Friday, 24th October 2008
Who needs crutches?
I will spare you the tragi-comedic circumstances of how I came to be in possession of a pair of crutches. Instead, I will fast-forward zoom to what happened when I came to return them to their rightful owners – the Supplies Department of Mater Dei Hospital. The crutches were of the type that has bracelet-type appendages that are meant to support the forearm. They also have facility of being lengthened or shortened according to the height of the person who needs to use them.
Although I shortened them as much as possible, they would not fit into any bag; and since I use public transport, I thought it would be ridiculous to tote them in a shopping carrier, or wrapped up and taped in a bin liner.
If this were a cartoon strip, this is the point at which a shining light bulb would have been pictured atop my head. I decided to use them – not only for research purposes, you understand, but also to give, well, a leg up to my knee, which was acting up again. So, lengthening both of them, I stuffed my purse and keys into my jeans pockets, and set off.
By the time I reached the corner of the street, I realised how helpful crutches were; but since they had not been issued under my name, I could not very well borrow them for a while – this would not have been ethical. I developed a comfortable, steady, even jaunty, step – and, as is done, I stopped at the zebra crossing in order to cross the road safely.
Now the lines in the top part of Canon Road are notoriously frequently disregarded by motorists. And today, it was no exception. Despite there being a person leaning on crutches, obviously intending to cross, traffic of all shapes and sizes zoomed by. Probably, the drivers thought I would stall traffic and make them late. It was the same thing at the bus stop. Although I was not the last one in the queue, the people who were behind me decided that I would take too long to clamber into the bus – and so, of course, I was relegated to mounting it last. The same thing happened when I rang the bell in order to descend at Hamrun, so I could catch the Number 75 Bus... and the same thing happened again when I tried to ride on the bus, when it came, and when we finally arrived at Mater Dei Hospital.
I did not expect pity. I did not expect people to allow me to jump the queue. But I did expect people to treat me like a visible human being with rights. Of course, it could just have been a National Bad Hair Day. But what happened only served to reinforce my suspicion that people who have different needs are treated badly by the rest of the population. And, having worked for some time as a facilitator, I know full well what I am saying.
I am not ashamed to ay that there were a number of times I bawled out so-called “normal” children... the reason being that they imitated a child’s affliction, or else, pointed their fingers at him and sniggered. I always told the child involved that indeed he was to tell his parents or carers that I shouted at him – with the proviso that he also told them why I would have done so. Never once did a parent turn up to complain.
Think back to the person who, for some peculiar reason, wanted to purchase a “delicatessen in stainless steel” for James Bond. The scene comes from For Your Eyes Only, and takes place in London, England. Soon after Roger Moore in the eponymous role arrives at the grave of his wife, a “Universal Exports” Bell Jet Ranger chopper picks him up to take him to one of those inexplicable “emergency” deus ex machina happenings. The pilot is electrocuted in mid-air, and Bond’s rival, the megalomaniac Ernst Stavro Blofeld (who uses a wheelchair), is now toying with the helicopter through remote controls. There follows a lot of stunt flying, during which Bond is struggling to remove the pilot from his seat and take over the controls... and inevitably, he succeeds. What follows is disgusting, and definitely “played” for cheap laughs.
The malevolent man’s wheelchair is caught up in the helicopter’s landing skids... and both are disposed of down a gasworks’ smoke-stack – so that we might hear the word ‘Bond’ echoing in the nothingness.
A point of interest is that whereas in the films From Russia with Love, You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Diamonds Are Forever and Never Say Never Again, the remake of Thunderball, Blofeld almost always appears stroking a white Persian cat, in For Your Eyes Only, the cat was spared certain death – because his master had to hold the joystick. Purists will say that it is not “actually” Blofeld who was murdered, but a nondescript, anonymous, bad person who happened to use a wheelchair too; indeed he is unlisted in the film’s credits.
That, however, is only because at the time there was a legal dispute between Kevin McClory (the screenwriter) and EON Productions, the a subsidiary of Danjaq LLC, the holding company responsible for the copyright and trademarks to the Bond characters and elements on screen. To say that the scriptwriter meant this as an allegory would be stretching a point. Yet, alas, it is all too reminiscent of what happens in real life. How many times have people who are hard of hearing, or who have visual impairment, been made fun of by colleagues and sales assistants?
How many times have we accompanied people with ‘obvious’ challenges, and been addressed by waiters or even passers-by... as if these people could not speak up for themselves? I have lost count of the number of times I see people stare at passengers on board the Number 80 or 81 buses, giving a wry smile or a supercilious look at persons whose attitude or behaviour, in the eyes of the beholder, bestows upon them a ‘label’.
This has to stop. Please. Nobody needs to use other people as a kind of crutch in order to consider himself “whole”.
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Comments
On my last two Malta visits I was extremely disappointed with some (not all) people. I wondered where the respect for others and respect for self got lost. The best place I found for respect was on my vacation in Perth Australia. Young men and women give their seat as an elderly person gets on the bus or train. The city supplies dog poop bags in every park which helps keep the place clean. Garbage bins are everywhere in the streets to help a clean enviroment.
The bus drivers are super nice and helpful and have excellent good manners unlike the bus drivers in Malta. .
Of course on the whole there are many nice people in Malta but the few undisciplined ones give a bad name to all the Maltese. By what I saw there, I was ashamed to even say that I was born in Malta.
People just don't care wether you need any help or not, as long as they are well an all that's fine...then when somehing happens to them...then there's a problem.
Besides, people seeking help ought to be repsected in the first place, then we are ought to help them. Above all, whoever is helping the other should help him/her for the sake of respect and not in a boastful manner "See I helped him corss the road!" "Saw me?"
I totallly agree that Nobody is to use others as a source of cruth! It should me instilled into our culture!