What have the Romans ever done for us?

Hubris is not, I hope, a fault I’m guilty of (too often). So it’s with some trepidation that I set down here a hostage to fortune by recalling the words that William Shakespeare put in the mouth of Mark Anthony in Act 3, Scene 2 of the tragedy, Julius Caesar.

We all know the words that start the speech: Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. / I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. Then he goes on to do a hatchet job on Brutus.

We all die sooner or later and most of us think too soon; too soon. So it’s natural, perhaps, for each of us to reflect on those who die before us. Maybe it’s even necessary that we pause to remember: as Link has done for its founding editor, Jeff Heath; as an article in Link's current issue does for the sorely missed Kevin Byrne; as I have done in this column for my mate Neil.

It’s another man’s death, however, that brought to mind the words attributed to Mark Anthony. And if I pause to reflect for a moment on what has struck me, it is not so much upon the death that I wish to linger but more upon a complex and, at times, contradictory life. To be frank, and unpopular with some readers, I also want to reflect on the sometimes-disappointing responses that I’ve read to the death I have in mind.

What can I say? In places, some responses lacked charity. (This louse is not moved by Faith but see Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13, for what I mean by charity).

But first, a disclaimer: I’m an ageing Leftie. I favour certain ideological positions over others. I have a bias of which you should be aware and, therefore, wary of.

That said: how should we assess a man’s life, an activist for thirty years, who dies too young? Shouldn’t we mourn, with charity, the death of one who:
· has been a public advocate since 1976 on what are now known as ‘green issues’ (long before our mainstream political parties);
· joined Amnesty International in the mid-1970s;
· demonstrated on the streets of Pinochet’s Chile in 1987 against death sentences passed on 77 actors;
· received an award for bravery from a human rights organisation working with and for the victims of torture;
· voted Democrat in America and didn’t run from the label “liberal” (seen as a term of abuse by many in that weird political culture);
· helped to bring about the US 1999 Work Incentives Improvement Act, which allows people with disability to return to work and still receive disability benefits.
· is the only quad in history to win an Emmy;
· and more?

Ah, the penny drops: you mean Christopher Reeve; the stem cell research man; the cure not care man; the quad who said he’d walk before he’s fifty man (but didn’t); the man who some would have us think of as disability’s Uncle Tom. He who is not ‘one of us’. I even heard it said: a traitor.

It’s no secret that this louse and ‘superman’ did not agree on where the stress should fall in the debate about the search for ‘cures’ and the struggles for inclusion. We talked briefly about our different emphases on the one occasion that we met. I told one thousand people I disagreed with him when I was next to speak, after his speech in Sydney last year. I sat next to his wife, his research specialist and other supporters of his view and said as much again the very next day.

But traitor? Uncle Tom? Please!

I watched the world’s media go overboard when Christopher Reeve, 52, father of three, husband, son, actor, movie-maker, Democrat, human rights, disability rights, sustainable ecology and medical research campaigner died. Most of what he believed-in, represented and campaigned for, a movie-loving, un-reconstructed Leftie like me admired, supported and respected. Some of what he did I disagreed with and said so to his face.

But surely charity requires that we, people in a disability ‘movement’ that lays claim to a vision of common humanity and decency, must pause to reflect on the whole man, the complete picture, the life no more or less complex and contradictory than ours.

Not for nothing is it said that charity begins at home. Too many good and decent people have died in recent days. Christopher Reeve is one of them.
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