Hello everyone, tanyiliang here.

I know it’s been a while since I posted here. And I know it’s my first post of the year. So Happy 2011, belated by 13 days.

Keisha reminded me a few days ago that it’s been a while since I last wrote anything here. A long while – to be precise.

Yes. Basically I have been at a loss for words. I had no idea what to say when I fired up this screen and put fingers to keyboard.

The fingers would go to the keyboard. Yes, that part could be done. The question was- could they move. The usual answer was no, as for fingers to move in this space they need a specific fuel.

And that specific fuel? Ideas. Concepts. Thoughts.
You can’t write if you have nothing to say, i.e. if you are at a loss for words.

I must say events this week have jolted me out of being at a loss for words.
Or, to be more specific- a certain tweet I had the fortune (or misfortune) of laying eyes on.

I follow the Kuala Lumpur Traffic Updates twitter community. And on that day- I read a comment from someone who made me see red.

He commented a driver was driving badly.
That is fine. I have no quarrel with that. I have done such tweets myself.
But what I have never done, ever is to disparage people with disabilities(PWDs), or to quote the Bahasa Malaysia term which I frankly find disgusting, Orang Kurang Upaya, or OKU.
It translates to “People with Reduced Abilities”
I have also never insinuated that people who drove badly “drove as if they were disabled”.

I saw red at his tweet, and the fact that he has ignored all calls to redeem himself by issuing a sincere apology for such a comment.

But this post is not about my dispute with him.
It is rather about a fight I have held ever since I was brought to see how differently able people (a term I prefer to use) are treated in this country- like second class, inferior human beings.

And that is a misconception that is far from the truth. Far, far from the truth.
There is absolutely nothing “inferior” about differently able people. Take for example, Jessica Cox, who despite being born with no arms is not only a psychology graduate and motivational speaker, but a qualified driver and pilot.

As I said, a differently able person. Not a dis-abled person.

I could cite many many other examples, such as the physicist Stephen Hawking, or America’s longest-serving President, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Again, I say – differently able person.

I posted a rant on Facebook the same day, and I admittedly got some very interesting and enlightening views.

One friend argued that if we were to continuously correct such people, it would be a never-ending task. She argued that the better method would be to educate the public by raising awareness of the real capabilities of differently able people.

I will admit that I agree with this to some extent.
However, there is another aspect to this as my beloved Keisha pointed out- which I will quote here.

The words below are Keisha’s.

“However, if a child or civically disabled adult (ahem!) are shouting insults against those marginalized it is necessary to correct them.

Just take for example a kid that goes to school and hangs around with a bunch of rowdy kids, these kids point out “tengok orang cacat itu, kenapa dia tidak dalam kelas untuk orang cacat?” (“Look at the disabled person, why is he/she not in a class for the disabled?”)
Eventually, this attitude will become indoctrinated in the kid and it becomes imbued in his or her subculture. If teachers or parents do not correct this behavior, it will have damaging effects as the child becomes an adult.

If you want real-life examples, consider that Twitter user @ah_TaNk who labeled that a driver who drove badly drove like an OKU who was “cacat otak” or MACC Prosecutions Head Abdul Razak Musa who insulted Karpal Singh during the Teoh inques…t in open court.

Having said that, I agree with you that correcting peoples statements so that they are “politically correct” is never-ending. However, one can also argue that raising awareness about the capabilities of the people with physical challenges or about anything at all is never-ending.

I give you a personal experience. I went through mountains to prove to certain people that I am able to drive. I went for the medical checkup, passed the test on my first run and I’ve never met with an accident or been stopped by police for… haphazard driving. However, certain people are still dissuaded from all the hard evidence that contradicts their opinion. It seems like I will have to fight to the end to prove them wrong.
Witness Jessica Cox driving a car or piloting a plane with her feet. Truly, the human will knows no bounds.

And yes, getting that summa cum laude is an achievement I will get to prove some people wrong, but more importantly to prove to myself that I can do it.”

I’ll rest here. Keisha sums it up better than I do.

This is tanyiliang signing out