The British Journal of Developmental Disabilities Vol. 51, Part 1, JANUARY 2005, No. 100, pp. 103-107
DESPERATE DAN: THE DISEMPOWERMENT OF PEOPLE WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES THROUGH DIRECT ACTION
According to Wolfensberger (2003) the advent of the ideologies of radical individualism coupled with radical self-determination and the derivative constructs of choice, self-advocacy and empowerment has resulted in many people with a learning disability being turned loose without any, or without sufficient, supports, guidance, tutelage, or outright controls. He makes the further point that in the Western world it has been believed until very recently that rights were linked to corresponding obligations. Now, he argues, people claim rights without seeing themselves as having any corresponding obligations. In fact, the common mentality now appears to be ‘the rights are mine, the obligations are yours’. Wolfensberger singles out for criticism the kind of assertiveness training promoted by collective self-advocacy groups. Whilst he accepts that elements of it are certainly adaptive, one should never teach assertiveness outside the contents of a broader preparation for life and without regard to the characteristics of the person at issue. Particular concern is expressed at the radicalisation of the advocacy movement - its increasingly confrontational stance and the strident tone which threatens to antagonise and alienate those whose support is vital if appropriate services are to be developed. Wolfensberger’s observations have a resonance at a time when the agenda of collective self-advocacy for people with a learning disability in the UK appears to be influenced by one particular pressure group -
the Disabled People’s Direct Action Network (DAN). An indication of the kind of tactics employed by DAN can be gauged from the following extracts taken from copies of DAN Newsletters currently accessible on the internet. The websites for these extracts have been provided so that readers may examine the material in greater detail for themselves. The first extract chronicles the exploits of DAN supporters in successfully disrupting a Celebrity Ball organised to raise funds for the Leonard Cheshire Foundation.
DAN spoils the party On Saturday 5th October over a hundred disabled people from DAN from all over the country came to Manchester. They were enraged that the Leonard Cheshire Foundation, the world’s leader in putting disabled people in institutions were holding a Celebrity Ball to raise money, no doubt to pay for the £1.3 million budget they have for public relations. Apart from being the world’s leader in incarcerating our sisters and brothers they now believe that disabled people are so stupid so ignorant that we couldn’t run independent living services ourselves and are promoting themselves as experts on independent living. This is taking needed money out of our powerful disabled
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community. Not for the first time has the oppressor tried to steal our ideas. An hour before the start, DAN checked into the hotel and took six friends up to the DAN room. Meanwhile our deaf sisters and brothers and Claire from Manchester popped into the hotel bar for an aperitif. Shortly afterwards the whole crowd of us arrived and proceeded to occupy the lobby and attempt to go to the Ball. After about ten minutes the hotel security kicked in and blocked lifts. Meanwhile DAN checked out of its hotel room and the Danners who managed to get upstairs began to cause a stink at the Ball. We let off over 60 stink bombs in the Ballroom to welcome the ‘honoured guests’ of Leonard Cheshire. Downstairs in the foyer and outside Danners were blocking the main entrance to the hotel when the police arrived. Instead of diverting people to the many other exits and entrances the police decided that they would make an example of us. In the ensuing struggle many Danners suffered cuts and major bruises. Handcuffs were torn from wrists rather than using the bolt cutters available, passive resisters were roughly grabbed without warning. Wheelchairs were toppled over and many Danners suffered injury. Rather than try to work through the situation the police were intent on moving us as quickly as possible even though guests to the Ball were getting in and out. DAN scored a major victory by denting Cheshire’s credibility. DAN has announced to the world despite their million pound PR budget that the Leonard Cheshire Foundation abuses disabled people’s fundamental human rights. We struck a blow for every person in a Cheshire home
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and for every one of us threatened by their very existence that we too might end up there. We struck a blow for independent living services controlled by us not the oppressor of the past (and present). This was a hard action with many of us still suffering the physical wounds of battle. But spiritually, whatever that means for you who were there, we want to say we all did a great job in the struggle for all our freedom. We were united, we were strong and we won. Free our people. http://www.johnnypops.demon.co.uk/ poetry/articles/lc/index.htm One of DAN’s most recent campaigns has been directed at the seven largest disability charity organisations in the UK. In Dishing the dirt on Mencap the following comment is attributed to a person with a learning disability: Why is it too much to ask? Why won’t Mom, Dad and the carer make it happen? Why are they allowed to get away with keeping me, locked up at home while they go out, keeping my money and spending it whilst they go out, spending my money on the taxi that takes them out. Why do I have to live like this? What does it have to do with Mencap and the Government? Mencap are telling the government that the Mental Incapacity Bill will be good for people with learning disabilities. That it’s OK for my mom and dad and carer to speak for me, to act in my best interest, to make decisions for me even if it a decision I don’t agree with, even though everyone knows these same people have abused me all my life. Stole my life and stole my money. Stopped me from going to the disco on a Saturday night. Stopped me
from being with my friends or having a drink. http://johnnypops.demon.co.uk/poetry/ articles/dan/pr-oct-2003.htm And in Dishing the dirt on the Leonard Cheshire Foundation, the reader is presented with the following: Leonard Cheshire residents often are not allowed to have any privacy. They are brainwashed and scared and see their appalling situations as their only choice. Hardly anyone leaves a Cheshire home except in a box. Those that do tell of the repeated human rights abuse and indignity suffered in their homes. http://johnnypops.demon.co.uk/poetry/ articles/dan/pr-oct-2003.htm And finally, a DAN Newsletter urges readers to: . . . remember our sisters and brothers in institutions lying in shit, controlled totally by the professionals, abandoned, homeless, abused every minute of the day, brainwashed and guilt ridden. Take action, organise, get help, demand support. The only bad action is no action. http://www.johnnypops.demon.co.uk/ poetry/articles/dan/dannl-4-02.htm This form of campaigning can scarcely be characterised as subtle. DAN campaigners obviously believe that the only effective way of capturing people’s attention is to shock them. However, the manner in which DAN attempts to shock is likely to be counter-productive because of the unsophisticated, offensive, demeaning and sweeping nature of the generalisations made. Direct action of this kind creates a negative image, as a consequence of
