Les Handicapés

As promised: yet another creation from the Google.com art department. In sharp contrast to 'Beaver 6' day, which I commented on a blog entry or two ago, "Colored Dots' day is a celebration that really embraces the multicultural reality in which today's globalized world finds itself. More than anything, however, these logos show us that you can find work doing almost anything in these days. (Although, I must say, I really like the Mondrian logo that he did, pictured below.)

A larger question does cross the mind, however, when glancing at the Braille logo for this commemoration of Louis Braille's birthday: Does the Muslim community recognize it's deficiency in providing access to those with special needs?

My freshman and sophomore years, I had two classmates in my Arabic classes who were either severely or completely hearing impaired. I can still remember when my instructor, a native of the Middle East, was doing question/answer sessions with the class regarding a particular assignment and asked one of the girls, through the in-class interpreter, what her hobbies were:

"Do you like music?" he asked, to my shock.
"No!" she signed back, emphatically.

I don't think he actually realized what he did, but he exemplified not a personally blameworthy trait of being ignorant of special needs, but a trait that was likely habituated in his time in the Muslim world. I can't fully pin it on his insensitivity because, really, the Western world is only latently sensitive to such concerns. There are probably unacceptable sociological reasons for this, some of which are perhaps telling as to why the Muslim communities abroad and at home are probably negligent of such needs.

[Briefly, I'd figure that Muslim nations, which are predominantly 3rd world, tend to spend more resources for seemingly primary concerns for their constituents: food/water/shelter. Special needs end up a backburner issue until a society has most of those primary needs taken care of. Is that right? Maybe not. But I think of it like a sociocultural triage with questionable validity.]

When the girls later did presentations in class, they explained their motive for learning sign language in Arabic was their exposure to families completely unable to communicate with their own children during a trip to Palestine. (The particular region is certinaly in distress, but the problem of resource scarcity with respect to this issue is not confined to war-ravaged regions of illegal occupation.) They told us about encountering families that basically pretended that their child wasn't deaf because of shame of the disability, an unwillingness to learn sign language, or the inaccessibility of resources, or all of the above.

I hadn't put much thought into this when it comes to Muslims in America, but I'm beginning to realize that I've never seen a single Muslim conference or deen intensive program that has sign language interpreters present by default. It's understandable with smaller programs that have 20 or 30 people, wherein you'd expect that people with disabilities would notify the program directors, etc. But the MAS or ISNA conferences really need to have interpreters in their main session halls by default, strictly based on the probability of hearing impaired.

An active sister I know locally (who is proficient in ASL) has given several talks in public schools where she's encountered Muslim students with hearing impairments who almost literally have not been taught anything about their deen.

If it's happening in Minnesota, land of Lake Wobegon, "where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average," then it's happening everywhere else. As we know, a significant reason that God places people in society with special needs is to test whether their community will come to their aid, as is the latter's duty and the former's right.

It's heartening to see Muslims studying ASL, for instance, but it's high time for Muslim institutions, especially schools and masjids, to create codes of good practice with respect to accessibility, whether physical, mental, or emotional.