When The Warm Malaysian Hospitality Is Just Not Enough

So, 2007 is Visit Malaysia Year again. Incidentally, this is also the year we will be celebrating our 50th Independence Day. The Ministry of Tourism is targeting more than 20 million foreign visitors for this campaign. Undeniably, Malaysia has much to offer to tourists. After all, we are a melting pot of cultures that date back to the time when Malacca was the centre of commerce between the East and West many centuries ago.

While tourism officials are busy preparing glittering bunga mangga and kompang troupes to greet the influx of tourism dollars, the government is doing nothing to make tourists with mobility impairments feel welcomed. This group of tourists include senior citizens and wheelchair users.

One only has to go on a walkabout along the many attractions in Kuala Lumpur to understand the dire situation. Walkways either do not have kerb cuts or are in a state of disrepair. Accessible toilets are far and few in between. There are no public buses that they can ride in for a city tour. How then do we expect these people to move around and enjoy their time while they are here?

At the same time, Kuala Lumpur will also be playing host to the FESPIC Games later this month. According to its website, “The FESPIC Games is the biggest multi-sports & multi-disability event for athletes with disabilities in Asia and Oceania, and the second largest Games in the world, after the Paralympic Games.”

Come November 21, as many as 4,000 athletes and officials from about 50 countries will congregate in the capital for 12 days of intense competition. Surely some of them would love to visit the many attractions that Kuala Lumpur is famous for. What impression of Malaysia will they bring back to their country when they find that they are unable to visit these places because of the lack of accessible amenities? Certainly the warm Malaysian hospitality will not be sufficient to prevail over the inconvenience and disappointment that they have to face.

With four years to prepare for the games, Kuala Lumpur is still as inaccessible as ever. We have nobody to blame but the government for being complacent in this matter. When such an important event cannot even move the government to upgrade public facilities into barrier-free ones, what more can disabled citizens expect?

File photo dated July 8, 2006.

Our destination was further up the road from the Church of the Holy Name of Jesus. We had to cross a wooden bridge built over a river fed by streams from the hills surrounding Balik Pulau. Bamboo groves lined the river banks. The only audible sounds were that of the car’s engine, screeching of crickets and gurgling of the river. A constant cool wind blew in through the open window. The silence was eerie yet refreshing.

I knew where we were going. Shortly after the bridge, Dad would turn the car into a narrow earth road up a gentle slope. Like every year for as long as I could remember, he would drive Mum to light candles and lay flowers at the cemetery. Therein lie her father, her grandparents and those from extended families – many ancestors I have never met before or was too young to remember then. In my mind, they were all in black and white, just like the portraits embedded in their tombstones.

For a short period once a year, the drabness of the cemetery bloomed with vibrant colours from orchids, chrysanthemums, anthuriums, gladioluses and carnations. Little white candles that were lighted in the memory of the dearly departed flickered in the gentle breeze. It was practice that I unwittingly observed by virtue of having to tag along on those annual pilgrimages until I became paralysed. Mum continued with the tradition after that.

For the past two years I have lighted candles before the niche where Mum’s ashes were interred on All Souls’ Day and her death anniversary. Those were solemn moments. Since I am not in Penang this year, I am giving it a miss. Nevertheless, I have spent some quiet moments in reflection – thinking about life, death and where my part is in this big scheme of things – praying that I be given the opportunity to touch lives like how Mum did to countless people with her magnanimity.

“If we forever accept the minimum we will always be treated as a community of people who can be easily pushed around. Subsequently whenever we voice out our needs and problems people will never take us seriously anymore.”

I told Christine that as we were discussing the state of the disability movement in Malaysia this morning. That is the kind of mentality that is swirling around in the minds of our peers. Sad but true. Some I attribute to decades of being oppressed. Those I do not blame because they do not know better. What I cannot buy are veteran leaders of the movement who are agreeable to less for reasons best known to themselves. Many of them have come to a stage where getting something instead of nothing is considered an achievement. In that sense, we are no better than mongrels waiting to feed on morsels falling off the dinner table.

It also does not help that non-disabled activists running organisations serving disabled persons think that they know everything about disability issues. Talk is cheap. They interfere in the advocacy process without fully understanding the situation. Ultimately, disabled persons have to live with the damage and consequences of such unqualified meddling. In the meantime, these activists go on living their merry lives, oblivious to the damage they have done to the development of the movement.

As long as we, the disabled persons, see ourselves as lesser human beings we will never be treated with respect. We sell out our dignity by believing that rights are privileges. Both are not interchangeable. It is time we realise this and stand up to claim our rightful place in society. It is time we stop sabotaging each other’s efforts in an attempt to be the sole champion of the movement. In instances like that, nobody wins but everybody loses. It is only through working together that we can make a united stand and make our voices heard. Make or break – the choice is ours.