"Diversity has come to mean diversity for my views, inclusiveness to mean inclusive of non-dissenting beliefs, openness to mean openness to ideas that I already accept." So writes Kenan Malik in a post on freedom of speech "Conforming not transforming" on his blog "Pandaemonium".
Yesterday, I posted without comment a link to a Guardian newspaper report of a decision by Scope "to close 11 care homes to help residents 'integrate with society'."
Were I to offer comment, it could not be more succinct than Kenan Malik's blog title, that in reducing its range of services, Scope is 'conforming not transforming'.
Conforming? The Guardian reports, disabled "charities have come under a lot of pressure from the disability rights lobby to close what they describe as "segregated" residential care. Only last year, 30 disabled activists protested outside Scope's office against its failure in their eyes to close these services quickly enough." The report continues, quoting Peter Walker, speaking for Scope, "we don't think this kind of old-fashioned care home offers disabled people the kind of say that everyone else has over where they live, who they live with and how their money is spent".
First day centres. Now care homes. Then all special schools? On whose "say" are these "old-fashioned" options and choices "transformed"? How did this become the current orthodoxy of service provision to which all, it seems, must now be required to conform?
As some readers of this blog may know, I am indebted as a parent of a 31-year old who has happily been living independently now for some 2 years, to all those who have fought for the right of all disabled people to have a say "over where they live, who they live with and how their money is spent".
However, without a hint of irony, Scope, it appears, is to circumscribe the choice of some people with cerebral palsy in the name of choice.
I am not convinced that we transform services best by restricting options and choice. If the only choice I have is to do as you say I should, I do not have a choice other than to conform. And that transforms little other than to create a new current orthodoxy.
