Disability brings diversity to humanity
ALTHOUGH this instalment is part of the deaf series which in line with the World Federation of the Deaf’s month for the Deaf (September 2016), it also draws on broader aspects of disability in an effort to offer a more comprehensive analysis of the topic.
Recent research (Peta 2016) has indicated that the “arrival” of disability in a family often triggers immense fear among family members, who then make frantic efforts to eliminate the disability.
A three-fold approach to searching for a “cure” is immediately instigated, the traditional, the religious and the modern health care approach.
For example, when Rudo became deaf, her parents consulted a traditional healer to seek divinations as to why disability had come upon her.
“When I became deaf, my parents were very frightened. They said let’s go to a tradi- tional healer to find out why. They said we would go to hospital after that. The traditional healer said I was bewitched by people who were jealousy of my parents,” she said.
In another example, Saru who is deaf, says, “When I stopped to hear and to talk, we were very scared. We went to a traditional healer who said ndakaremara nekuti ndakaramba kutambira shave rambuya vangu rekuroya (I have become disabled because I did not accept my grandmother’s spirit of witchcraft).”
Some families consider it important to establish why disability would have come upon them or members of their family before seeking treatment and or rehabilitation (Anderson 2004, Devlieger 1995).
As such, they consult traditional healers who are believed to have the power to explicate the causes of disability.
The modern healthcare system may progressively take over the treatment of a disabled person, but most commonly after the traditional healer has addressed the “why?” (Burck, 1989).
The common perspective is that when compared to Western trained doctors who just writes medical prescriptions, traditional healers take their time to expound on the causes of disability, taking the family, community and ancestral spirits of the person into consideration (Chavhunduka 2002, Mpofu & Harley, 2002).
However, the “why?” is undervalued in Western society where disability is generally looked at from an angle of nature, biology or coincidence (Burck 1989; Devlieger 1995; Eide & Ingstad 2011). Deliberating on the perception of disability as coincidence, Devlieger (1995, p. 98) quotes Robert Murphy’s Western oriented viewpoint, “In all these years since the onset of my illness, I have never consciously asked “why me?”. I feel that this is a very foolish question that assumes some cosmic sense of purpose and direction in the universe that simply does not exist.”
Murphy’s utterances are generally intolerable in African contexts where the “why me?” question is instigated by a practice of understanding disability in a manner that views it as being deeply rooted in people’s relations with their physical locations, ancestors, families, bride price, taboos and witchcraft (Burck, 1989; Devlieger, 1995; Mpofu & Harley, 2002).
There is evidence that traditional healers also prescribe various modes of treatment for different kinds of disabilities. For example, Saru, who is deaf says, “The traditional healer cut a piece of flesh from below my tongue and another piece of flesh from below my right jaw using a sharp razor. I started bleeding seriously. He started to teach me to talk then after three weeks and still l could not talk, he said l could go!”
Some traditional healers in Zimbabwe have discovered that “mburunzewe” (a deaf person), is also “matsi” (a mute person), (Burck 1989). Such healers believe that the reason why an individual may fail to speak or to hear is because the muscle that is below the tongue would have become too tight. In such cases, the traditional healer may seek to cut the muscle to enable free movement of the tongue.
However, apart from being endowed with unique cultural beliefs, people in most African contexts believe in the supernatural healing power of Mwari (God). Zimbabwe has been rated a Christian nation with approximately 85 percent of the population practicing Christianity (Religion in Zimbabwe, 2012).
However, most of the Christians have not “resigned” from the African tradition under which the pre-colonial authority of the ancestors has continued to prevail. As such, most people in Zimbabwe hold some form of Christian church membership, whilst at the same time consulting traditional healers.
For example, Rudo says, “After the traditional healer takaenda kumuporofita akati ndakaroyiwa (we went to a religious prophet who said I was bewitched). He tried to heal me but I think it was difficult for him to cure deafness.”
In another example, Nyasha, who is blind says, “People say, ‘you can’t just accept disability saka vanoti tanzwa muporofita kwakati, handei!’ (so they say we have heard about a religious prophet who is somewhere, let’s go!). But you see I became blind at the age of two, now I am 48 years old. I have been going to religious prophets for the past 46 years but I still cannot see.”
Religious prophets claim to be guided by God. They identify with Christian religious beliefs, thereby relegating themselves to the Biblical zone of the health care delivery system.
Among other things, religious prophets claim that in the same way that Jesus did, they can make the blind see, the deaf hear and enable those with physical impairments to realise complete and miraculous bodily recovery (Mpofu and Harley 2002).
The common belief is that if disability is not cured after the consultation of traditional healers and the modern health care professionals, the situation is deemed as being very difficult to the extent that it goes beyond the resolution of humanity and traditional spirits (Burck 1989), hence it is submitted to God.
For example, Rudo says, “My parents said, ‘Now that the hospital and the traditional healer have not healed you of deafness, let us now go to a religious prophet and give everything to God.”
Since God denotes a realm that lies beyond the reach, influence or control of humanity, “God is a residual category that is used when no other explanation can be found” (Burck, 1989; Devlieger, 1995, p. 98), hence the ultimate decision to surrender to God. But why not embrace bodily differences? As asserted by Garland-Thomson (1997), I query the inability of society to embrace disability as human diversity. Instead of focusing on curing disability, why not seek to enhance disabled people’s ways of living (Hall 2011) by for example, learning sign language to facilitate communication with deaf people?
As we move from exclusion to inclusion, we are better off learning to accept, value and respect bodies that may be different from ours instead of seeking to police and correct such bodies.
Why should disability be so undesirable such that people with disabilities are relegated to inferior locations where they become subordinate and vulnerable “objects”, who are constantly put under pressure to seek “cures” which hold the promise of “normalising” their bodies.
The views of non-disabled people are usually so powerful that people with disabilities are constantly forced to fit into some kind of “normal” mould which metaphorically is similar to the way that Cinderellas’s step-sisters attempted to squeeze their feet into her slipper (Garland-Thomson 1997).
That is not to say people with disabilities should not seek healthcare for disability-related reasons where necessary, but the reality is that some disabilities cannot be cured.
By simply integrating people with disabilities into mainstream society without fear, we create space for them to interact with everyone else, thereby broadening their chances of being understood. Together let us move Zimbabwe forward through nurturing communities that do not fear disability but that are inclusive of persons with disabilities.
Dr Christine Peta is a Public Health Care Practitioner and a holder of a PhD in Disability Studies. Be part of international debate on how best to nurture a society which is more accessible, supportive and inclusive of disabled people. Partner with Disability Centre for Africa (DCFA): whatsApp, 0773-699-229; website, www.dcfafrica.com; e-mail, dcfafrica@gmail.com