“Cripple Movement” | No more special routes for disabled people

Demonstration by the German Federation of Trade Unions (DGB) against the current cuts plans of the black-red federal government Photo: dpa/Enrique Kaczor More than 170,000 people took to the streets last Saturday against the planned social cuts. Leftists are heatedly discussing whether, in view of the class struggle from above, we should now only concentrate on social protests and forget about “identity politics” questions. These attacks on the welfare state in particular show that social issues and discrimination are inextricably linked.

Part of the black-red cut proposal is that the municipalities save on integration assistance. This means that services such as personal assistance or school support should be reduced or eliminated. This makes attending school, coping with everyday life and participating in public life more difficult or even impossible. The bottom line is that this means a violation of fundamental rights for disabled people. But what is often forgotten in appeals for a good welfare state is that disabled people have fought for the right to a self-determined life themselves.

In their history podcast “History of the Worlds to Come,” Sina Reisch and Indigo Drau talk about people who fought for a better world to come. The two have been active in social movements for many years.

It has been 45 years since the “cripple movement” entered the public stage. Literally "the stage", because in 1981 disabled people disrupted the opening of the UN Year of the Disabled. They occupied the stage, chained themselves there and prevented the Federal President from giving his opening speech. On the posters they hold up there are sayings like: “To every cripple his club.”

These people made it clear: They did not want any performative handouts while the worst human rights violations were taking place in the republic's facilities for the disabled. They didn't want to continue acting like grateful model disabled people. They wanted their rights. And not only improve the situation of disabled people, but also change society. The “Air Pump”, one of the movement’s own magazines, said at the time: “The unscrupulous ideal of performance, the glorification of flawless beauty and athleticism, the unconditional demand for optimal work ability is based on the principles of a profit-oriented society, these are the causes that not only make us disabled.”

And the fact that everyone should actually be afraid of this unscrupulous performance ideal is also a reason for the exclusion of disabled people. Supposedly non-disabled people suppress their own vulnerability, their own fear of not conforming to the norm and therefore cannot bear the sight of disabled people. Back in 1980, a court awarded damages to a woman whose holiday hotel also had disabled people staying. There was no mistaking the fact that their presence diminished the enjoyment of the trip, the court said at the time.

When the cripple movement started, there was a special path for disabled people - from the special crèche to the special cemetery, as the activist Udo Sierck described it. Disabled people were taken from homes on the outskirts of the city to workshops for the disabled in special buses. The main thing was that non-disabled people were not expected to see disabled people. When Sierck studied history and discovered that it was precisely segregation that made it possible for Nazism to mass murder disabled people, it became clear to him that it was precisely this segregation that the disability movement had to fight against.

So instead of forced accommodation in homes where human rights violations go unnoticed, disabled people demand to be able to decide for themselves how and where they want to live. Ultimately, they use very different means to enforce this requirement, at least to the extent that there is now a legal right to it. They use provocative direct actions, but also independently set up “self-determined living” centers where disabled people advise other disabled people, or go into politics or teaching.

In times when the unscrupulous performance ideal of the profit society is emerging with a new, flawless cruelty, it is important to remember the cripple movement. And that it can't just be about demanding what has been "hard-earned", as the DGB set as the motto for their day of action. But rather that it must be about demanding that people are more important than profits and have the right to a good life regardless of their performance.

We should also remember all the other movements that fought for the welfare state we have today. Because nothing was ever given to us by the bourgeois state.

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