Globalizing Rights, Not Poverty: An Interview with Joshua Malinga
By Laura Hershey ( LauraHershey@compuserve.com)
When Joshua Malinga traveled from his home in Zimbabwe to Winnipeg, Canada, to attend a disability studies meeting this June, he had more on his mind then the keynote speech he had to deliver. The trip returned Malinga to the birthplace of his activism. In 1980, an organization called Rehabilitation International (RI) held its Fourteenth World Congress in Winnipeg. Malinga came to the meeting as an employee of a large long-term care institution in his country. As a staff member of such a place, Malinga was like many others at the RI Congress. But as a wheelchair user with post-polio paraplegia, he was part of a small -- but increasingly angry -- minority within the organization. The disabled delegates, finally fed up by their low status both in RI and in their societies, finally rebelled. They walked out of the RI meeting and formed Disabled Peoples' International (DPI). Malinga, one of the leaders of the rebellion, was appointed to the steering committee. After serving in various leadership roles, in 1991 Malinga became the World Chairperson of DPI. He was reelected to that position in1998.
Founding of DPI
Now, 21 years later, Malinga paused to recall the founding of DPI, and to assess the disability rights movement as it moves into the 21st century.
Malinga: DPI is now 21 years old. It was started as a protest against the way professional people had a grip over our lives, spoke on our behalf. Disabled people didn't have a voice, and they were institutionalized. They were considered, according to the medical approach, people who were sick, people who can't do things for themselves, who need things to be done for them and to them, people who can't claim adulthood and play and adult role. The United Nations declared 1981 as the International Year of Disabled Persons; the theme was full participation and equality. That means disabled people playing an equal role in their societies, disabled people having access to all community services as a matter of right, and rights of disabled people being respected as human rights. These issues were not at [the Rehabilitation International] Congress, which was being held just a year before the International Year. [Instead] it was the same issues -- build better and bigger institutions; "we're doing wonderful work for disabled people." At that Congress there were 5about 2000 delegates, and only 200 were disabled people. So the issue was: Who do you represent? Who gave you a mandate to speak on our behalf?
Hershey: Describe the membership of DPI. How many countries are represented, how many people, and what types of disabilities?
Malinga: First of all, we are a cross-disability organization. In each country, we bring together organizations of disabled people so that they speak with one strong cross-disability voice. And that organ, that umbrella body becomes a member of DPI. So we've got 160 members, in 160 countries. We are an organization of organizations. But every disabled person, anywhere in the world, has a voice in DPI as long as you are a member of your organization.
The personal problems that we go through in our lives are different. You and me are different. The problems that I go through have no similarity to other severely disabled people.I am not talking about disability problems, the social barriers. As disabled people all over the world, we share a lot of commonalities. The same discrimination, the same exclusion, the same poverty. We are sort of the same all over the world whether you are blind, deaf, or physically disabled.
Hershey: Who are the leaders of DPI? Do any particular regions dominate? Or do any particular disabilities dominate?
Malinga: No, the leadership is from all over the world. We've had a chairperson from Asia Pacific, from Europe, from Africa, from America. Yes, the so-called physically disabled people may be dominating in DPI. And, as you know, the blind have the World Blind Union, the deaf have the International Federation of the Deaf, and other groups have got their own international organizations.
Aging leadership
It is important to realize that the people that started DPI, who are in the leadership, are getting older and dying. We need a special program if we are to have people to take over from us.
We have an emphasis on involving disabled women in the leadership, participating at meaningful leadership levels. Some cultures don't allow that, but we have a directed program in Disabled Peoples International for training women. We've made a policy that [in any] seminar or conference which is run by DPI, the [ratio of male to female] delegates should be fifty-fifty; and also that in DPI we should have more women officers than men. Where there's a man as a chairperson, we should have a woman as a deputy, or vice-versa. So we're doing affirmative action at all levels.
New Issues?
Hershey: What are the biggest disability issues on the agenda for the world in the 21st century?
Malinga: I think there are many challenges. The world is becoming conservative. Charity is part of conservatism. Money is going to other issues, not to disabled people. We need disabled leaders who have vision, who can understand that the 21st century is about smart partnership, it's about globalization, it's about collaboration, it's about forming strategic alliances with other movements -- we are not the only people who are being discriminated -- women, aborigines, black people, and others. We do not want to lose what we've gained over the last 20 years. We've gained a voice, we've gained organization. A lot of disabled people are now members of parliament, ministers and so on. The disability movement has put disability on the political agenda. Disabled people are out on the streets, fighting, chaining themselves against busses and trains and so on. Those are achievements which we have done, and we are proud that we started organizing disabled people.
