Religion: the final frontier

I have been a guide dog owner for almost 10 years now, so I am used to being turned away by Muslim restaurateurs and taxi-drivers.

I have lost count of the times that minicabs have said they can’t take me in their cars because of my dog, and I eventually stopped going to Bangladeshi restaurants without checking in advance, because they kept turning me away.

There have been well-publicised cases of discrimination as well. In 2006, a taxi-driver pleaded guilty to a charge under the Disability Discrimination Act after refusing to allow a guide dog in his car because he claimed it would breach Islamic law.

After the case, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said the driver had been ill-informed. Although dog saliva is considered unclean and impure, there are circumstances where allowances can be made.

But is this the only example of a conflict between the culture of a particular religious group and the independence of disabled people? Or are there customs or beliefs within Islam, and other major religions such as Judaism and Christianity, which negatively affect disabled people’s lives?

Sadaqat Ali, a deaf Muslim, was unable to “fit into the Muslim community” when he grew up in Derby. His family were supportive while he was growing up, but he was perceived as being “different” by the rest of the community because of his hearing impairment. He says some Muslims believe that being disabled is synonymous with “shame”.

But Irshad Baquie, executive director of the Islamic Foundation, says that if a person cannot walk, see or hear, God will compensate by giving them greater intuition or the ability to think more deeply than a non-disabled person.

“In Islam, a sickness or handicap is regarded as a test,” he says, “and the patience of those who were tested will not be wasted with Allah, who has prepared for the one who had patience innumerable rewards.”

Ali is now a youth worker with a deaf Muslim group, and says attitudes are improving. But he was only able to develop a Muslim identity and participate in the community after he learned British Sign Language. He says some deaf Muslims are so cut off from Islamic culture that they will eat pork, unaware that their religion forbids it.

Islam teaches that Muslims should show compassion and look after members of the community who are ill or disabled. So, according to Irshad Ali, a partially-sighted Imam from Bedford: “If somebody is blind or not able to walk, then a son or someone will help.”

So what about other mainstream religions?

Rabbi Dr Julian Shindler, Rabbinic liaison in the Office of the Chief Rabbi, says that, although Jewish people must observe obligations to show their devotion, such as praying, their “intrinsic value” as a human being is not diminished if an impairment prevents them observing every ritual.

“If you have somebody who, through no fault of their own, is born with severe learning difficulties and simply has not got a clue what day of the week it is or is unable to pick up a book and pray, then that person is exempt from that obligation,” he says. “They achieve their spiritual potential in other ways; maybe they have got it already.”

But there are aspects of Judaism that do make it harder for disabled people to achieve independence and observe their religious obligations.
Rabbi Dr Shindler’s son has cerebral palsy and is a wheelchair-user. Now 20, he attended a mainstream school.

As strict religious observers, the Shindlers are forbidden to carry out certain activities outside their homes during the Sabbath, the weekly day
of rest. For instance, they cannot push a wheelchair.

To avoid violating the law during the Sabbath when his son was younger, Rabbi Dr Shindler relied on one of his daughter’s non-Jewish friends to push the wheelchair to the synagogue and back while he walked alongside.

It is also forbidden to switch electrical devices on or off during the Sabbath, so observers who use powerchairs or hearing-aids must also rely on non-observers to give them a hand, or, in the case of hearing-aids, leave them switched on.

But what about the big religious charities and their emphasis on the provision of institutional care and their use of segregated settings?

Norwood is “the UK’s largest Jewish charity supporting children and families with learning disabilities or coping with social difficulties”. It runs a residential community, Ravenswood, for adults with learning difficulties.

A spokesman from the charity says: “The various models of residential living that we provide are not based on Jewish teachings per se, but rather on what is best for the individual. Regardless of where they live, we give residents the opportunity to express their religious observance and culture in whichever way they choose.”

Jacky Oliver, chief executive of Through the Roof, a Christian charity promoting access and inclusion in Church life, says Jesus himself “revolutionised the approach to disabled people”, by talking to them rather than shunning them for their perceived sins. But over the centuries, she says, history has resulted in Christianity moving towards a medical model approach, “trying to be very caring, but in fact in a condescending way”.

Oliver cites examples of Church staff who do not regard steps as a problem because they are happy to carry wheelchair-users up them.
She is also aware of a vicar who objected to a disabled person performing a bible reading during a service because their “deformity” might upset other worshippers.

The Rev John Naude, vicar at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Hampshire and another member of Through the Roof, is one of a few full-time wheelchair-using English clergy within the Church of England.

“Historically,” he says, “the Church has primarily seen disabled people as people who you do things for, in the sense of the old charity image. I think through disabled people and the disability movement, disabled people are saying, ‘I don’t want to be pew-fodder any more.
I have a part to play within the Church.’”

He says the Church’s attitude to disabled people in the 1980s was “awful”, but he pursued a life in the Church because it was “a calling
from God”.

The Disability Discrimination Act has helped to change attitudes, he says. “I have noticed a huge amount of change in the 10 years that I have been ordained.
“People are less inclined to be working on the medical model of disability and are moving much more towards the social model.”

The idea of prayer and pilgrimage to “relieve pain and suffering” has traditionally been an important part of the Catholic faith. The water from the spring of the grotto at Lourdes is said to have “healing and cleansing properties”. And after Holy Masses and his Wednesday Audiences in Rome, sick and disabled people have a spot reserved for them that allows them to be closer to the Pope, and he stops to greet them.

The modern Catholic Church still sees disabled people as different, “suffering” and “special” and in need of cures and charity.

Dr Lina Petri, press secretary to the Vatican, says: “Suffering has always had a special place in the attentions of the charity of the Church. Therefore, obviously, both the sick and the disabled who have less apparent possibilities than so-called normal people, they are always in the centre of the attentions of the Church, the Popes, and of course the various institutions run by them.”

Cristina Gangemi, disability adviser to the Roman Catholic Archdicese of Southwark, and to the wider Church in the UK, says: “The whole idea of Lourdes is that there is a sense of healing within it. What we have been trying to do is create a shift in culture whereby we do not see it as healing the body, but that a disabled person can experience inner healing; nothing to do with being cured of a disability.

“There is no doctrine in the Catholic Church that compels disabled people to go on pilgrimages. Pilgrimages are not just for disabled people. Pilgrimages are something that are part and parcel of Catholic life.

“Lourdes is a place for all Catholics, lots of people go to Lourdes. But they go for inner healing.”

But John McCorkell, a disabled Catholic who is involved in a project to promote greater inclusion in the Church, says he has not encountered any issues arising from his impairment that have infringed his independence.

“In my experience as a disabled Catholic, I have not had any negative perceptions sent in my direction. I am physically disabled, though very independent, and I don’t allow this to stop me from doing many things. I received the sacrament of Baptism, First Holy Communion and Confirmation at the same age as someone who does not have a disability.”

Ms Gangemi insists that the atmosphere within the Catholic Church in this country is changing. "The medical model prevailed in the church up until eight years ago, and a disabled person would have been linked to suffering,” she says. “We [the disability advisers for England and Wales] have managed to get right to the centre of the hierarchy, so much so that the bishops’ conference (the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales) produced a website that spoke of equality and the fact that a disabled person has something to teach the whole Church.

“The Disability Discrimination Act has been my best friend in the work that I have been doing. We have got a long way to go but I would say that within the Catholic Church in England and Wales, the medical model is becoming a thing of the past.”

Caption:

Norwood service users enjoy a traditional Sabbath meal.