Common Good

The best moments in life are the ones wich make beautiful also the lives others

Common good is a principle above us, above our individual experience and life. Is thus possible—and most of all does it make any sense—to talk of disability in terms of “common good”?

Generally, “common good” is associated to words such as “water”, “environment”, or “culture”. This is a way to emphasize the necessity of policies and social practices aimed at ensuring to everybody the possibility to equitably share this common good.

The underlying question, as these topics are discussed, generally is: to whom does water belong, who has to take care of it, and how? Let us therefore try to ask ourselves: to whom does disability belong? Who has to care for it?

The stories of those who tell about their own disability are always individual, personal stories, confined in the privacy of their every-day life.

But, even only by changing the protagonists’ names and genders, these stories overlap and interlace with one another, up to finally become a common, collective story, in which every narrative variation reinforces our common plot, just as it happens in the folkloric narrative tradition.

This common plot, however, struggles to emerge; it sadly hides itself behind domestic walls, it is erased by our every-day hardships, it is exhausted in the uncertain horizon of posterity.

The only remaining “common” thing is therefore only the silence of solitude, itself encircled by a social stigma that, even today, in mute gazes, continues to mark and isolate disabled people, as if disability were a fault rather than a condition.

To whom, then, belongs disability and who has to care for it? The answer of those who do not experience disability is generally one, and it is uttered without hesitation: disability is not our problem; it is a problem which touches the disabled and their families. Thanks God, it does not concern us.

How can we possibly overturn this viewpoint? How can we uproot this persistent picture? How can we arrive to say, “it concerns me”, without possibly fall into feelings such as commiseration and compassion, or into rhetorical statements to utter on “special occasions”?

Obviously, the key problem is that disability certainly does not represent a basic good such as water; nor is it as pleasantly entertaining as a football game or a theatre play. To be quite honest, we do not wish disability to concern us—and the further it stays away from us, the better. Seen in these terms, it is hard, therefore, to see it as a common good.

Humbly, I wish to try to demonstrate that diversities in general, and hence also disability in particular, can instead come to be seen as a resource for society, and that this can be achieved only through a process of general inclusion.

The full integration of disabled persons in all spheres of social life, from school to workplaces and social services, is a challenge that can be won only if every one of us is part of it, and only if everyone responsibly rejoins the pathway toward inclusion.

To move disable people from a circuit of “assistance” to a virtuous circle of education and labor can thus become for society an additional value and a resource, first of all in consideration of the financial advantages it could bring to the economy of a country and of a nation.

The scopes and purposes of such policy can be evaluated also on the basis of the different kinds of disability, by enhancing the residual abilities. Many fields are opened by a path of education that would increase individual competences and treasure individual capacities: domotics, supporting administrations in analyzing and selecting the most apt technologies, are only a few examples.

It is no longer acceptable to relegate blind people to telephone services only because they, whereas they cannot see, can ear. Let us provide them from the outset with education tools, in order for them to become active members of the working society.

On this point I do insist: disability has to be seen as a resource and no longer as a cost. If we elaborate useful and innovative solutions, we can open marketing perspectives to enterprises in fields such as accessible tourism, e-commerce, residentiality, digitalization. The future must be a place which includes everyone, and nobody must be left behind.

Everyone must be entitled to move without obstruction, to travel, to be free to go to a restaurant or a theatre without risking bumping into barriers. It is an issue of civilization which qualifies a society, a country.

I am deeply convinced that we need to address the conscience rather than the heart of those who have the power to make the new technologies accessible to disabled people. The goal of all this, in fact, is to reduce the enormous social obstacles that, still today, prevent disabled people to fully enjoy their right to be active citizens, citizens that participate effectively in a society’s life.

This means that we must create a synergy between the key dimensions in which our respective competences are played. This is the only way for us to reach a common goal—something which does not seem to be an easy task, if we consider that we must put together subjects whose personal stories and achievements have grown over the years. But it is on the basis of these very stories and achievements that changes can be made, both in scientific knowledge and in every-day life.

The topics that to which I might draw your attention are endless, and endless are also the needs of a world that struggles every single day, almost in solitude, in order to reach things that to most people might appear to be as basic starting points, but for disabled ones are instead great goals.

I could talk to you about the families that shoulder difficult weights which cannot be easily sustained only through love, or about those children who only sporadically can go to school, because they do not find there adequate structures to their needs—structures that are just indispensable for those boys and girls to enjoy sociality, friendship, shared experiences—simply put, a happy life.

And I could also tell you how many extraordinary people I have met all around Italy and the world—people that have been competently working all their life in order to make this world accessible to everyone.

And of course there is the world of science, a world that has truly struck me with the passion and devotion of its relentless work: the warmth, love, hospitality, and attention I have found in researchers, scholars, and doctors that I have had the opportunity to meet, add value to the results they achieve in their technological, medical, and scientific fields.

I have many dreams—dreams that, I am sure, I share with a lot of women, men and children all over the world.

I dream of a world where the disabled is entitled to move beyond its limits with the aid of the most advanced technology,
A world where disability is no longer synonymous of illness,
A world where inclusivity is the norm and not the exception,
A world where barriers—be they physical or mental—are only a distant memory,
A world vibrant with solidarity, and open to all.

As you all well know, I will not stop swimming until my dream will come true.

Happy Christmas,
Salvatore Cimmino