Why we are angry: What is in a Skiza tune?

 

Fuck your ableism!Series

 

‘Hello,
the girl they asked for her hand in marriage for you is physically disabled. You have not seen her she is physically disabled on one side. Oh my God, they have asked for a bad girl’s hand in marriage for you.’

This is a loose translation of a Skiza tune by Abbas Comic, a comedian from the Borana Community. Skiza tunes refer to a service from mobile phone companies where a caller is entertained with some tunes/messaging before a call is picked up or disconnected. In this particular Skiza tune by Abbas Comic, and in what is supposed to be humour, the Comedian is telling a story of a woman with disability whose hand in marriage has been sought. How this is expressed is supposed to come out as humour and express a shock reaction, that, ‘Oh my God, the girl that you are going to marry is a bad girl’.

Violence towards girls and women with disabilities is not new to us as women with disabilities. It is getting increasingly visible more so in online spaces. It is still the case that children with disabilities are hidden. Society keeps driving a narrative that if you are not ‘normal’ according to some set standards, ‘then you are better off hidden’.

Yet we know that from years of agitation from persons with disabilities themselves, there is more and more of us that are unafraid to take the bull by its horns. To take ableism by its horns. To say, ‘Fuck ableism, we are here to be seen and to be counted!’ (and even to be married and to marry J)

We are angry. And we increasingly get angry by the ableism that is displayed each single day with no one to fight back. We want to tell Abbas Comic, Fuck you and fuck your ableism. Take down the damn Skiza tune!

We want to ask Mobile phone companies as well as Service providers that have this Skiza tune, to take it down. We are angry because we cannot always be the people that make up the butt of others jokes.

And we can give a context. Negative attitudes towards persons with disabilities and specifically women with disabilities have been documented to be higher in rural contexts. We know that in rural communities in places for example where the Borana live, it is extremely difficult to live as a girl or as a woman with a disability. What such a Skiza tune will do, is even make it more difficult for such a girl in a community as this. It takes away her dignity. Her personhood. 

We know that attitudes towards disability and persons with disabilities more broadly are highly influenced by cultural beliefs. There are cultures that still view disability as a curse or the influence of a bad spirit.

We know that such negative attitudes lead to stigma and discrimination and result into more marginalisation of persons with disabilities.

We know that due to this exclusion, many persons with disabilities, specifically women and girls, will forever be trapped in cycles of poverty. Not out of their own will but out of pervasive ableism that we are calling out!

No, we refuse to be the butt of your jokes!

No, we will not give you the power to take our joy.

We will get married, if we want!

We will do all that we can, without your permission.

And we will thrive.

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