Norwegian apartheid in 2004

Heidrun Bubik – who grew up in Vienna and Austria before moving to Norway in 1988 – maneuvers with her hands with her wheelchair into the cramped lift in the apartment building where she lives at Skillebekk in Oslo.

Four floors further down, automatic door openers ensure that the 35-year-old gets out onto the street via the backyard. With Ny Tid in tow, Heidrun rolls off in the wheelchair – in the middle of the street where cars normally rule.

- I can not use the sidewalks here. The edges are too high, there are holes in the asphalt in many places and it is easy to get the wheels stuck in the gutters that run across the sidewalks, says Heidrun, and slalom between cars coming towards her.

It is three years since Heidrun suffered a serious traffic accident while on a summer vacation in her home country. The result was paralysis from the lower back and down, as well as bowel damage.

Back in Norway she has found an apartment in Skillebekk, where daily life gradually works fine.

The same opportunity for an independent life – whether it is about the job she has as a language teacher or leisure activities – can not be said to be there when Heidrun moves outside the four walls of the home. Ny Tid will experience this when we join her on a small tour of the capital.

Oslo not for wheelchairs

On the way from Skillebekk down to Aker Brygge, we first pass the local hair salon, then a Japanese restaurant – both places with offers Heidrun would like to use.

But in both cases, high curbs and even higher edges in the entrances make the places inaccessible to wheelchair users who want to manage themselves.

- Last summer I wrote a letter to Oslo municipality and addressed this with sidewalks and bad roads, Heidrun says.

After a couple of months, she received a reply from the Norwegian Transport Agency, where they write that they "unfortunately have to state that Oslo is not built for wheelchair users", and that "a list of all measures that must be carried out to make the city wheelchair friendly, would be very long ”.

And then the Norwegian Transport Agency blames the lack of funding before it finally concludes with the following in the letter to Heidrun: “Without us having to abdicate our responsibility, it might be a solution to get the wheelchair manufacturers to put on bigger wheels. It will probably be able to provide a faster improvement in accessibility. ”

Behind stained windows

But despite difficult accessibility; Heidrun prefers to get down to the city for his own machine. Public transport is not an alternative, something we will experience to the full later on our city tour.

- And when it comes to the alternative with the so-called TT scheme, it is often more of a nightmare than a service, says Heidrun.

Firstly; While most people can take public transport as often as they want and where they want, wheelchair users are only entitled to 150 leisure trips during the year with these special car transports. As you usually have to come back once you have gone to a place, that is, the TT offer in practice lasts just over one leisure trip per week.

- Secondly, you must book the TT trip no later than 17.00 the day before. And then the TT scheme is unreliable. When I was still using the scheme, I experienced a number of times being picked up up to an hour late for important agreements in connection with continuing education and work, Heidrun says.

But perhaps worst of all, the TT scheme represents a special scheme that separates disabled people from others rather than making public transport accessible to everyone.

- When you use the TT service, you are placed in special cars behind sooty windows, as if you are to be hidden away from the rest of society, Heidrun says.

Could not vote

Many people may think that people with disabilities should be happy that society spends so much money on this and other special schemes. But Heidrun would rather have seen that someone could figure out what would have been possible if the funds going to the TT scheme had also been used to improve public transport.

- I myself have calculated that the municipality could have saved up to 7000 kroner a month on assistance hours on me if the shops and streets had been more accessible in my local area, says Heidrun, and refers to the special scheme with people who help her with, for example, action.

For special schemes, the separation from the rest of society cements. And repeated obstacles lead to discouragement and isolation.

- In the last municipal election, I ended up not voting. I could not find out if the polling stations were available to me, Heidrun admits.

Ironically enough

Almost down at Aker Brugge, in Munkedamsveien, she stops at a car parking space with the well-known wheelchair mark which means that the space is reserved for disabled people.

Ironically, the nearest neighbor in the car park is a high curb with a sidewalk made of uneven cobblestones – which makes it impossible for wheelchair users to get from the car and up the sidewalk without assistance.

- This is completely meaningless. I also wrote a letter to the Norwegian Public Roads Administration about this a year ago. This winter, they replied that they would do something about the case this summer, says Heidrun.

At the same time, a Mercedes is parking right in front of our eyes in the parking lot. Only when the mobile-talking man in a suit behind the wheel sees that Ny Tid's photographer takes pictures of Heidrun in front of the parking lot that the Mercedes has wrongfully occupied, does he get speed on the car and disappear into the traffic. But not before the Mercedes has made its way, then there is a van that settles in the same place.

Further afield in Munkedamsveien, Heidrun stops at a pedestrian crossing where you have to press a button to get green light as a pedestrian. This time she can tell about a complaint that actually brought up.

