Old lessons for a new politics

The recent merger of The Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation (RADAR), the Disability Alliance (DA) and the National Centre for Independent Living (NCIL) poses some interesting issues for Mike Oliver and, he says, for the future of disability politics

To really understand what they are and, through their merger, what they may become, we need to understand the history of these three organisations and the roles they have played in our own history as disabled people.

RADAR began as the Central Council for Cripples and was rooted in the nineteenth century charity ethic. It later changed its name to the Central Council for the Disabled before finally becoming RADAR. DA was formed when a group of mainly non-disabled academics fell out with the Disablement Income Group over the right way to achieve a national disability income. NCIL began as the Independent Living Sub-committee of the British Council of Disabled People (BCODP) before cutting loose from that organisation to become independent.

Speaking personally I’ve never been really sure what RADAR did, though I do once remember purchasing a holiday guide from them and I still have a RADAR toilet key. DA’s main claim to fame is its excellent Disability Rights Handbook but I can’t think of much else it does. NCIL’s original aim was to promote the idea of independent living to disabled people, policy makers and service providers and continues to provide that help now the idea is firmly established.

Neither RADAR nor DA have ever been controlled by disabled people or directly accountable to them and NCIL has also moved away from that position. Now, as I understand it, the aim of the merger is not to increase control and accountability but to increase the campaigning power of the new organisation. My problem with this is what does it campaign about if it is not controlled and run by the group on whose behalf it purports to speak?

This is where history is relevant. It is an inescapable fact that the two most successful decades ever in raising both the profile of disability issues and the establishing of commensurate services were the very same two decades where disabled peoples’ organisations were at their most vociferous and powerful. Further, the gains made during that period were often achieved in the face of opposition from these non-accountable organisations who claimed to speak on our behalf.

Now, of course, it could be argued that things have changed since then and the newly merged organisations have created something different and fit for purpose for these changing times and circumstances. However, I cannot escape from the lessons of our historical and recent past; namely that when non-accountable organisations have spoken for us our issues and our lives have been sacrificed on the altars of political collaboration, policy compromise and personal opportunism.

We’d better hope history really is bunk.