"Nothing About Us Without Us," Some Historical Reflections on the Disability Movement in South Africa
By William Rowland
Disability in South Africa has to be viewed against the background of the liberation struggle. During the 1980s and early 1990s disabled people were part of that struggle and today we share in the fruits of a new democracy.
For every person that died in the struggle, three others became disabled, and it was largely from this pool of injury and anger that the leadership emerged of Disabled People South Africa (DPSA), the organization that has spearheaded the disability rights movement in the country. These were also the conditions that gave rise to a mass movement of disabled people, which at its peak must have numbered 10,000 to 12,000 activists, working in unison and speaking with one unsilenceable voice.
Here my purpose is neither to give a short history of the struggle nor to document the events of those turbulent times. It is simply to record some personal recollections as a backdrop to what I shall have to say in the months ahead. And this is how, for me, it all began.
Beginnings
I fly to Durban to attend the Third Congress of People with Disabilities, as observer. I arrive at the Amanzimtoti Town Hall to be greeted by my first comrade, Mike du Toit. He tells me there is a move for me to be the first Chairperson of DPSA, and I say that others have earned the right more than me.
At lunch I am joined by Joshua Malinga of Zimbabwe - today Chairperson of Disabled Peoples' International - and he tries to persuade me with political arguments, but I remain resistant. And then, the next morning I am visited by Elda Olifant, on behalf of the Soweto contingent, and her impassioned words convince me. I agree to serve, provided all the other leaders are prepared to participate. And that's the way it was, back then in September 1984.
On the road
My next memory is of a DPSA congress a few years later. Jerry Nkeli - today a Human Rights Commissioner - takes the floor and calls for proceedings to be suspended and for us to take to the streets to protest against the Government's handling of disability grants, for the majority their only source of income. And so we break up into action groups - transport, slogans and posters, media - and two hours later we are on the road and singing freedom songs.
As we reach the bottom end of West Street in Durban, the lead cars draw level with each other, and stop dead. It is rush hour on a Friday afternoon and there is instant mayhem, with the traffic grid-locked and motorists swearing at us. We disembark and begin to toyi toyi (a militant dance) and chant our slogans. And this goes on for three quarters of an hour before the riot police show up and try to find the leader of the protest as we deliberately confuse them.
I negotiate a peaceful ending with the police and I ask the comrades to return to their vehicles - "real slowly now", I say, and it takes an age.
The next week I am questioned by the police but nothing else happens.
Those were exciting times, but stressful. And there were many such occasions.
Catalogue of injustices
Having refused to recognize the UN International Year of Disabled Persons in 1981, the South African Government in 1986 proclaimed its own politically expedient Year of Disabled Persons. It was in Bloemfontein that year that we withdrew from the national conference, returning only when given the platform to read our most powerful statement yet. It was Phindi Mavuso who presented our catalogue of injustices, the double discrimination of apartheid and disability.
Loss of a leader
And when the leader of the extremist Afrikaner resistance movement, Eugene Terreblanche, called for his members to arm themselves with a million rifles, it was Friday Mavuso who had 1200 of us march up a Soweto hill to the Baragwanath Hospital gates to hold our protest rally against the rising tide of violence. How stunned we all were that April morning in 1995, several years later, on learning of Friday's road accident. His untimely death deprived us of our most charismatic leader. And how moved I was to sit in his small bedroom after the funeral talking to the family - such a humble home; such a great man.
More than protests
Of course, we did a great deal more than protest. As time progressed two initiatives took shape, a political one, to mobilize disabled people to claim their rights, and a developmental one, taking the form of income generation through self-help. We also articulated a new philosophy: that disability was not a health and welfare issue, but a human rights and development issue; that the medical model of disability was inappropriate and that doctors and social workers should not run our lives; that the pacifist methods of struggle would best serve our cause; and that we should align ourselves with the liberation movement. We became "conscientised" and adopted our now famous slogan: "Nothing About Us Without Us!"
I will not deny a darker side to these happenings. We had our power struggles and violence against others was contemplated, but the leadership remained fiercely loyal. We did receive veiled threats, mail was intercepted, and telephones were tapped. And yet we never wavered; after all there were many others in much greater peril than ourselves. And certainly there were life-threatening incidents that have never been explained.
Ultimatum, then momentous announcement
In our consultative forum with government we made three final demands, in the areas of access, transport, and social grants, attached to a twelve-month ultimatum. The ultimatum expired and we set out to destroy all disability structures of government. For two years we were out in the cold and then came the momentous announcement by FW de Klerk of the unbannings, the release of Nelson Mandela, and political negotiations. And DPSA was right there in the thick of things, accepted by the ANC as member of the Patriotic Alliance, and Friday Mavuso and I visiting Mr. Mandela in Shell House to appeal for his intervention on our behalf in a serious matter - the three of us chatting and holding hands, in gratitude and comradeship.
And now...
And now it is seven years on from our first meeting with Mr. Mandela, and seventeen years since that historical congress. The time of struggle is behind us and what lies ahead is a time of delivery. And some believe that will be the hardest part.
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