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©The Star (Used by permission)
Rules of Unreality by Davin Arul 

Before we start putting up barriers based on differences, we need to realise that we’re all different.

AS IF there isn’t enough prejudice in society today, now it seems that even children with diabetes are also being forced to suffer – in silence, and at the back of the class, please – because of teachers who don’t want to be inconvenienced, and school policies that are set in stone. 

Rather than face “extra work” in coping with diabetics who may experience hypoglycaemia (drastically low levels of glucose in the blood) as a result of physical education classes, some teachers apparently just forbid afflicted students from playing games. 

And if a student should need to eat in class because of hypoglycaemia, well, school rules state that eating in class is not allowed. Diabetics, who need to urinate frequently, are also frowned upon when they constantly ask for permission to leave the classroom. 

According to paediatric endocrinologist Prof Dr Fatimah Harun, who cited these examples at a recent World Diabetes Day seminar (The Star, Nov 12), such “discriminatory treatment” can lead to psychosocial problems of depression, anger and isolation among the students concerned. 

As a consequence, these intense feelings may lead to hormones disrupting the effect of insulin in the body, which would further compound the illness. 

On top of that, there is the stigma associated with being labeled a budak diabetis, leading to some students keeping the problem a secret from the school authorities. 

Now, surely there are some teachers and school administrations out there that do have and show compassion to children with special needs.  

In the same day’s newspaper, National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (Niosh) chairman Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye called on employers to initiate employee assistance programmes for prevention and early intervention of mental health problems among employees. 

Lee not only made the call to employers, but also to insurance firms, suggesting that they provide coverage for patients with mental illnesses, as it was unfair to deny them such coverage. 

(Tan Sri, have you ever noticed those little checklists where your premiums go up and coverage goes down with every little problem or disorder that gets a tick in the “yes” box? Good luck on seeing anyone taking up that call.) 

“Society should also be more open and not discriminate against persons who have recovered from mental illnesses,” said Lee in Monday’s report. 

There it was, that dreaded dirty “d-word” again.  

Discrimination against students with diabetes. Discrimination against people with mental problems. Discrimination against the left-handed, against migrant workers who do the dirty jobs we won't, against all and sundry with anything that makes them “different” from “us.”  

It’s a word and practice that is becoming too commonplace in the world, and it all stems from ignorance.  

The word actually has a positive meaning, but the many random acts of discrimination (drive-by discrimination, you might say) we’ve witnessed have put a permanent stain on it. 

In cases like the above two, it is from ignorance of the disorders and of how widespread they are.  

For example, Dr Fatimah said that there was a 56% increase over the five years from 1999 to 2004 in non-adult (infants to age 19) diabetes-related hospital admissions. 

Given the prevalence of potential health-damaging foods out there, the excessive homework that can leave kids glued to the chair for hours, not to mention the other armchair distractions like videogames and MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role playing games) ? in short, the numerous factors that can cause youngsters to lead sedentary lifestyles, perhaps it’s time schools equipped their staff with a little more awareness. 

Would teachers be so unwilling to let diabetic students eat in class if they knew that the consequences of hypoglycaemia included fatigue, giddiness, seizures and brain damage? 

Or be so curmudgeonly whenever such students asked for a toilet break if they understood why they needed to ease themselves more frequently than others? 

On the mental health front, the need for such considerations as requested by the Niosh chairman is not surprising either.  

Just a couple of years ago, Health Minister Datuk Seri Chua Soi Lek said more than two million Malaysians over the age of five suffer from some form of psychiatric illness – and only 20% of them seek treatment. 

In fact, he said, mental illness was the fourth leading cause of poor health in the country. 

Given the pace and pressures of life today, and the constant threats to our health, it’s not even enough to stand on the so-called “unafflicted” side of the fence and say “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”  

And it certainly isn’t the right thing to regard people with ailments and disorders as being different, and deserving of any less than we would want for ourselves. 

When you consider the dignity and courage with which many sufferers conduct themselves, their presence in our midst is both inspiring and enriching. 

Some years ago, a class I was attending had the benefit of having some deaf students and their sign-language interpreter on the roster.  

One day, a few of us were shocked to find that they had been moved from the front of the class to the back, because some other (non-hearing-impaired) students complained that they were “distracting.” 

We objected and asked that they be reinstated to their former seating position, but to no avail. Well, being the hot-head I was back then, I quit the class.  

In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best thing to do. I should have stayed on and rubbed the complainers’ noses in the dirt every chance I got, especially considering the core subject. 

God knows I’ve struggled to cope with the problems of friends and family at times.  

But I do count my blessings for being sufficiently aware of my own borderline problems to realise how fragile my own situation is. 

And really, coming back to this whole point of discrimination, we should ask ourselves: just when do people start, or stop, being different from one another?  

It all boils down to our obsession with categorising everything from the food we eat to the higher powers we believe in.  

Then, once we’ve comfortably put everything into neat little sub-groups, we can indulge in our favourite pastime of “discriminating” who gets sent off to the ovens, who gets to break traffic laws with impunity, who gets to set up obstacles in someone else’s path, who gets what done to whom. 

What would it take to make the categorically obsessed (pun intended) realise that, no matter how “same-same” some of us want to make ourselves, the truth is that not so deep down, each of us is unique and therefore, different from everyone else?  

That each of us, in our own way, is an outsider, a minority, a nerd, a freak, a geek, a spaz, or whatever harsh appellation is the flavour of the day? 

Perhaps, this will happen the day we universally learn to embrace and celebrate the differences instead of merely tolerating or shunning them. The day we can fill out any form with Race: Human; Religion: Yes, please; and Gender: Does it make a difference? 

Come to think of it, on that day, we wouldn’t need such forms in the first place.  

Davin Arul, vice-president of the I.Star division, suggests this exercise: Instead of focusing on how difficult our lives have been in coping with “differences”, think of how they have been enriched instead. 

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