“It did not come with Hitler and did not die with Hitler.” The uses of the Holocaust by disability activists in Norway

Abstract

When discussing present issues, vulnerable groups often compare such issues to historical atrocities, thereby injecting histories of vulnerability and oppression into contemporary debate. In 2006, the Norwegian health authorities introduced a program for registration of information about the level of functioning and the care needs of care receivers in the municipal service system, where mostly disabled people and elderly people were registered. The project triggered strong protests. The central charges were that such registration was humiliating, violated the subject's integrity, and reduced human beings to their biological (dys)functions. At one point, the protesters related the registration program to the story of the Holocaust, evoking the historical fact that registration of deviation was fundamental to the ''euthanasia'' killings in Nazi Germany. Numerous scholarly works discuss the legitimacy of such comparisons, but none discusses how the agents in debates think about their own use of such comparisons. In this article, we describe how the disability activists and health professionals who participated in the controversy understood, framed, and legitimated the rhetorical use of the Holocaust. Referring to Bauman's normality perspective, we try to understand the logic behind the evoking of the Holocaust in debates on the situation of vulnerable groups in general. This case serves for discussion on the communication strategies (and possibilities) of minority movements within their historical and cultural legacy.

Shadow Committees: On “Drug User Voice,” Representation, and Mobilization in a Norwegian Drug Policy Reform

“…At the same time, like other activist and interest groups based on collective identities (e.g. Bartoszko et al, 2012), drug user organizations, including the Shadow Committee, portray themselves as "I-the user" and paradoxically reproduce the reductive idea of "groupness" which they oppose. Institutional actors, such as clinics, higher education institutions or policy committees welcome this "imagined sameness" (Gullestad, 2002) because it is simpler to manage, even if omissions are made and individual differences are eliminated.…”

A hidden history

“…This was shown in the study results from the United Kingdom when comparing the numbers of those teaching about institutionalization as compared to involuntary sterilization, marriage laws and genocide (see Table 3). Focusing the attention of students on national history can undoubtedly facilitate identification with the past (Barton and Levstik, 2004). However, there is the potential that limiting the teaching of eugenics in this way can lower the sensitivity of contemporary professionals to both detect and respond to eugenic threats that fall outside the experience of their own country.…”

“…Mencap, a leading UK charity for people with intellectual disabilities, welcomed the way in which the case had been managed, in particular the detailed weighing up of evidence that had led to what they perceived as a balanced decision (Ward, 2013). Yet the process of non-transparent decision-making coupled with what Bartoszko et al (2012) conceives to be a lack of critical reflection is what may make a eugenic threat difficult to identify. Whilst the potential of eugenics could carry a risk for any devalued group in society, by the very nature of their condition people with intellectual disabilities may have greater difficulty than others in both detecting such a threat and in formulating an effective defence; therefore, this role must be assumed, either in full or in part, by the people around them and this includes those working in services for this group.…”