Giving lives meaning

JEAN ANTOINE-DUNNE

THIS IS THE week of Special Olympics in Ireland. The euphoria of these games is riveting as well as emotionally charged. As the President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins, noted at the opening ceremony, Special Olympics is about transforming lives. This is what Eunice Kennedy Shriver believed when she started the process of bringing individuals with intellectual disabilities, first into her home and then into competitive sports and later into the community through various kinds of activism and political lobbying.

Special Olympics as an organisation is 50 years old this year. At the opening ceremony of each of the games, athletes pledge to “let me win, but if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt.” This is the attitude that has resonated across the half century of athletic involvement that sees thousands of individuals who were once excluded from any sense of achievement, take part in games designed to give each competitor a chance to win. This is done by placing every individual within his or her competitive level or capacity.

This idea that winning is good, but it is the ability to endure life that is truly heroic, came home to me very strongly in the past week when first of all CNN prize winning and celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain took his own life at 61. Then, coincidentally, on that same day, a documentary on the life of Whitney Houston was released. This documentary raised even more questions about the kinds of abuse that might have befallen the super star and singer who died tragically in February 2012.

What these two events engendered was the sense of how fragile life is and how important it is to give a life meaning outside of what we so often consider to be success. The fact is that we have become hooked on an idea of achievement and an idea of perfection that are linked to the lure of stardom and this places extraordinary burdens on those who are stars and those who venerate and seek to emulate them.

People with disabilities are considered imperfect. The very word “disabled” suggests this. But it is more than the word. It is the perception that people with intellectual disabilities are incapable of achieving success and are therefore not whole and not happy. Yet events such as the shared experiences of these games bring us to another level of awareness.

It goes beyond the sheer exuberance of the performance at each event. There is also a simple fact that through participation and even through witnessing we come to understand that lives can become deeply troubling without meaningful relationships. We understand further how abuse, whether it is psychological or physical, can destroy the desire to live, as has happened so often in the past for people shut up in institutions simply because of their intellectual slowness or who are deprived of friendships and family because they are disabled.

Many people with disabilities suffer deeply from depression caused by isolation. Yet it takes something like the games to make us realise that a shared sense of purpose and spontaneous approval and the friendships and camaraderie of events such as these go a very long way to restoring a sense of purpose.

Somehow it also seems to escape us that many people in the world experience similar forms of isolation, but the appearance of success shields this from the eyes of the world.

It is extraordinary to think looking on at the parades and the dedication of volunteers and athletes that just 50 years ago it would have been unheard of that people once called “retarded” could participate in major events across the globe. The games are only the “tip of the iceberg.” Special Olympics has generated an enormous swing towards an idea of potential that is at the heart of much activism today.

People with disabilities can win and they can succeed and they do have the potential to achieve in many spheres of life.

It is not only that our daughters and siblings who are called disabled can swim or play basketball or bowling or run, but that the sense of achievement at taking part in these activities truly leads to a profound belief in the value of life.

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