Hershey: You talked about the importance of having strong leaders in the disability movement. Are there strong leaders emerging?
Malinga: I'm talking about leaders who are going to develop other people as leaders, people who are going to create a community of leaders, people with vision. Disabled people have no resources. We fight every day for small issues. Like we say in my country, we're fighting over a bone without meat.
Community of leaders?
Hershey: I like your phrase, "a community of leaders." How can the disability movement make that happen?
Malinga: Every disabled person must be conscientized to understand his or her situation as a situation of oppression, exploitation, and discrimination. To me, a leader is a person who understands his or her situation and is able to do something about it. Everybody can be a leader.
Hershey: Do some of the organizations that belong to DPI have a program for helping create that conscientization?
Malinga: Yes. For DPI as a whole, this is our thrust. Particularly we concentrate on developing leadership in areas where charity is entrenched, and in developing countries where disabled people have nothing, where disabled people are marginalized, where disabled people are the poorest of the poor of the poor! We organize them around gaining skills and creating income generation projects, to create jobs for themselves.
Hershey: Could you talk about globalization both as a threat and an opportunity for the disability movement?
Malinga: Globalization -- unless it tackles issues of poverty, how the marginalized will be reached -- is globalization of injustice. Unless it addresses the issue of how resources are going to be shared. Poverty is not caused in South Africa. Poverty is not caused in Zimbabwe. South Africa is a rich country, but with poor people. Zimbabwe is a very rich country, but with poor people. It's because of the way the world is structured to benefit the Western world.
Disabled people, in their organizations -- you and me -- should start talking about how to support each other. When you see your wardrobe full of clothes, you should understand that those clothes have been made by a person like me in Zimbabwe who has been paid only 25 cents. It's poverty that makes your wardrobe full of clothes. We [must] understand the world economic order.
Beyond Begging
Disabled people from developing countries are not beggars. They are people who know how to survive in their own hostile situation. Disabled people in developing countries are very organized politically. We want to share those skills with you. What we need are resources. We need you in America to make sure that resources coming to developing countries don't go and support charity, whose premise is to undermine the rights of disabled people.
Importance of local leadership
I talk about disabled people supporting each other. But we disabled people from developing countries take exception to disabled people from the Western world, whether it be the Nordic countries, or America, or the UK, or Italy, or anywhere, to think that they know best about our issues. We know what we want. We have good ideas on how we should solve our problems. We don't like to see people come to our countries, as disabled people, starting to draft policies, and legislation, working with our governments without us involved. And I've seen that happen. It's imperialism. It's not development.
Hershey: Can you talk a little bit more about some of the economic effects of globalization, and structural adjustment policies, on disabled people in particular?
Malinga: Economic structural programs are meant for those within the economy. Those who are outside the economy are pushed to the wall. Let me give an example in my country. When we introduced ESP -- Economic Structural Program -- in Zimbabwe, a lot of people lost their jobs. A lot of young people couldn't get jobs. We produced 350,000 school leavers every year, ready to go to jobs; but our economy can only take 20,000. A lot of companies folded up. And we adopted programs -- programs to create employment, programs to deal with emerging businesspeople. The programs have not helped us, because these are IMF- and World Bank-concocted programs which have nothing to do with our situation. They don't apply. Our money is not going to support social programs, it's not going to support education, it's not going to support health.
Hershey: This might be an obvious question, but do those kinds of changes hit disabled people harder than the rest of the population?
Malinga: Yes, indeed, because as I said, disabled people are the poorest of the poor. So we are pushed right to the end.
World Trade Organization protests
Hershey: When we see protests against the World Trade Organization, and other anti-globalization protests, we don't see any mention of people with disabilities, and we don't see any people with visible disabilities involved in that. We hear about human rights and environment and wages, but we don't hear about the impact on the disability community. Why do you think that is?
Malinga: I think perhaps it's our fault, as a disability movement. We should be part of those protests, and our message should be carried by those people. This is why I say we need to create strategic alliances with all the marginalized groups. So I personally support those protests.
Role of Charities
Hershey: You mentioned charities. What is the role of charities in that process?
Malinga: The word 'charity,' the charity between me and my children, it is based on the premise that they should grow and grow and be independent. But charity, as it is practiced for disabled people, says you can't do anything. You can't look after yourself, you need care, you need protection, you are weak. You need us, the professional, to do things for you, and to you!
Hershey: Have charitable organizations, then, become a negative economic force in the process of globalization?
