Disabled United!

Founder member of the Disabled People’s Direct Action Network, Johnny Crescendo recognizes the old conflict between rights and charity but says that now may be the time for a new way of bringing them together

Almost as soon as the modern disability movement was born we had a slogan “Rights not Charity.” I’ve still got the T-shirt. Our early founders rightly identified charities as a major obstacle to disabled people achieving their rights. As disability led organisations emerged we felt the competition for attention and resources from the charities. We wanted the issues that disabled people faced to be in an equalities framework not in a welfare, deserving poor, change in your pocket approach.

We were angry about the pathetic images of us that most charities used to portray in order to garner sympathy and raise money.

We were critical of the fact that many charities were run for us and not by us, perpetuating the stereotype that we are useless and can’t even beg for ourselves properly.

We felt that some of the services that charities ran should really be run either by the Government or disabled people themselves.

The main players at advising the Government on disability policy were unaccountable and too often non-disabled representatives of the charities.

Finally we saw the charities as based on a medical model of disability with each cripple in their impairment specific group with their own charity and their own agenda.

As the disabled people’s movement was born in the early 80s we set up our own cross-disability organisations run and controlled by disabled people, who could advocate directly on the issues that concerned us. We also created Centres for Independent Living.

Then in the early 90s we attacked the ITV Telethons challenging the images that they and the charities were perpetuating. We started non-violent civil disobedience as the handcuffs came out.

These were very exciting and vibrant times for disabled people.

However we found that setting up organisations is very different to running and sustaining them. Secure funding was and is a constant challenge as is educating and empowering new leaders to step forward.

Not that changes didn’t happen. We got the Independent Living Fund (ILF) and direct payments and care in the community. We are in a better place today than in 1981.

The charities did not go away but, as we demanded they go, they chose to try and reform.

The truth is that charities beg better than we do. We beg to elected councillors and the Government but they have a greater history of begging to the public at large.

We don’t like begging if the truth be told, being nice to people we don’t know. When the shit hits the fan, however, that’s precisely what we do with councillors, MPs and other supporters. In other words we are still in the charity culture.

So here we are in 2011, both charities and disabled people’s organisations claim to be representative of disabled people and acknowledge the Social Model. However let us be truthful in the fact that most people, most disabled people, do not understand and therefore cannot articulate the Social Model.

Some if not all the charities still run programmes that we want to see shut down; more so we want to see their whole ideology change.

We have chanted, we have marched, we have been confrontational and combative with the charities and it has not worked – they are still there. Maybe there has to be a better more fruitful way forward?

If we can bring ourselves to admit that we have failed to eradicate the charities can we change them into organisations we could support?

The goal would be to transform these large, wealthy and established organisations into disabled led organisations with a mission to implement the Social Model through their activities, moving from begging and misrepresentation to campaigning for rights and delivering public education; no longer competing with disabled led organisations but supporting and developing them; working together with other groups to find common ground and create a commonly agreed platform based on disability rights and equality.

In other words build a new disability movement!

Egos and personal history would need to be left at the door. Trust would have to be fostered and built upon.

My only request is that there would be a substantial majority of disabled people involved in this process who have the power to speak for their organisation.

It’s a commonly shared view that at this time disabled people’s rights are under threat like never before. The victories we have won over the past 30 years could be gone overnight. The sky is falling. So it’s worth a shot.