Is the society around us seriously registering aspie issues? and the beneficial impact they make upon many other fairness issues too? Or are they just saying what the socially minded say too often: Oh dear, will we be understood if we say anything new, let's just keep saying what we find familiar? When a local project starts up for a good cause, does it do its own thing, oblivious to us?
On May 9 the No Borders campaign held a dayschool here, as part of a tour, on the oppression of asylum seekers. Part of its purpose was to assemble such folks as might want to take part in starting a local project for practical solidarity with asylum seekers, similar to one already functioning in Newcastle. There was a predictable way that the prevalence of local faces who are already regular in the left wing or anarchist scenes reduced the likelihood that anyone not of those scenes could be involved and feel comfortable or included. The rigidity of attitude those folks have about most topics, really thwarts the wider growth of projects they would like to see wider growth of.
Some of what they are about was sensible practical sharing of material goods with asylum seekers who can't obtain them, either who are paid in food vouchers of tightly limited usability instead of cash, or who have had all income cut off completely at the same time as not being allowed to get jobs. Solidarity in the face of the unviability of life the asylum system is intentionally designed to cause. Naturally also they are interested in raising public support for our guests, for making the true situation wider known about how folks already come out of desperately dangerous situations are getting treated, and if need arises, for having the means to create campaigns of the community's eagerness to keep someone, around blatantly corrupt refusals of asylum or attempts to deport. There has in fact already been a past campaign in Edinburgh preventing a spiteful deportation of a care worker whose life was totally established here and formed part of the care of learning disabled folks too. These campaigns are brilliant in their impact aginst racism, because they pinpoint how immigration barriers trample over the practical common sense of daily life.
Here is the problem. Folks doing these campaigns, if they seriously and genuinely care and want sheer reasoning decency to win against racsim, then they must want every possible contribution to victory for asylum seekers to be seized on and made maximum use of. This is an automatic duty. In the dayschool, in the session devoted to gathering ideas, I contributed an idea arising from autism. Think about this one:
Disability discrimination is now an established principle, itself owed to a history of struggle too. Among asylum seekers, just as among any other group, there are bound to be some aspies, some dyspraxics, and some attention deficits. To treat them in any way they will have a disadvantage with because of their conditions, is disability discrimination hence must be illegal. This is arguable by 2 separate routes, nationally on grounds of disability discrimination law, and internationally on human rights grounds applying to medically real minorities. But is there a screening system that is diagnosing all the autistic spectrumites among asylum seekers, and doing it straightaway without a wait, and being generous about diagnosing in uncertain cases? Of course not. As there is not even such a system for the ordinary settled population, even less possible is it for asylum seekers. This proves - the system handles asylum seekers completely blind to which ones are on our spectrum. Hence, any way that all asylum seekers are treated, that would be disadvantageous to the spectrumite ones, is a disability discrimination and is invalid to continue. Where there is an impairment of concentration or attention, there is a greater chance, innocently and without blame, of losing physical objects, especially small or flimsy ones. Like - identity papers and cards. It is visibly disability discrimination to make any autistic spectrumite verify their status by carrying documents. Because of not knowing which asylum seekers are spectrumites, disability discrimination is committed by making any asylum seekers at all depend on carrying documents, in any way at all !
This gets rid of the identity cards being introduced for asylum seekers, and it wipes out the validity of ever penalising them for lacking papers or passports on their arrival here.
So we wait to hear that No Borders or any other asylum solidarity project makes some use of an item of this whopping magnitude. How long will the wait be? At the dayschool, my point was just put in the list, with a murmur of uncertainty of how much gain it would be possible to make from it in practice. One more voice, speaking from lack of knowledge of disabilities, voiced the sense of unsure ground hence of need to pass this item on to any folks with more secure disabled knowledge who might pop up in the local project in future. This is all that happened. Indeed from experience this is about all I expected would happen. The item was not focussed on again in the ending. It's obvious what this means: no commitment that the item will be used at all. The project will start with local radicals just saying the familiar things they are already used to saying, that don't force any big shift in the system's nature.
We have never yet had an asylum seeker in Elas. In theory we could, if there was an aspie one living in Edinburgh. Then we would be involved at the real personal level of experiencing the oppression, the global apartheid, splitting friends and vandalising lives. We will all as a community, not only the asylum seeker, have been medically wronged and violated by any functioning local asylum solidarity project, if it claims to have even in theory a choice not to make use of the item I raised. Same goes for all the national projects. If the local project does get going, then any asylum seekers reading this will know whether the project honestly cares a damn and wants to win your cause, by whether it takes up my disability discrimination argument and cites it publicly against the identity rules in the asylum system. It is a simple clear argument.
How many other good causes are there, where the opportunity for autism to force positive advances in civil liberties gets received only with uncertainty and doing nothing, just because it is unfamiliar? This makes all the difference to whether aspies are marginalised, or campaigners for other causes are seen to care at all about the biological needs they raise. The issue about losable documents does not only affect asylum seekers, they are only the most extremely and urgently affected group. For all the settled population too, the issue has the potential to stop identity cards and to force the democratic world to abolish passports and tickets on public transport. Which brings a whole lot more issue campaigns under the same clear test:
EITHER to commit medical betrayal cheating the entire ordinary population out of a great gain, OR to have no psychological barriers ever to immediate takeup of new information heard for the first time.