Before, the traffic light was so far into the bushes that it was not possible for wheelchair users to press the button. But after I brought it up with the Norwegian Public Roads Administration, they have moved the traffic light closer.

discouraging

Inside Aker Brygge, Heidrun stops at an ATM at Aker Brygge at an ATM to withdraw money.

It should quickly prove to be difficult. The ATM is so high on the wall that even though Heidrun just reaches for the keys, a strong glare from the summer sun makes sure she can't see anything on the screen.

- If the ATM had been further down the wall, I, like others, could have used my body to screen both the sun and the curious who are trying to get my bank code, says Heidrun.

She has brought Ny Tid to Aker Brygge because this is, after all, the part of the city that is perhaps best adapted for wheelchair users. Other parts of Oslo are much worse.

Last year, for example, the Norwegian Disability Association presented a survey of accessibility for disabled people in public-facing premises in the district of Sagene-Torshov. The results were disappointing: 80-85 percent of health and service-related premises were not (or only partially) accessible to people with reduced mobility. The same was true for 70-75 per cent of shops and eateries, while 50 per cent of cultural and other public-oriented premises and 33 per cent of the district administration's own measures / premises were inaccessible to the disabled.

- Breaks the rules

Heidrun is educated at the University of Oslo, and today runs her own language school where she offers courses in French and German.

Before we test out one of Aker Brygge's many tempting night spots, Heidrun therefore takes us to the Town Hall, where she has previously held language courses. On the way there we pass through the City Hall passage, designed for pedestrians.

In the middle of the passage, pedestrians are met by a staircase of three or four steps. Next to the stairs, a ramp has been made for wheelchair users – at least on paper.

However, the ramp is so steep that Heidrun has no chance of getting up. Even with help, it is possible to push the wheelchair up without accidentally ending up.

- The ramp is too steep and breaks the rules, Heidrun stated.

We quickly measure the ramp in the City Hall passage to be 70 centimeters high, but only 230 centimeters long. Actually, it should have been closer to ten meters long, maybe even longer. According to the instructions to the Building Regulations requirements, the rise in wheelchair access road should preferably be in the ratio 1:20, and only exceptionally a maximum of 1:12 at a short distance.

While the ramp is being measured and pictures are being taken, the proprietor of the Marsjandisen gift shop located just off the ramp comes away wondering what we are doing.

- What, should the ramp really have been ten meters long? No, I would not have that in front of my store. You know what, then I would rather have only stairs here, says the store manager to Ny Tid, unaffected by arguments that stairs are completely impossible to climb for wheelchair users.

- Shocked

Also to the pharmacy at City Hall Square there is a ramp intended for wheelchair users. Again, it looks nice immediately. But this ramp is too steep for Heidrun to enter the premises.

Although the entrance to the Town Hall from the Town Hall Square is also relatively steep, Heidrun manages well with the use of handrails and battery power in the chair. It is worse to get into City Hall through the large heavy doors that swing outwards and make it almost impossible for wheelchair users to get up.

- But the worst thing here is that the entire Town Hall Square is paved with cobblestones, says Heidrun.

The explanation is as follows: Instead of a full electric wheelchair, Heidrun has a middle section where a battery is plugged in when it is desired to provide extra power. However, cobblestones cause so much shaking in the wheelchair that the danger of the front wheels falling off is great and the batteries quickly break, something Heidrun has painfully experienced.

- I was therefore shocked when I read the other day in Aftenposten that they intend to lay cobblestones in Karl Johans gate in connection with the work that is going on there now, Heidrun says.

- Every day, all the time

- I'm a little afraid that you will not see the same things as me, that you do not see the discrimination, Heidrun says when we are on our way back to Aker Brygge.

For others, it may seem like small problems; for example, the fact that there is a 10 cm high curb outside her physiotherapist, that there are stairwells even in the new social security office in her district, that there is only one toilet for wheelchair users at schools where she has taught, that The Aid Center did not want to install an automatic door opener at a school she could accommodate as a hospital.

- A friend of mine who works at a crisis center was not heard when she recently suggested that they should arrange the crisis center's entrance area for wheelchair users. If a wheelchair user should come here for once, we can lift the person over the obstacles, the employer argued. Then my friend said something that is very important: What we at the crisis center experience perhaps only once, the wheelchair user experiences every day, all the time, Heidrun says.

Concepts important

- When I sit here and talk to you, I'm not inhibited, Heidrun begins, as we sit down with refreshments at a table out in the sun at Druen, the first nightclub that meets people who come to Aker Brygge from Rådhuskaia.

Ny Tid has on several occasions used the term "disabled" during our tour of the city, and now it triggers thoughts that are important to Heidrun and others in her situation.

