I decided to write this article following a statement made by President George Abela that the “Prize for Kindness” awarded every year by the Peace Lab (Malta) should become a national award. It is a fact that this award has been embraced by many people and endorsed by people of diverse political convictions.

As a disabled person myself, I feel that this award sends a message that is inconsistent with the principle of inclusion which many of us are trying so hard to promote. My discomfort at the very idea that such a prize is actually awarded the way it is stems from the fact that, as a disabled child, I was once the ‘less fortunate’ object of charity whose friend was awarded this very same prize. I was the “poor, tragic” stereotypical disabled child e being ‘helped’, ‘cared for’. The citation scripted me as the one in the relationship who was always “taking” from our friendship – there was never any consideration given to the fact that perhaps, just perhaps, as a disabled child I also brought something positive to our friendship. This is the reason that I have decided to write about my experience again. The truth is that this prize is based on ideas which might have been considered avant-garde 50 years ago, but which today are completely outdated and should be revised without further delay.

Having said that, I am a firm believer in the value of kindness and solidarity between us. Indeed, whether we accept it or not, we are an inter-dependent society. Our lives would be poorer indeed if we didn’t find the support and service of others in society: ranging from the person who works at the power station to ensure we have an electricity supply to the garbage collector who ensures that our environment remains clean. We also depend on those who lead the country, those who are responsible for education and many others who deliver a service. In this sense, as British poet and cleric John Donne once wrote: “No man is an island”.

However, as a disabled child, I came to realise that while we accept the idea that we are co-dependent in society, we still tend to value some people less than others. When I was a disabled child, hearing that the person I had regarded as my best friend was being rewarded for having “befriended” me, made me feel less of a human being. The more the media revelled in exalting the “selfless” merits of my best friend, the more I felt that they were diminishing my humanity. The pride I once had as a child who enjoyed learning about the world and other people melted away, together with my self-esteem, right before my eyes. Was I really such a needy, boring, pathetic creature, as the media seemed to be implying? Most importantly, was this the way my best friend regarded me?

Unfortunately, I was overwhelmed by all these thoughts. I began to wonder whether our friendship had not been an act, a charade, all along. Was he being a friend just for the sake of gaining sympathy and popularity for helping his ‘handicapped’ friend? If, in the eyes of the world, he seemed to embody all the fine Christian virtues, then how did the world see me? Was being my friend such a sacrifice that it deserved public acknowledgement and reward?

Inevitably our friendship suffered and then we parted ways. Although we stayed in touch with each other, our friendship was never the same. Naturally, as we both followed our aspirations, we grew more apart and made new friends. Many friendships go through the same process, but our friendship was strained because the adults in our lives chose to interfere and impose their own narrative on our friendship, which was a distortion of what was an ordinary friendship like any other. Indeed, it was much later when we both learned that it was the teachers and administrators of our school who had nominated my best friend for this award. My own opinions and feelings were never considered and even today I still feel betrayed by the people I thought I could trust.

I feel that instead of promoting the value of kindness, a prize for kindness appears to me to reinforce the idea that disabled people are somehow ‘children of a lesser god’, less worthy, less valued than non-disabled people. It is even worse, because when you’re a child you’re even more powerless in the face of a majority decision.

To my knowledge, this prize has always been awarded to non-disabled children who have, befriended a disabled child. A child who is still in this day and age referred to as  ‘less fortunate’ by the Peace Lab.

While I feel that our friendship was just like any other between any ten-year old boy, based on mutual support and understanding and also disagreement, we weren’t the friends that were portrayed on the media. Being a friend, I am sure that I wasn’t considered to be a sacrifice to my friend – although, admittedly, I could be a tease and a pain at times. The point is that this prize tends to sentimentalise and deliberately distort simple friendships between non-disabled and disabled children, when in truth the vast majority are just regular friendships. In addition, awarding such a prize seems to suggest that the inequalities that still exist about disabled people are natural and inevitable.

I thank my friend for supporting me as a child but I want that the support I gave to our friendship be credited as well. Besides, we must remember that many of the problems disabled people like me face to this day don’t stem from the fact we have an impairment, but because our society far too often fails to take our impairments into account in its planning, but more especially when society persists in telling false stories about who we are, or making it difficult for us to speak for ourselves.

Finally, I wish to make it clear that I don’t oppose the idea of rewarding kindness. The problem I have is that by awarding what should be friendships like any other, we are instead implying that such friendships are extraordinary. Awarding a prize for one friend who has helped another friend will always mean that, by default, that one is better than the other. The problem with such reasoning is that, in our praise of these so-called ‘acts of kindness’, we are distracting from acknowledging the fact that the greatest cause of disability is social attitudes and the way society is organised. I think other disabled people who have gone through this experience might agree with Queen when they sang: “Friends will be friends. When you’re in need of love they give you care and attention”.

Indeed! Let friends be friends, because when you’re a friend whether one is disabled or not doesn’t matter.

This article forms part of a project carried out by KNPD entitled “Inclusion, Participation, Accessibility: Cornerstones for Personal Fulfilment”, which is supported by the European Union Programme for Employment and Social Solidarity – PROGRESS (2007-2013). For more information visit: http://ec.europa.eu/progress