which any legitimate concerns that people with a disability have may be discounted or ignored. What is unfortunate is the way in which parts of the Advocacy Movement have been drawn into areas that lie outside their domain thus compromising their integrity. As Kendrick (2002) has pointed out, if advocacy is to gain societal acceptance it must be practised with integrity and should never celebrate conflict and division. It might be tempting to write off this crude campaigning literature as juvenile were it not for the fact that a number of organisations have associated themselves with the sentiments expressed and actions taken by DAN. One organisation, which has been closely identified with DAN, is the British Council for Disabled People (BCODP). It is somewhat ironic that Andy Rickell, the former chief executive of BCODP, has recently taken up a highly paid post with Scope (formerly the Spastics Society), one of the organisations singled out for attack in DAN’s Dishing the dirt campaign. Whilst the Direct Action Network stresses that it is an organisation committed to nonviolence, it nevertheless draws attention to ‘the physical wounds of battle’ incurred in the direct action taken in Manchester. The scenarios that are presented and the language that is employed are calculated to elicit a strong emotional response in the reader. One problem with this kind of strategy is that there is a temptation to try and make one’s point even stronger the next time round. In other words, an escalatory process comes into play that is difficult to check. When members of DAN claim that they belong to an organisation dedicated to nonviolence, they fail to recognise that violence is not simply the commission of a physical act. The words chosen for a pamphlet may incite a violent response. Where this happens those responsible for writing such a pamphlet are as morally culpable as those who commit a violent act. In this context, it is worth noting that the Disabled People’s Direct Action Network appears on the same web page as a number of
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other direct action groups, including animal liberation groups - no strangers to the implementation of violent and intimidatory strategies. The frequent reference to ‘sisters and brothers’, ‘freeing our people’ and ‘the struggle for freedom’ is obviously intended to portray the Direct Action Network as following in the illustrious footsteps of members of the 1960s civil rights movement. Calling up the image of Martin Luther King in support of the tactics employed by DAN does a serious disservice to the memory of a distinguished civil rights leader. Apart from the major disability charities, other broad DAN targets have included professionals, parents, special schools and residential care settings of any kind. What is disturbing is the depth and intensity of the antipathy and venom directed towards these targets. Members of DAN might profitably take note of Dr. King’s own words: “Hatred paralyses life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it”. A further target has been the academic community. Simone Aspis, a member of People First and a DAN activist contends that the learning disability research field is riddled with the vested interests of non-disabled academics who have no desire whatsoever to support disabled people with learning difficulties (Aspis, 2003). The reality, according to Aspis, is that everything is done under the pretence of ‘partnership’, as there is no possibility for disabled people with learning difficulties to manage the research themselves. In short, anything that people with learning difficulties want to say and do has to be sanctioned by the non-disabled researchers. Aspis states that nothing is likely to change because influential non-disabled academics are content to continue working in this unethical manner which upholds the power imbalance between non-disabled academics and disabled people with learning difficulties. Walmsley and
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Johnson (2003), two academic researchers, have countered that members of the learning disability lobby - including Ms Aspis - should give academics space to consider, reflect and come up with ideas relating to inclusive research without members of the ‘learning disability’ lobby claiming the right to be ever present. Walmsley and Johnson (2003) accept that this may fly in the face of the current orthodoxy in inclusive research which proclaims ‘Nothing about us without us’. What the Direct Action Network fails to recognise is that fundamental change is unlikely to be brought about by its abrasive and abusive approach. Nowhere in any of the literature published by DAN is there the slightest acknowledgement that most parents and professionals act for the best and not the worst of motives. The kind of indiscriminate denigration engaged in by the Direct Action Network ill serves the inclusionist cause that it so blindly and uncritically supports. Collective self-advocacy groups, like People First, would be well advised to distance themselves from the kind of activities promoted by the Direct Action Network. It is perhaps worth recording that some of the most profound and enduring social welfare, educational and penal reforms in the UK have been brought about through the work of groups genuinely committed to non-violence, like the Quakers, who believe not only in the power of reasoned argument but also in the importance of respecting the integrity of those people with whom they are engaged in dialogue. Members of the Direct Action Network could well take on board Wolfensberger’s advice that: “some people need to be taught to be less assertive, to talk less or less loudly and to better control what comes out of their mouths; others need to be taught consideration, courtesy, and other competencies hand-in-hand with assertiveness” (Wolfensberger, 2003). Robin Jackson Email:
[email protected]
References Aspis, S. (2003). Research - disabled people with learning difficulties: the power struggle. Involve Newsletter, Summer 2003, p5. http://www.invo.org.uk/index.htm Kendrick, M. (2002). Integrity and advocacy. In: B. Gray and R. Jackson (Eds.). Advocacy and Learning Disability. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Walmsley, J. and Johnson, K. (2003). Inclusive Research with People with Learning Disabilities: past, present and futures. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Wolfensberger, W. (2003). The future of children with significant impairments: what parents fear and want, and what they and others may be able to do about it. Syracuse. NY: Training Institute for Human Service Planning, Leadership and Change Agentry.
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