Frances Ryan’s impeccably researched book echoes the UN’s findings that the UK’s austerity politics have been breaching human rights agreements for disabled people. In every area of essentials – housing, health, social care, jobs, representation, money – disabled people’s access and rights have been systematically pushed back,
“During the silences of suffering, kindness speaks louder than ever.”
We are all disabled. We are all weak in different ways.
We are all occasionally lazy, occasionally heroic. We are all needy, and rely on the kindness of others to survive.
To be drawn towards a people group or country doesn’t mean you swoop in to fix their problems, or try and make them assimilate to your culture, but to listen and adapt yourself to their culture. It is to open your eyes to the weaknesses and arrogance of your own culture, and to change not the people but yourself. True mission is not so much about giving as learning to receive; not so much about speaking as listening.
The pattern? Fear; anger; scapegoat; propaganda; law change; violence. The scapegoats? Disabled, LGBT, BAME or elderly people. Anyone who is seen as ‘other’. This same pattern seems to occur in other countries in other times, during an economic depression.
If we feel a lack of power, we take it out on those who have even less power than us. We kick down, not up. If our boss yells at us, we get cranky with our children.
Whenever you feel a burning desperation to change the world, my advice to you is to get sleep-deprived and weak. Be so weak that you know your dream is impossible, and you will probably fail. Be okay with that. Turn off the logic and the fear, and give yourself permission to fail.
Something is better than nothing. Do that something.
I’m taking a deep breath here. I have a guest post going up at Archbishop Cranmer’s blog today (the blog is well-known and respected for representing God and Politics, Christianity and Conservatism). I’m well out of my comfort zone – I’m making an important point, and a very exciting announcement.
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Tanya Marlow blogs on the Bible, suffering and the messy edges of life [read more]