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Is celebrating Disability Pride Month possible in Indonesia?
Certain purportedly religious ideas that disabilities represent sin, punishment from God or a lack of faith exacerbate the struggles of Indonesians with disabilities.
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More than 1 billion people, or 15 percent of the world’s population, live with a disability, and some 690 million of them are in the Asia-Pacific region. (Courtesy of Shutterstock /VGstockstudio)
F
or people with disabilities in the United States, July is celebrated annually as Disability Pride Month. Before it became a month, there was a Disability Pride Day in Boston that began in 1990. In 2015, July was declared Disability Pride Month to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
I was amazed when I first learned about Disability Pride Month. Celebrating disability as source of pride can seem strange, as many consider disabilities a form of inferiority. Such pride may even be nearly impossible for people with disabilities other countries such as Indonesia.
As a person with a disability, I reflect on how difficult it is to be proud of my disability in the Indonesian context. That’s why, perhaps, I could not find any Instagram post by Indonesians on disability pride month. While some Indonesians posted about Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Pride Month in June, there has been little to no acknowledgement of July’s Disability Pride Month in the country.
I have found at least four reasons why Disability Pride Month is unlikely to gain traction in Indonesia.
First, disability is still generally considered a state of inferiority. The approach to disabilities follows a medical model in which disability is "damage" that needs to be "repaired", or a charitable model, wherein pity drives people to donate.
On top of that, certain purportedly religious ideas that disabilities represent sin, punishment from God or a lack of faith exacerbate the struggles of Indonesians with disabilities.
