Train of thought - Inclusion

Working at NISH feels like I'm in another world. Where people with diverse abilities are respected and cared for. Although there, we often talk about 'mainstreaming' people with disabilities - which is often a conflict in my head. If we want to 'mainstream' them, we want to change them - that means, we are not accepting them as they are. Then, are we respecting them in the truest sense? Such idle and idealistic thoughts shrank in my head when I mothered a girl. Yanked back to the real world with the pain of healing scars, sleepless nights and anxieties riddled around caring for a newborn and dreaming of her safe and happy future. What would I want for her? Acceptance for whatever she is, of course. But I would not risk that as an expectation out of fantastic ideals. I understood what powered the mothers walking every day to NISH with their wards, sitting through the therapy sessions, picking whatever techniques they could and following up diligently at home.

What triggered this blog today? An article in DC, borrowed from the Spectator and its predecessor. Perspectives from societies which are much ahead of us in terms of inclusion and human rights always make interesting reads.
(In India, Kerala leads in human rights. In Kerala, I work at NISH which is higher up on inclusion and human rights. Being from TN and having spent some years in Singapore, this train of thought and comparisons in my head is quite crowded and chaotic).

The older article talks about political correctness and how the author values it, as a father of a child with autism. I could relate to it, being someone who completely hated the 'politically correct to the power of infinity' atmosphere in Sg... being someone from a small-town in central TN with its heat, rawness, loudness, blatancy, from the opposite end of the 'politically correct' spectrum. Someone who hated the plastic smiles and empty civilities. A brief stay at Boston, where I learnt to be alone and tough and also made some lasting friendships with people from different parts of the world- further reinforced the disbelief in 'political correctness'. My younger self's motto was : 'being raw, open and true is the way to greatness'. Or, is it, always? (What did I mean by 'greatness', by the way?) This is like the conflict between being young and loving 'Hobbit'/'LOTR' and getting older, wiser and relating more to 'Game of Thrones'. Get down to the field. Work at the grassroots. Face the complexities of how the world actually works day by day. You will understand what Simon Barnes is talking about.

Today's article by Ross Clark is also relevant to us, living in a chaotic time (and place) of majority-minority interaction. When we fear each other, whither inclusion? Some excerpts : 'focus on rewarding good behaviour, not inducing punishment for bad behaviour' ;
'Our society has undergone a fantastic transformation in attitudes, but it wasn't brought about by hovering lawyers. They might, on the other hand, succeed in partially reversing it'.