Is resistance futile?

The 1st of April has been referred to as Black Monday by many campaigners  Over the next couple of weeks we will see many of the changes outlined in the Welfare Reform Bill (WRB) come into effect;

• the Bedroom Tax, Universal Credit starts being rolled out, 
• Disability Living Allowance (DLA) is being abolished and replaced by Personal Independence Payments (PIP), 
• Legal Aid stopped being available for welfare matters, 
• Benefits will only be uprated by 1% for the first time, 
• Council Tax Benefit is now being controlled by local authorities and many are reducing the assistance given, 
• the Benefit Cap hit’s in limiting all benefit payments (including housing benefit & child benefit) to £500 per week 

But… the 50p tax rate is being abolished so millionaires get a tax break. PHEW. Not all bad then.

All in all it can feel pretty bleak. Stuff like this can easily lead to people feeling depressed, like they don’t have a voice, like no one is listening, apathetic, like fighting is pointless, angry, frustrated and bitter. All those feelings are totally valid reactions to what is happening. A point I would like to make is that these kind of policies are in part designed to make people feel that way. Like there is no point struggling against them any more, that (to borrow a Star Trek quote) resistance is futile.

I say sod that.

We have come a massive way in the last decade and our campaigning power is still building. Social media and the internet brought us all together, many of us who up until then had felt isolated and alone. We shared stories, offered support, nattered about spoon theory and developed friendships. We talked about our experiences with welfare, prejudice, access to health, access to housing and access to work & employment. We started to see that we were not alone when Atos & the DWP declared us to be fit for work against all medical reason. We were not alone in struggling to access transport. Many of us started to see first hand that there are injustices in the world that effect us all. Then we got angry about it. That anger fulled a desire to challenge and change society. Unhappy with the representation that had been given by politicians and charities a new surge of grassroots activism developed.

Now when reforms happen that will effect us thousands of disabled people swing into action to make sure the largely non-disabled media remembers us. We write reports. We read and analyse reports. We lobby MPs and local councillors. We talk on the TV and radio, not asking for pity but calling for society to be better. We look beyond our own backyard and talk internationally. We blog, we tweet, we raise awareness, we campaign, we talk, we act.

I went to a mini-conference run by the Labour party in Birmingham. I asked a question which included some criticism of Atos and the whole ESA process and people gave me a round of applause. When I said “Atos” you could hear a collective “Ugh, they are terrible” style groan from the audience. I wasn’t in a room of disability rights activists, I was in a room full of people from all walks of life yet they knew what Atos was and what it means. That’s amazing! In 2009 if I said Atos to a room full of strangers hardly any ever knew what I was talking about, now most do. We did that! Our awareness raising is clearly working. In 2009 there were no stories in the news about the effects of anything from hate crime to ESA on disabled people, now there is. We did that! In 2009 I rarely heard other civil rights groups, like feminists for example, talking about intersectional disability matters, now they do. Our rising profile has done that.

Fighting for societal change is a long game and takes time. Sadly the chances that one petition or one campaign will dramatically alter the socio-political landscape are pretty slim. That said, lots of petitions, lots of campaigns not giving up and not going away can. So without further ado, for those who want to keep fighting I’ve got some ideas for you. I’ve tried to include a range of things that are accessible to most people.

Courtesy of Pseudo Living