Recently the Oscar Pistorius murder in South Africa was told that attacks on disabled people, had increased since the London Paralympics, in 2012. For me. this isn't a surprise, and only goes to to reinforce everything I'm about to say.
I get angry every time I think about
it.
For me, this country hosting the Paralympics was bad enough, and now we’re
faced with the relentless ‘Paralympic legacy’ rhetoric too.
In my opinion (and that of many
other disabled and ill people I’ve spoken to) we should never have hosted the
Paralympics in the first place. The very idea was hard to swallow.
How could we celebrate these
seemingly ‘superhuman’ athletes and bask in their glory while away from the
spotlight, ‘everyday’ disabled and ill people are being stripped of vital
benefits, independence, dignity and rights at the hands of this government? Not
to mention the seventy three deaths per week as a result of this government’s
policies.
I chose to boycott the Paralympics
for these reasons. When you add to that the fact (and it’s still hard to
believe, I know) that the Paralympics was sponsored by ATOS – the very company
our government is paying to strip disabled and ill people of these vital
benefits (after putting us through a so –called ‘Work Compatability Assessment’
which we have been seemingly set up to fail), it became a sick joke! My stomach turns over at the injustice of it.
So now, all these months later, Mr
Cameron and his government are determined to keep peddling the idea of a
‘Paralympic legacy’. The idea that Britain is proud of its disabled people, the
idea that the Paralympics has somehow furthered our cause and improved the way
society views us.
It is at this point that I feel the
anger rise in me once again. No! It’s a lie! It’s a huge (albeit well
constructed) lie!
The ‘Paralympic legacy’ has been
invented, better to say dreamt up purely to suit the government’s cruel agenda.
It has used a vision of these ‘superhuman’ athletes who ‘overcome’ and
‘achieve’ against all the odds, in order to give the public the idea that all
disabled and ill people could (and should) be doing the same – and those that
don’t are lazy, exaggerating our disabilities. If we have the misfortune to
have to live on benefits too, then we are ‘Scrounging off the state’.
After all, these ‘inspiring’,
‘achieving,’ ‘amazing’ athletes can do it, so why can’t the rest of us?! Why
can’t we all just put in a little more effort?!
As a quick side note, how are the
rest of us supposed to feel about that - worthless, because we can’t ‘achieve’
like they do? Yes, that’s the idea!
This is where, to me, I feel like
I’m stating the obvious, but judging by the rise in disability hate crime
nationally and the suspicion with which disabled and ill people are now being
viewed by society, I need to say it
anyway. We are not all like that!
In reality, the majority of disabled
people can struggle to do basic things. For example, I cannot walk unaided,
carry my cups of tea across the room, get in and out of the bath by myself, and
I am often exhausted. Some days the pain is so bad that I can barely get out of
bed – and I’m lucky compared to some.
Do these ‘superhuman’ athletes
represent me? Do they represent the ‘everyday’ disabled person in this
country? No – they do not! The idea that it does, or that it
should is deceitful, not to mention hurtful, when we know (despite how badly we
may want to) that we can’t ‘measure up’ to a government imposed ideal of we
should be.
Disability sport (and able sport) at
the highest level, is elite, and obsessive. The athletes are conditioned.
They work for hours and hours, day in and day out to get where they are – and
they have a whole team of people to help, support, and encourage them. Granted,
they have determination. They need it to do what they do.
In reality, every disabled person
needs that to survive – especially in a society where we are being lied about,
victimised, persecuted and stripped of our rights.
We need that determination to simply
get through the day sometimes! Is there a gold medal waiting for the ‘everyday’
disabled person? Are we a source of (what will be temporary) national pride?
No, we are not!
We are busy having to fight for
basics, and justify our very existence. On top of everything else we already
have to endure, we are now facing fear and panic for our future.
Since the Paralympics, many of the
athletes that this country (and its government ) claim to be so proud of, and
were hailing as national heroes last August and September, have also had their
benefits cut for ‘not being disabled
enough.’
That very fact alone can be used to
prove that the so-called ‘Paralympic legacy’ idea is nothing but a fraud. It is
a sick way of using the temporary glory of a few, to distract public attention
away from the truth.
Disabled people of this country have
nothing to celebrate. In fact many of us are dying, starving, losing vital
services and being left housebound, while this government tries to tell our
society (and the rest of the world) an entirely different story.
If there could be a real Paralympic
legacy, it would and should be that ‘everyday’ disabled and ill people get our
lives back – our rights, our dignity, our self-respect, and our benefits.
The real legacy should be a pushing
forward of disability rights instead of taking it many, many steps back.
We should all be given the chance to live our lives in the best way we can.
Until then the Paralympics and the ‘Paralympic legacy’ remains (to me and many
others) nothing but a propaganda exercise.
It is only when all these wrongs are
put right, and we have our lives back that ‘everyday’ disabled people may feel a sense of ‘national pride’. Until
then, the ‘Paralymic legacy’ will remain meaningless.