Maurice Frank
On May 9 the No Borders campaign held a dayschool here, as part of a tour, on the oppression of asylum seekers. Part of its purpose was to assemble such folks as might want to take part in starting a local project for practical solidarity with asylum seekers, similar to one already functioning in Newcastle. There was a predictable way that the prevalence of local faces who are already regular in the left wing or anarchist scenes reduced the likelihood that anyone not of those scenes could be involved and feel comfortable or included. The rigidity of attitude those folks have about most topics, really thwarts the wider growth of projects they would like to see wider growth of.
Some of what they are about was sensible practical sharing of material goods with asylum seekers who can't obtain them, either who are paid in food vouchers of tightly limited usability instead of cash, or who have had all income cut off completely at the same time as not being allowed to get jobs. Solidarity in the face of the unviability of life the asylum system is intentionally designed to cause. Naturally also they are interested in raising public support for our guests, for making the true situation wider known about how folks already come out of desperately dangerous situations are getting treated, and if need arises, for having the means to create campaigns of the community's eagerness to keep someone, around blatantly corrupt refusals of asylum or attempts to deport. There has in fact already been a past campaign in Edinburgh preventing a spiteful deportation of a care worker whose life was totally established here and formed part of the care of learning disabled folks too. These campaigns are brilliant in their impact aginst racism, because they pinpoint how immigration barriers trample over the practical common sense of daily life.
Here is the problem. Folks doing these campaigns, if they seriously and genuinely care and want sheer reasoning decency to win against racsim, then they must want every possible contribution to victory for asylum seekers to be seized on and made maximum use of. This is an automatic duty. In the dayschool, in the session devoted to gathering ideas, I contributed an idea arising from autism. Think about this one:
Disability discrimination is now an established principle, itself owed to a history of struggle too. Among asylum seekers, just as among any other group, there are bound to be some aspies, some dyspraxics, and some attention deficits. To treat them in any way they will have a disadvantage with because of their conditions, is disability discrimination hence must be illegal. This is arguable by 2 separate routes, nationally on grounds of disability discrimination law, and internationally on human rights grounds applying to medically real minorities. But is there a screening system that is diagnosing all the autistic spectrumites among asylum seekers, and doing it straightaway without a wait, and being generous about diagnosing in uncertain cases? Of course not. As there is not even such a system for the ordinary settled population, even less possible is it for asylum seekers. This proves - the system handles asylum seekers completely blind to which ones are on our spectrum. Hence, any way that all asylum seekers are treated, that would be disadvantageous to the spectrumite ones, is a disability discrimination and is invalid to continue. Where there is an impairment of concentration or attention, there is a greater chance, innocently and without blame, of losing physical objects, especially small or flimsy ones. Like - identity papers and cards. It is visibly disability discrimination to make any autistic spectrumite verify their status by carrying documents. Because of not knowing which asylum seekers are spectrumites, disability discrimination is committed by making any asylum seekers at all depend on carrying documents, in any way at all !
This gets rid of the identity cards being introduced for asylum seekers, and it wipes out the validity of ever penalising them for lacking papers or passports on their arrival here.
So we wait to hear that No Borders or any other asylum solidarity project makes some use of an item of this whopping magnitude. How long will the wait be? At the dayschool, my point was just put in the list, with a murmur of uncertainty of how much gain it would be possible to make from it in practice. One more voice, speaking from lack of knowledge of disabilities, voiced the sense of unsure ground hence of need to pass this item on to any folks with more secure disabled knowledge who might pop up in the local project in future. This is all that happened. Indeed from experience this is about all I expected would happen. The item was not focussed on again in the ending. It's obvious what this means: no commitment that the item will be used at all. The project will start with local radicals just saying the familiar things they are already used to saying, that don't force any big shift in the system's nature.
We have never yet had an asylum seeker in Elas. In theory we could, if there was an aspie one living in Edinburgh. Then we would be involved at the real personal level of experiencing the oppression, the global apartheid, splitting friends and vandalising lives. We will all as a community, not only the asylum seeker, have been medically wronged and violated by any functioning local asylum solidarity project, if it claims to have even in theory a choice not to make use of the item I raised. Same goes for all the national projects. If the local project does get going, then any asylum seekers reading this will know whether the project honestly cares a damn and wants to win your cause, by whether it takes up my disability discrimination argument and cites it publicly against the identity rules in the asylum system. It is a simple clear argument.
How many other good causes are there, where the opportunity for autism to force positive advances in civil liberties gets received only with uncertainty and doing nothing, just because it is unfamiliar? This makes all the difference to whether aspies are marginalised, or campaigners for other causes are seen to care at all about the biological needs they raise. The issue about losable documents does not only affect asylum seekers, they are only the most extremely and urgently affected group. For all the settled population too, the issue has the potential to stop identity cards and to force the democratic world to abolish passports and tickets on public transport. Which brings a whole lot more issue campaigns under the same clear test:
EITHER to commit medical betrayal cheating the entire ordinary population out of a great gain, OR to have no psychological barriers ever to immediate takeup of new information heard for the first time.
Maurice Frank
