KitNotes

This is a post for the Carnival of Socialism, as hosted by Team Stroppy. This carnival’s theme is Liberation Politics and the Left, and my contribution looks at disability liberation and the left. Enjoy.

The Left says a lot of things. Being a lefty myself, I think that a lot of what it says is right. However, there are a lot of things which it doesn’t say, especially around questions of oppression and liberation. Of course, there are some of us who are starting to turn that around. But it’s still a small drop in the ocean compared to the tasks which await us.

Sometimes, with everything that’s going on now, you forget that the Left does have a bit of a good history, overall, when it comes to women’s liberation. I have spent many an evening in the company of more experienced female comrades, when they have told me of the very real battles the women’s and working class movements had around issues like abortion rights in the 1970’s, of older LGB comrades when they took on the religious right and the legalised discrimination enshrined in Section 28. These were very real battles, but the war – the war of liberation of all oppressed people – still goes on.

Notice something missing? Well, I do. How come the fight for liberation of disabled people isn’t talked about?

Because it isn’t. Not nearly enough. I myself am hard of hearing, and every day, I face a battle to engage with society, because it’s geared around people who have two working arms, two working legs, and fully functioning senses. A good example of this is Wandsworth Road train station in south London. I climbed up a steep incline to the platforms, and then over the footbridge to the platform I needed. How on earth is someone in a wheelchair supposed to manage that? In any case, there were major delays – and the display said “please listen for further announcements”. I’d very much like to, but the speakers were on such a low volume, I gave up and tried to use the automated help point (since most of the stations on this line are unstaffed). Of course, the person at the other end didn’t help by speaking into his chest, but what was worse was that he seemed to get irritated every time I asked him to repeat what he said, until the point where I just gave up again and got the bus instead, and thus was even more late than I perhaps would have been.

Rant over. But that’s a daily occurrence. Or something like it. The thing about disability is that it is relentless. Even within the confines of your own home, you still struggle, whether it be watching the telly or listen to the radio in my case, or getting around. You don’t stop being disabled.

“Communists are the tribunes of the oppressed” Lenin said. It is true. It is the job of revolutionaries, or of socialists of any stripe generally, to speak out against acts of oppression, of injustice, in order to fight it. We have spoken out against women’s oppression, we have spoken out against the oppression of ethnic minorities, the oppression of immigrants, and we will continue to do so. But a (rather crap) half hour programme on at 1am on BBC Two and signed repeats overnight is not liberation.

One of the main problems is that there hasn’t been a disabled people’s movement to speak of; in fact, going through the major political battles of the sixties, seventies, and eighties, even up to now, it is noticeable by it’s general absence. The efforts of activists around Mad Pride do buck the trend, but, for the good (not to mention necessary) work that they do, it still focuses around trying to win small reforms in the mental health system, rather than a wholescale culture change in the way people approach the whole issue of mental health, which is just as, if not more, necessary. (Though I am quite prepared to state that I’m in relative ignorance as to what Mad Pride actually says on this question and how they approach it – something I naturally intend to rectify.)

The lack of such a movement, not just historically but now, makes a socialist intervention a lot more difficult. And it appears that things are on the way up; we have the Disability Discrimination Act, we have laws which force bosses – both in their roles of employer and goods/service provider - to provide access for disabled people. But there is still a long way to go.

When I tried to compare the nature of disability discrimination with, for example, women’s liberation, or any other form of oppression at that, the main thing I find time and time again is that the state of flux where such political battles take place over other forms of oppression just doesn’t exist when it comes to the oppression of disabled people. Let’s take abortion as an example; the right of women to have access to abortions varies from era to era, and there is a constant battle on the part of progressives not just to maintain the limited rights women have now against further attack, but to extend them, and fulfil the demand of “as early as possible, as late as necessary, free, and on demand”. But you’ll be very, very hard pressed to find someone who claims publicly that they are against greater access and rights for disabled people. I’m sure even the BNP’s Nick Griffin wouldn’t complain about wheelchair ramps.

But if such a general consensus exists, like we’re constantly being told by the powers that be, why are we still a long way off? Why is daily life still such a struggle for many disabled people? For many people who see themselves as ‘liberationists’ (for want of a better phase), the reason why they prefer not to see issues of oppression through the lens of class struggle (which they should) is because sometimes, it can appear to be difficult to reconcile sectional oppression with class politics. But when it comes to disabled oppression, the causes are, quite clearly, economic.

The sad truth is that catering for disabled people costs money. Cash money. And not just some, but lots of it. Even though disability is a lot more visible, whether it be having a character in a wheelchair in Extreme Ghostbusters or having little passages stating how you can get hold of Braille or audio tape versions of the leaflet you’re reading, actually providing the tools for disabled people to enjoy the same level of social interaction and participation dents profits. The Blair government is attacking disabled people, but not by banning disabled loos in pubs, but by trying to make it harder to claim Incapacity Benefit, and heavily pruning jobs at Remploy, shedding thousands of jobs which provide disabled people not just a livelihood but also the means to make an independent living and dignity.

Several sections of the Left, as well as the GMB union (which organises workers at Remploy), threw themselves into supporting the Remploy workers. Rightly so. But many did not see past the defence of workers’ jobs, not seeing it as an attack on disabled people and their ability to live independently of state benefits. In an ideal world (i.e. a socialist one) we wouldn’t need Remploy, but while disabled people are still unable to take part in the rest of society to the same extent as able-bodied people, we need to defend Remploy jobs, not just because of class solidarity, but also because of solidarity with oppressed people.

We cannot conjure up a disability movement out of thin air. But one process of sowing the seeds of one is by actually taking their struggles seriously, talking about them in our press, and having the political fight. Socialism is the best hope for disabled people – we need to say this, and we have to let disabled people tell their stories. We need to talk.