- Concepts are attitude-creating. I do not like the term disabled, because it suggests that one is there all the time in all contexts. But when we sit and talk as we do now, I am no more disabled than you; I'm doing just as well as you, says Heidrun, and continues engaged:

- I have thought a lot about what should be used, and have been through concepts such as "disability minorities" and "people with disabilities". A term such as "disabled" places the problem in the individual instead of in society and the environment. However, the problem – or the limitation or inhibition – arises in the face of maladaptive environments. Many disabilities would not have had to become functional limitations if social arenas had been better adapted. It is with regard to poorly accessible environments in our society that the concept of "functional limitation" is apt. The most important thing for me is to avoid the disabled, the disabled or the handicapped. Then functional limitations appear almost as an identity mark, says Heidrun.

Wheelchair linked?

And there are several areas where language creates attitudes that make it difficult for people with disabilities. To refer to these people as disabled – worthless – is perhaps the worst. The concept of disability is not much better, which describes a time when disabled people had to stand with their hats on and ask for alms.

But also expressions such as "chained to a wheelchair" create attitudes that do not exactly build up the human dignity of people with disabilities, Heidrun believes, and gives the following thought-provoking counterexample.

- Although many people need glasses to read and function satisfactorily, we do not say that they are linked to glasses.

Many people still have the notion that people with disabilities have been exposed to a "fate", a "tragic accident" or a "sneaking illness".

- The worst thing I know is when people say I'm sick because I use a wheelchair. I can not stand that people think I'm poor. A while ago, for example, there was a pretty Frogner lady who in a loud voice – as if I was unable to register what was being said – pointed at me and said "poor thing", Heidrun says with disgust.

Inaccessible toilet

Before we leave Druen, Heidrun has to use the toilet.

One of the waitresses gently tells us that the toilet is on the second floor and that it is only for Heidrun to go out to the entrance next to the cafe to take a lift.

But when she gets this far, it turns out that Heidrun is only able to get through the first door to the hallway where the toilets are located. Maneuvering the wheelchair into the restrooms is physically impossible; the doorways are simply too narrow.

- It is even worse for those who use an electric wheelchair, because they are bigger than mine. This is how it is everywhere, it is impossible to get into public toilets in most places in the city, Heidrun explains.

The waitress at Druen gets upset when she realizes that the cafe's toilets are inaccessible to Heidrun, but is not sure what they can do with the case.

- The does are where they are. But I have thought about it before that it is cramped, says the waitress, and promises to bring it up with the proprietor.

- Degrading

- The lack of available toilets is one of the worst things for me. I remember that I was once on a stopover at Kastrup in Copenhagen a while ago. I had a bad time and had to go to the bathroom before I had to fly on, because in a plane it is completely impossible to get to the bathroom. And it was very stressful to have to look for one of the few toilets available under time pressure, says Heidrun.

Fortunately, she knows of one toilet further out at Aker Brygge that is large enough for wheelchair users. The case is therefore resolved in this case.

- But it is very degrading to have to stress like this to find a toilet, she says.

The last part of the city tour is rounded off with us taking the tram home to Heidrun from the stop at Aker Brygge. In fact, there is a separate sign on the Oslo Sporveier's map that is posted in the trams and at the stops with a mark that promises that the stop we are at is designed for wheelchair users.

Heidrun should thus be able to get himself out and in of the tram here at Aker Brygge, while the stop at Skillebekk where she lives is not marked with a wheelchair.

When the tram arrives, however, it turns out that Heidrun is unable to get on board the tram alone; the distance from the platform to the doorway is far too long.

Thus, as so often, Heidrun becomes dependent on others to carry her – both in and out of the tram.

Norwegian apartheid

The first meetings with the fences in the community after the accident made Heidrun resigned and angry.

- Then I gradually started to get involved and write letters to the authorities. But it is tiring to be constantly aware of things. There is a lot, a lot of resignation going on among people with disabilities. Many are unable to get involved because they have to spend all their time fighting against inaccessibility and discrimination in society, she says.

Heidrun does not hesitate to say that this inaccessibility and discrimination is experienced as apartheid in many contexts.

- It is always a struggle for human dignity. Do I think this apartheid can be abolished? Yes, but then a lot of fighting and action is needed. Maybe we should besiege the Storting for a longer period of time to show seriousness, Heidrun wonders as we have returned to her apartment in Skillebekk.

Why it is so difficult to get rid of attitudes in society and the unwillingness to do anything drastic to get rid of discrimination is in many ways a mystery.

- I do not know why it is so, but many associate functional limitations with shame, something terrible, that one has become crippled and no longer participate in society, work, go to the city and have fun. But that's not true. I am a full and complete human being now as before the accident, Heidrun smiles.