Malinga: To run a charity is real expensive. For every dollar that you put in a charity, 90 percent of that dollar is administration expenses, it's salaries, telephone expenses, vehicle expenses, and only about 10 percent trickles down to supporting a disabled person. Charity is not natural. It's not natural, it's not practical to remove someone from the family, from the community, and put them in an institution. It creates dependence. Anywhere in the world, even in America, if you create charities to provide care, rehabilitation, and re-adaptation to disabled people, you can only reach one percent of that population of disabled people. So it's not natural, it's expensive. It's a waste of money.
Hershey: Under structural adjustment, are charities being used to privatize the resources that were once available through government?
Malinga: Charity, whether it is practiced by a government or by a private person, is the same thing. Because you are doing things for other people; people are not doing things for themselves. It's not self-determination. It's creating dependence. We don't want governments to run charities either.
Malinga: We disabled people from different regions - from the developed world and developing countries, Third World countries and Western countries - have to find a formula for working together. We disabled people in developing countries need support from disabled people from developed countries. It's a two-way empowering process. If you come to visit Zimbabwe, and see how disabled people organize themselves, how they run the office, then you understand, you're knowledgeable. Then you come back to America, you are a taxpayer in your country. Then you go and you tell your country that, [just like] disabled Americans are clamoring for human rights, that's what disabled people in Zimbabwe are clamoring for -- not charity. So you can't, as a disabled person, allow your money to support charities in my country. You don't want charity in your country. We need the same things!
Hershey: Are my tax dollars supporting charities in Zimbabwe?
Malinga: A lot of money comes from the Western countries, America and other countries, to support charities, the same charities which you are fighting against -- institutions. Charity is a colonial thing. It's conservative. We didn't have charities until we were colonized, until the Western world came to interfere with our development and condemned our ways of living. We didn't have charity; disabled people were part of society. I'm not saying there is any culture in the world that is positive to disabled people. But we didn't have institutions, with four walls and a key to lock up disabled people.
Hershey: How do you try to reverse that trend in your country, and give people more opportunities for independence?
Malinga: Organizing itself is development. We develop policies together with our governments which are moving away from charity, and we make sure that there are policies and legislation which support independent living and self-determination.
Hershey: What's the relationship between independent living and human rights?
Independent living
Malinga: Perhaps you want me to say what you call independent living, in your country, may not be different from what I call independent living. But as a practice independent living, to you, means a package of services. You are speaking of a package of services, how much you're going to get from the government. Somebody [an attendant] is going to come and be employed by you, to assist you. We don't have that. In my country, there are no services. Transport is not accessible, schools are not accessible, sports and recreation are not. There is nothing accessible.
Hershey: How do you define independent living in your context?
Malinga: It's a concept, of doing things for myself. A concept that if the government was to buy me a wheelchair, they must give me money, I go and buy the wheelchair, and I give them change and a receipt. It's not for a social worker to go and buy me a wheelchair. Also the idea of organizing ourselves in self-help schemes, so that we have good income. And also, living in a community.
Hershey: You just mentioned that in my country, independent living has to do partly with a person to come and provide assistance in the home. But what about people with disabilities in Africa, who need someone to help them with daily tasks? How do individuals cope with those needs?
Malinga: We live in a family. That's also disintegrating because of industrialization.
Hershey: Is that making it harder for disabled people to stay in their communities?
Malinga: The wife has to work, the children have to work, the mother has to work, the father has to work. So we are left alone.
Hershey: What are some of the other major international issues right now among disability communities?
UN Convention on Rights of Disabled People?
Malinga: One issue is a [United Nations] Convention for disabled people. We've made two or three attempts, and we have failed in the past. But now we'd like to mobilize disabled people all over the world to support the Convention.
It's something which we're working on now. The advantage of having a convention is that when it has been ratified by a country, it becomes law of that country. The United Nations sends people to go and see how and whether it is being applied. In the disability movement we need that opportunity to expose the violations and abuse of our rights.
We are not going to wait for the convention to come and think it is going to solve all our problems. We should also use the UN instruments that are in existence - like the Standard Rules; the 1948 Human Rights Declaration; the Covenants on Social, Economic, and Cultural Rights; the Convention on Total Elimination of Discrimination Against Women; the Convention on Children. We should apply these! Our organization is doing both at the same time -- wanting the convention, and also wanting to make sure the present instruments are applied.
Hershey: How do you see the future of DPI?
Malinga: DPI is a movement -- a movement that changes. But DPI has achieved a lot of things. DPI is the organization of the future because it seeks to unite disabled people to speak with one strong voice. Particularly in developing countries, divided you fall, and united you stand.
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