion, patients suffering from such ailments as paralysis have to be shoulder-supported literally carried in by relatives all the way through the corridors to the doctor’s room instead of using a wheelchair. Even if a physically disabled person manages to own a wheelchair, a very rare opportunity in this part of the world, there are no converted routes that climb upstairs for wheelchairs. We often see disabled people finding it difficult to climb city buses.
 
 

The patronizing feeling that some of us so often display, unknowingly reduces them to the state of dependency I believe. Hundreds of people get disabled as a result of violence of one form or other. One can never be sure whether the fate of being physically disabled will come. The struggle for the rights of equality among members of the society can be fulfilled only when we are sure that the disabled are taken care of just like any one of us. Of course there could be parties to blame but who can redress the damage once it is performed?

More often than not, the media projects the achievements and success stories of the disabled as a prodigal performance that is actually less than a miracle. It is not true that the disabled are incapable to achieve something that requires intellect and body skill. As a matter of fact, there are times where disability in a certain area could be a blessing in disguise.

 

What we should aspire towards is to empower the physically disabled to practice their rights of equality. Do the licenses for the construction of huge government building structures incorporate facilities that cater services for the physically disabled? Do we not give equal employment opportunities for the disabled fellows, despite their academic achievements?
 

Physically disabled or not, as citizens of this country, our destiny is the same although the physically disabled have some impairments or long lasting health conditions. Our differences are no cause for division but a source of power and vision. It is ridiculous and perhaps unfair to ignore the physically disadvantaged groups and advocate for the rights of equality of gender and ethnicity. We know many healthy but dull people making it to the top ladder of authority while they do not even have the capacity to head a family. On the other hand there are excellent mothers, fathers or musicians who are physically disabled. Disability does not mean incapability just as physical ability is no guarantee for capability.
 

Why are the physically disabled people taken for granted to be dependants on society, living like parasites? Why do we let the injustice of poverty befall on them and leave them aside as human beings without honor or dignity? I mean, there is a general tendency to leave the disabled to survive on handouts and leftovers. The physically disabled have untapped potential other than begging. We, meaning both the government and the public-at-large, have the responsibility of providing the opportunity to express and put into use their suppressed potential.
 

We are all affected directly of indirectly by disabled people. We might have personally experienced the fate or someone in our family could be disabled. The only thing we can say about ourselves, if we are not disabled, is “not yet”.
 

A society that does not consider the physically disabled people as equals, is not a society that lives in full swing. A family may live in a beautiful mansion amidst a slum where the poor and the destitute have their shelters. Would that family feel at ease knowing that some of those destitute could have proven better given the opportunities?

There are certain steps being taken by concerned officials to provide the disabled with some kind of material assistance. This is a positive step we should appreciate. But we have to struggle to fight against the profound social and economic exclusion.