Interview – Disabled People’s Direct Action Network
Article published: Monday, September 13th 2010
We asked Steve from the Disabled People’s Direct Action Network (DAN) what his organisation was doing about Fitness to Work and discriminatory behaviour more generally.
MULE: Where did it all begin for DAN?
Steve: DAN started in the early 1990s, evolving out of the Campaign for Accessible Transport. Its original aims were to protest against public transport and public buildings not being accessible to disabled people, and to try to force councils and corporations to make them accessible. However, DAN soon evolved into a movement of disabled people taking direct action against many forms of oppression and exclusion, in particular getting disabled people out of institutions such as nursing homes and into independent living.
The latest DAN group in Manchester was formed to organise on 16 June as part of the national day of action against Welfare Abolition organised by the Welfare Reform Coalition, of which DAN is a member.
MULE: What are DAN’s Aims?
Steve: DAN’s aims are to fight against the oppression, exclusion and discriminatory barriers put up by society that mean disabled people do not have the same rights and freedoms as everyone else. We want inclusion of disabled people to be a normal and natural part of society, not something that is “special” or seen as a benevolent act of charity. We want disabled people, no matter how “severe” our impairments or how much support we need, to have the same autonomy over basic aspects of our lives that non-disabled people take for granted. We want to challenge not only the systems and institutions of society that disable us but also the perception of disabled people as helpless victims depending on non-disabled people to “graciously” or grudgingly sort out our problems for us – disabled people fight back!
MULE: Why do you feel it’s important?
Steve: Disabled people’s oppression is massively overlooked, even among “radical” and”activist” communities. Many people are completely unaware that, for example, disability charities are not the completely benevolent organisations they portray themselves as, but reinforce deeply oppressive and disempowering power structures and continue to segregate and incarcerate disabled people in special schools, residential “homes” and other institutions. Many disabled people are denied freedoms as basic as when they get up in the morning, what they eat, what clothes they wear and when they are “allowed” to go to the toilet, because society still regards us as incapable of having autonomous control over our own lives. Governments and the media attack us as “scroungers” and “burdens” on the taxpayer, while continuing to spend immeasurably greater amounts of money on weapons of war, propping up the banking system, and appeasing the rich (the genuine “scroungers”).
Our social exclusion is blamed on our own physical or neurological differences instead of on a society which refuses to accommodate human difference and puts up unjust and unjustifiable barriers because we are not seen as fully human. This parallels the way that racist ideologies of non-white people as “less evolved” or not fully human were used to “justify” centuries of slavery, genocide and colonial exploitation; or how women were denied rights based on pseudo-scientific claims about their biological differences from men, making them supposedly incapable of equality. But unlike racism and sexism, disablism is often unacknowledged or even unheard-of, even on the radical left.
Direct action is not the preserve of physically fit, privileged elites – it is a method of fighting back against an unjust system that can be used by all of us, as DAN’s many past actions prove.despite them often being overlooked by the mainstream media, which prefers, when it acknowledges disabled people’s struggle for equality at all, to portray the state-backed, big-money charities as representing us.
MULE: How many people are involved? What cross section of society are they from?
Steve: DAN activists come from a wide variety of political backgrounds and wider visions of an ideal society – some of us are anarchists, some socialists, some supporters of mainstream political parties, but we are all united by fighting for the rights and freedom of our people. We are a non-hierarchical movement with no central authority – any group of disabled people who want to take non-violent direct action on issues to do with disabled people’s oppression are free to call themselves a part of DAN.
MULE: What do you have planned for the short, medium and long term?
Steve: We aim to continue taking action until: disabled people are no longer discriminated against; we all have equal rights to non-disabled people to choice and control over our daily lives; access to all “public” buildings, transport and facilities; all segregation of disabled people in institutions such as “special” schools and “care homes” is ended; and our right to life and liberty is recognised as just as valid as everyone else’s.
I personally would also like to build stronger links between DAN and other radical socialist movements, such as queer, feminist, anti-racist/anti-fascist, anti-war/anti-colonialism, etc.
Nationally DAN will be organising for the Tory conference in Birmingham on 3rd October 2010. DAN groups in other cities are also likely to be organising direct action independently on local issues.
Interested in contacting Manchester DAN? Phone or text Steve on 07539 754529 or email him at soulrebel@riseup.net
This article features in the print edition of The Mule – Issue 10, out now for FREE around Greater Manchester
More: Features, Interviews, Welfare
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