Joe Camilleri writes...
“Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me” – William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (Act I, scene iii).
I came to know Gordon in 2003 when he was invited to give a keynote address at an interfaith meeting organised by the National Commission Persons with Disability (KNPD) to mark the European Year of Persons with Disability.
All of us were immediately impressed by his intellectual energy, his independence of mind and his ability to communicate clearly and memorably.
Over the years, we also came to appreciate Gordon’s impish sense of humour and razor-sharp ripostes. No one was safe from his quick-fire remarks, least of all me.
Gordon soon became a regular fixture in KNPD activities: chairing workshops, giving public talks, appearing on radio and television shows, writing in the papers, then on the internet.
Somehow, he managed to deal with all these commitments, cope with a very severe physical impairment and still successfully read for a Masters in Disability Studies with the University of Leeds.
As an advocate for disability rights, Gordon was a firm believer in the social model of disability. He never tried to negate or minimise the very real presence of biological impairments but he recognised the fact that disabled people’s quality of life can only really improve if it is society that changes and not the individual.
Like many very severely disabled people (myself included), Gordon had no time for self-styled, usually non-disabled, academics who argue that the social model of disability is an obsolete cliché. Maltese society, he maintained, needs to become more inclusive, more ‘user-friendly’ and to ensure that no one is excluded whatever their ability, or disability.
However, as Gordon would be quick to remind me, there was more to him than disability advocacy. Gordon bore the difficult circumstances of his life: his impairment and physical pain with great fortitude and humour. Like all of us, he was sometimes subject to dark moments and did rebel under the injustices of life.
We often ask ourselves: why and why me? Recently, Gordon was focusing more and more of his very limited energies on the larger issues of existence and man’s place within creation. He was truly a man of very deep spirituality, on a perpetual search for true wisdom and serenity.
Gordon would be the first to acknowledge that his achievements were due not only to his own abilities and determination but also to the support, encouragement and love given to him by his own family, to whom we offer our sincerest condolences and prayers for the repose of his soul.
In many ways, Gordon was very much like a younger brother to me. All of us, family and friends, shall miss him terribly but, equally, he will live on in the deep respect and affection we felt for him throughout his tragically short life.
May he now rest in peace.