“You Shall Not Murder”: Atos at the Paralympic Games

ABSTRACT

At the London 2012 Paralympic Games, a controversy arose regarding Paralympic sponsor Atos, the French IT company contracted at £400 million to implement the UK Government's Work Capability Assessment. Atos was accused of falling short of professional codes of conduct, including declaring fit for work persons who subsequently died following removal of their benefits. The disability rights group Disabled People Against Cuts held UK-wide protests at Atos offices in Cardiff, Glasgow, Belfast, and London. I argue that rather than responding positively to the protests, the International Paralympic Committee is causing damage to the Disabled People's Movement. To build the argument within a theological context, the Biblical story of Cain's slaying of his brother Abel is applied to help understand the relationship between the International Paralympic Committee and the Disabled People's Movement, respectively.

KEYWORDS:

• disability
• disability studies
• practical theology

Notes

1. Wherever I use the term disabled, I do so in agreement with Paralympian Danielle Peers, “to signal the active construction of disability” (Peers, 2009, p. 663). While some authors prefer the person-first term persons with disabilities, I define myself as a disabled person and prefer the term disabled people. I use this term to describe my fellow humans, who, like me, experience the socially constructed oppression of disability on a daily basis. It is the preferred term of the disabled people's movement in the United Kingdom, of which I have been a part since 1985, and academic disability studies writers in the United Kingdom.

2. All Bible references in this essay are from the 1989 edition of the New International Version.