Don’t Dis My Ability!
13 February 2016
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By Irene Sithole.|One of the challenges which continue to hinder people with disabilities from enjoying

Don't Dis My Ability
Don’t Dis My Ability

their rights is stigma and discrimination. The stigma and discrimination can be seen first and foremost in how people with disabilities are described by society. There seems to be always a debate in society on what term should be used to describe the condition of people with disabilities. The debate may be ongoing for ages as the terms and descriptive names are always changing. Being someone who is partially sighted, I have also been having an internal debate about what I and others in the same situation with me should be described. I was wondering whether I am a disabled person, a person with disability or a differently abled person.
On reflection, I did not dwell much on the term “disabled” because I agree with the school of thought which says that this term is disempowering. It describes people with disabilities as victims who are not able to do anything for themselves. While there are some people with disabilities who have an almost 100% dependency on others, the majority only require assistance on certain aspects of their day to day living. The international convention on disability uses the term persons with disabilities which I have modified to people with disabilities in this article. I will discuss this term “people with disabilities” after analyzing the term “differently abled”.
I was browsing on the internet the other day and on Yahoo Answers I came across some views posted by people with disabilities who came out strongly against the term “differently abled”. They expressed that the term has the same meaning as abnormal. English is not my first language but I find nothing in the English dictionary which equates different to abnormal or which says being different is bad. I will route for differently abled because I believe it is the term which aptly describes the skills of people with disabilities. People without disabilities in accordance with societal norms depend on their eyes for sight, hands for touching, feet for walking, the mouth for speech, etc. When I observe the people around me, I have concluded that they have “blind” hands. In other words when they want a certain object, they have to see it with their eyes first, then they reach out and touch it with their hands. I, on the other hand, because of my limited sight will reach out and locate the object with my hands. To me that means I can see with my hands. I have also seen on television some people who can write with their mouth or foot because they have no hands. Some of us with hands cannot do the same because we rely on our hands to hold the pen while we write. This unique use of some body organs to do things which they are not ordinarily used for is found in every area of disability one may think of. In my view that is being differently abled. It is having abilities which other people do not ordinarily have and it brings me back to the term “people with disabilities”.
It is clear from the above discussion that every individual has both abilities and disabilities. If you get incapacitated the moment someone switches off a light because you can only see with your eyes, is that not disability? If you have to hire someone to write or type for you because your hand is injured, is that not disability? There is therefore no need to call others people with disabilities as we all have disabilities. The important thing is to identify our abilities and use them for our benefit and the benefit of all humanity. This discussion is not exhaustive as there other terms which have not been discussed. There are other terms such as being challenged or impaired in certain areas. My mind is still processing those ones and hopefully one day I will be able to say whether I feel visually challenged or impaired. For now I will take the discussion to the vernacular arena.
While there are efforts to address stigma associated with labeling in the English language, the Zimbabwean society is not doing much about the vernacular. It is still common to hear someone publicly including on church pulpits referring to someone who cannot see with their eyes as “bofu” and someone who cannot walk as “chirema”. These Shona terms are derogatory as they make the differently abled people appear as objects and not human beings. I remember from my school days when we did classification of nouns that “chi” was class 7 and it referred to objects. I understand that the Ndebele term for the differently abled is “isilima” which is equally derogatory. No wonder the differently abled are still facing a lot of stigma and discrimination in our nation because the way they are referred to shows that they are not regarded as equal human beings entitled to dignity and the same rights as everyone else. If a differently abled person is a “chi” which translates to an “it” then he or she will not be send to school or be provided with decent clothing or any of the things that constitute as basic rights for a human being.
As a nation we still have a long way to go in recognizing persons with disabilities as equal human beings through our language because an “it” which is how a person with disabilities is referred to currently has no entitlement to human rights. Changing our language is part of changing our perception which will enable us to see the need to make facilities, basic utilities and technology accessible to people with disabilities for no other reason than that they are human beings and they need these things.