One of the finest speeches I have read, the Presidents inaugural speech of his term in office, a true highlight of 2012, and so worth repeating... President of Eire - Humanitarian - Sociologist - Poet - Author Michael D. Higgins - a veritable hero for autistics EXCERPT FROM SPEECH UPON OPENING OF AUTISM CENTRE In reflecting about the significance of today’s event, I suggest that there are three reasons this Centre, its underlying mission and its work are hugely important. Let me start with an obvious point from the perspective of our citizens with autism. All of us rely on each other for support and indeed our very identity is forged out of our interactions in community with each other. The very stuff of our ‘selves’ is a function of how – or whether – we interact. These common intuitions are being steadily supported by science. The great neuroscientist – Antonio Di Masio – recently described the mind as a ‘relational ideal’ – something forged in communion with others. It is curious how the very thing needed for personal growth and development, namely opportunities for interaction, had somehow been restricted for persons with disabilities – including especially those with autism. It is significant too and replete with implications how our thinking in the past about disability generally and autism specifically is built around assumptions about personal or human ‘deficits’ or failings. So autism becomes or, more accurately, is construed as a ‘problem’ of the person to be fixed. It is but a short step then to saying that people themselves are problems. This negative mentality was deeply etched in all cultures but is thankfully on the wane. I was very taken by the insights of Ambassador Don McKay of New Zealand who chaired the drafting of the new UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. He said that the whole point about the Convention – and the whole point about modern thinking about disability – is to get away from framing persons with disabilities as ‘objects’ to be managed, or cared for even in their own ‘best interests’ and towards a philosophy of viewing them as ‘subjects’ with equal rights and deserving equal respect. This point was also conveyed in broader and eloquent terms by Robert Kennedy who once famously wrote: …we can perhaps remember — even if only for a time — that those who live with us are our brothers and sisters; that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek — as we do — nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfilment they can. Why does this matter and how does it relate to the establishment of this Centre today? Well, we have in discourse and policy to move decisively away from ‘deficits-based’ thinking about disability and specifically autism. We have to create paths that enable the humanity and personal wishes and preferences of persons with autism to be expressed. Fixing the person is not the challenge – exploring new ways of enabling and honouring human expression is the challenge. And this is precisely what this Centre offers. So I would encourage you not just to recognise it as a technical research Centre but as a source of insight into how to release human potential – playing its part in honouring the subjectivity and integrity of persons with autism in our system. I mentioned the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and I do think the work of this Centre will mark a significant contribution towards its advancement in Ireland. The relevant provision in the Convention – Article 12 – envisages a general shift of emphasis onto supports to enable people to form and express their own desires and preferences and make their own decisions. I see the work of this new Centre paying a vital role in helping us sort out what kinds of supports work, how they create paths for progress and thus enable persons with autism chart their own life journey and make their own decisions – big and small – and have these decisions respected by others. Benjamin Franklin once observed that the ‘right to pursue happiness’ did not give a guarantee of happiness – merely a right to pursue it. Our citizens with autism do not lay claim to special rights – but they surely have the same right as all of us to dream their own dreams and to pursue their own dreams. To my mind, the practical research to be pursued in this Centre brings us closer to realizing human fulfilment for all our citizens and not just the majority. The second reason I view the establishment of this Centre as important has to do with broader currents of thought of which it is a part. Human flourishing is never a matter of isolated individual effort. If we are collectively committed to human autonomy – as we all are – then we have to become concerned for the conditions under which that autonomy can flourish. The terms of our social coexistence – and the health or otherwise of our community fabric – is just as important to our autonomy and freedom as is other concerns. It often seems to me that – in the headlong rush to material wealth – we all forgot this most basic of insights. Damage was done to the social fabric on which we all rely. Responsible individualism morphed into possessive individualism. Those who required social support were easily portrayed as calling for special rights – and not equal rights. Our political community seemed reduced to an open-ended framework allowing private interests to compete with private interests. Public policy appeared to be a pale shadow of competing private interests and the ‘public interest’ appeared to be just the point of competing vectors. Even without economic challenges that could not last as it would inevitably feed on itself. Now we find ourselves at an interesting crossroads in history. On the one hand, we are now at the start of an effort to retrieve all that was liberating in the founding ideals of the State. I think it is important to reflect that a Republic worthy of the name rests on ethical principles first and foremost. In a sense we are now in a process of retrieval – a process of re-discovering what these ethical principles are and how they can be reconnected as we renew our sense of Irishness. One the other hand, we are also in a process of re-imagining the link between society and the economy. We are a market economy but this does not mean that we are inexorably fated to be an exclusively market-driven society or indeed be governed by a market-driven political system. There are political choices to be made and we should make them in full knowledge of their ethical dimensions and social consequences. ENDS ... yep, the very best presents come in small packages.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 05:31:32 +0000