SOMETHING’S UP. PEOPLE HAVE SOMETHING TO KEEP THEM BUSY

21.09.04


Everything you write, Konstantina, gets me thinking about the same things for years and years. I am sitting in front of my television like a monkey and I am acting like one, both out of joy and out of embarrassment. I want to celebrate but something is holding me. I see our girls (and what great girls!) winning the medals of running (without vision) and I am kind of jealous, because I didn’t manage to break on through to the other side, i.e. become an athlete and be rewarded with distinction, and thus become one with those people who celebrate. All of them together as well as separately.

I get the impression that our athletes have fun even without the spectators, precisely because the bet for the best scores is something that has to do with them and only them. Of course it is important to support athletes. Of course we have to move our legs or our wheelchairs and rush to the stadiums. But those people don’t really need us. This is what I think, at least. By the same token, they don’t need this institution in order to make a name for themselves. It would be much different to watch only the Paralympic Games. In my opinion, they are much more interesting than the other Olympics and they involve the element of competition more directly than them. On the other hand, if they are organized with much less care than the Olympics, they actually indicate the differences much more and they don’t bridge the gap between able-bodied athletes and athletes with a disability.

On a smaller scale, they could represent the 3rd December institution, which is the World Day for people with a disability. Shall I tell you my opinion? Nothing is going to change for as long as days like this one exist. We stab ourselves in our own backs by accepting celebrations and feasts that are actually organized by the majority of people so as to show our differences with them and not our similarities. Moreover, those who organize such celebrations for us can sleep soundly and say: ‘we did this feast for them, we admired their psychological strength, we told them a fairy tale so as not to make them feel neglected. After the 4th of December, to hell with the goddamn disabled ones!’.

This is what will happen with the Paralympics. As soon as the last lights are turned off, we will all be forgotten. As for me, I couldn’t care less. I can play it more than double and I don’t feel disabled, although I am. But what will happen with those who belong in the same ‘category’ as I do? Those who have to fight for a decent life, who definitely have to find a job or study without any help whatsoever? Oh my, they are always condemned to stay indoors and suffer. How will the journalists have issues for the news otherwise?