The hidden story of Disabled Britain ‘- An exploration in the elimination of oppression

Disability rights in modern Britain have been hard-won and represent a victory against potential ignorance and bigotry that, for a long time in history, have seen disabled people evicted. as second-class citizens and as a inferior form of humanity.

Even today, such valuable rights are fragile and contagious. Requiring active involvement on the part of successive governments to develop and maintain them would be too easy for precious freedom to slip away and the public might not even notice.

That’s the main takeaway from the exciting BBC documentary, “Silenced: The Hidden Story of Disabled Britain,” which aired last night on BBC Two.

The hour-long documentary is presented with poise, sympathy and grim reflection by writer, actor, and children’s television presenter Cerrie Burnell.

Burnell was born without the lower part of her right arm and the opening scene of the film includes recollections of 2009, when she was a presenter on CBeebies (the BBC’s children’s TV channel). ), she was the subject of angry letters from parents, complaining that her appearance would frighten their children.

The documentary does an admirable job in incorporating the intertwined strands of history. It explains in detail how each second stage of disability harassment, and subsequent attempts at modernization, logically moved to the next stage.

He also explains how the history of disability in Britain was not linear, and did not occur in a vacuum, but rather, shaped broadly by wider forces of social change.

Victorian workshops and unique venues

We learn how the seeds of a super-establishment were sewn into the eerie, dank and airless aisles of the Victorian workshop.

Many of the “deficiencies” and “feebleminded” ended here because they were unable to compete in the bottom-to-bottom rat race that saw thousands of workers migrate to the cities. to work in factories and industrial mills.

The film explains how social reformers and supporters, such as Mary Dendy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, sought to encourage more humane living arrangements for disabled children through community formation. self-contained residences, such as the Sandlebridge Colony in Cheshire.

However, Dendy’s written comments on her “big test” provide a chilling glimpse of what was to come.

According to Dendy, “It is perfectly easy to make most mentally ill people happy without letting them see anything of the outside world. Above all, I would like to emphasize that it is easy to keep children weak if they are never allowed to take animal suffering. ”

The eugenics movement in the 20th century

The eugenics movement may have reached its horrific nature within the mass sterilization of the disabled in Nazi Germany and, ultimately, the death camps but the film shows that it is not just a marginal movement that this was.

Indeed, the documentary reminds us that eugenic principles of selective breeding for the strengthening of the human stock were supported by the likes of Winston Churchill and noted by the philosopher Aldous Huxley.

We see paintings from the 1930s made by the British Eugenics Association. Listening to it, it’s hard to tell what’s even more amazing – the words themselves or the steep but authoritative tone of the British Way.itvoice input used to deliver them.

“At birth, deficiencies are happier and more useful in these institutions than they are in general,” the reporter confirms.

“If trained carefully, they can be taught simple routine tasks but it would have been better for them, and for the rest of the community if they had never been born. ”

Learning from diverse voices

What the documentary does is thrives on mixing values ​​and interviews with luminaries from the British disability rights movement with the accounts of everyday ordinary people.

In addition to hearing the recorded words of Dr. Ludwig Gutman, a Jewish physician who escaped Nazi persecution to live in Britain and became the father of the modern-day Paralympic movement, the look also drawn to the remarkable travel writings of the 1960s and 70s care home resident and disability activist Paul Hunt.

Hunt’s philosophy and activity underpinned the emergence of the social model of disability and is complemented by personal interviews with John Evans.

Evans had no choice but to live in a care home in his twenties after suffering a spinal fracture. He later campaigned in the late 1970s and beyond to provide direct payments by the authorities to allow disabled people to pay for their own carers, so that they could live in -dependent in the community.

However, we also hear the heartbreaking story of Jean Gambell in the words of her brother David. Divided as a teenager under the Dementia Act of 1913 as a result of suffering the side effects of meningitis, Jean spent her entire adult life (approximately 70 years) held in an institution.

Her brothers only found out that she was still alive a few weeks before she died as a result of being able to find a letter from the care facility in which she lived.

Burnell also interviews Ann Macfarlane, who suffered as a type in the 1940s with a type of arthritis called Still’s Disease and her legs broken again by doctors and replaced in plaster.

Eventually, Ann was encircled in a plaster bed statue. Body size pain room designed to prevent all movement.

“They wanted perfect people,” said Ann. “They didn’t want disabled people. They wanted us to be perfect, which is, I think, why I experienced the horror of trying to be perfect and all the cures were going to lead to that. ”

What Ann describes is the day-to-day of the so-called medical disability model. In the aftermath of Nazi atrocities during World War II, the eugenics movement lost traction within civil society but was replaced by a myopic focus on attempting to reconcile broken non-conformist bodies.

At this point, Burnell also recalls as a young girl, going against the instructions of a doctor at Queen Mary Hospital in Roehampton to wear a prosthetic resembling a doll’s hand but with no action benefit.

When asked why she had to wear the prosthetic, the doctor replied, “The other children may not like it if you don’t wear it, or you may not have friends. ”

The social model of disability and civil rights

The final part of the documentary is brought up by the civil rights struggle against violence and marginalization. Direct action flowed where the social model of disability was adopted within the disability rights movement.

The Union of Those with a Physical Disability rebelled against segregation, of which Paul Hunt was a founding member, in 1976.

“In our view, it is society that is disabling people with physical problems. Disability is something that is overshadowed by our shortcomings by the way in which we are unnecessarily separated and excluded from full participation in society. So disabled people are a depressed group in society. ”

The social model of disability repeats disability as a civil rights issue, rather than just a medical matter and the documentary is full of pictures of direct action complaints, such as disabled members of the public stopping traffic in central London to complain against inaccessible public transport.

One of the most striking complaints can be seen in response to the 1992 Telethon.

A national television event broadcast on ITV, the Telethon had planned to raise millions for charity but was heavily lambasted and condemned outside a TV studio by disability rights prosecutors.

Their message was simple – a charity was completely wrong to see the plight of disabled people in Britain.

Full integration into society could not be achieved with the goodwill of the British public pledging donations, this could only be achieved through legislative reform.

To reflect the colorful language of Baroness Jane Campbell, one of the original architects of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, Telethon ‘s objections reflected the determination of disabled British people to “take pity. ”

Throughout the protests, an impressive “rights not charities” mantra is heard and outside the studio, a man with a megaphone summarizes the show’s feelings.

“Those people in the building are facing out on our behalf. We want to tell you – you don’t have permission. We do not want your patronage, what we want is your support for our equal rights as disabled people campaigning against segregation. ”

Civil disobedience and direct action paved the way for the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and its successor the Equality Act 2010.

A simple look at the timeline shows how young these pieces of legislation are.

What has continued has been a decade of government austerity as a result of the 2008 financial crisis, which has cut disability services and benefits to the bone.

As John Evans explains in the film, “We’re almost extinguishing now to try and keep what we have.”

Despite the ongoing monitoring of 14 disabled people in Britain, the pandemic has disproportionately divided this segment of the population in terms of financial provision, statutory protection and mortality outcomes.

This is a matter of concern to us, it has happened in an environment where public attention is focused elsewhere.

As Burnell appropriately sums up in her concluding remarks, “if we look at the great achievement, all the rights that have been won are undoubtedly where we need to be truly vigilant.

“To ensure that these rights are not abruptly taken away in the middle of the night when no one is watching. ”