The (Sometimes) Walking Wounded
War creates casualties. So do ritualized battles. Civilized nations maintain humane systems appropriate for these facts of life.
While it is supremely tragic to endure the parade of death and disability that is the product of war there is a redemptive quality in the compassion and instinct for social reconstruction following war or natural disasters. We have seen it after events such as Katrina, the Indian Ocean tsunami, or the Chengdu earthquake. Even as we have commented on the incompetence and bad faith efforts in response to Katrina and are now witnessing the absence of a fully human response in Myanmar we see Bruce Curtis at the World Institute on Disability (WID) recently returning from a tour of national redemption in Iraq.
I experienced a seismic wave of dissonance while scanning through my email today. Sequentially I learned:
-
Bruce Curtis, with WID, is contributing to peacemaking in Iraq by empowering Disabled People's Organizations (DPOs)
- Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has promised a $100 million Federal Budget funding boost for families with disabled adult children "to help older carers of children with a disability to plan for the transition of their children to appropriate supported accommodation in the future."
- At 36, former NFL player Brian DeMarco walks with a cane because of a spinal injury from sports yet he and his family have been left homeless three times due to uncovered medical expenses.
Or to state it differently:
- Regular citizens with disabilities like Bruce Curtis step in providing global leadership in a conflict situation.
- National electorates reject political philosophies of unmitigated greed and the abdication of the governmental mandate to insure the common good.
- Heroes of the politically-anesthetizing war-substitute spectacle of professional sports are dumped on the street. Stripped of their role as warriors of the playing field they are shunted into the ranks of the untouchable ostracized -- the marginalized community of people with disabilities.
The solution is to be found in the political will to enact social inclusion.
This site revolves around implementation of Article 30 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, "Participation in Cultural Life, Recreation, Leisure and Sport".
No individual, no government, no nation -- no sports team -- is exempt.
Article 30 of the UN CRPD:
http://blogs.bootsnall.com/Scott-Rains/tourism-in-the-united-nations-convention-on-the-rights-of-persons-with-disabilities-crpd.html
Posted by rollingrains at May 14, 2008 02:58 PM