A Very Bad Thing?

I think that in future years the disabled will look back on the 2012 London Paralympics as a very bad thing.  Now, I know this seems counter-intuitive, as the 2012 Games rank as the most popular and successful Paralympics ever, with extensive mainstream TV (well, Channel Four) coverage, sold out venues and widespread public recognition of the athletes, but I fear that the 'normalisation' of disability it engendered will have far-reaching consequences.  None of them good.  Particularly ominous was the praise heaped on our Paralympic medallists by David Cameron, lauding their extraordinary achievements in the face of disability.  You can just bet that, as the government's position in polls worsens and the Tories search desperately for new scapegoats, Paralympic success will be used as a stick with which to beat those on disability benefit.  "Look, if these people can play rugby in wheelchairs, sprint with artificial legs and win swimming golds with no legs, why aren't the rest of you getting off your arses and working?" he will doubtless ask, before labelling disabled people without Paralympic medals as 'shirkers'.

Now, you might want to dismiss this notion as being 'ludicrous', but, believe me, such a narrative is exactly the kind of double-think this government has successfully spun in the past to divert attention away from its own economic incompetence.  Let's not forget their earlier, partially successful, attempts to demonise those claiming disability benefits, before they decided that the poor and unemployed were easier targets.  Doubtless, that decision was at least partially the result of the 2012 Paralympics giving such a positive public image to the disabled and changing public opinion - the poor and unemployed don't have a sporting event to showcase the fact that they are human beings worthy of respect.  But just as the government is pursuing its project of implanting in the public consciousness the concepts of the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor, so they will eventually return their focus to the disabled and try to establish the concepts of 'deserving' and 'undeserving' disabled, with the Paralympians as the exemplar of the former.  Sadly, we are currently living through an era where success can fatally undermine your position.