Commentary by: Ish Theilheimer

Citizens as contributors, not just consumers. Why social inclusion matters to me.
– thoughts from child development expert and advocate Marvyn Novick
As the conference theme suggests, it’s a useful new way of thinking. We’re asking a question and trying to lay the groundwork for a vision. It’s more an exploratory event than definitive.
In the Canadian context inclusion is really asking us to revisit some important areas that have been implicitly under question but not explicitly discussed. Three areas come to mind: first what we mean by equality. The prevailing notion of equality is of entitlement, rights. Inclusion forces us to question whether there is something in the notion of membership that should be explored. Whether entitlement and rights may not be ends but means to a certain quality of membership.
Inclusion forces us to question whether entitlement and rights may not be ends but means to a certain quality of membership.
Revisiting equality and membership
The notion of membership has been implicit in a number of important movements of the last thirty to forty years. It goes back to people with disabilities who in the early 70s began to question the state of diminshment to which they were condemned…
The community living movement is a statement of membership as a form of equality. It has been implicit in the women’s movement… it’s been there around First Nations people and their struggles. It’s been there because of the global diversity that is now part of Canada. Francophone people have been discussing whole issue… Homelessness outrages us a violation of entitlement, ostracizes people from membership by not having a place that is there. There’s the same issue around child and family poverty. It’s not just not having enough money but children and families being outside living standards that prevail in the general community.
Revisiting of equality is quite important. It really makes us think through some of the things that have been inherent. The welfare state was a major societal achievement but implicit in other movements is that notion that the welfare state is gender specific, culturally specific, ability specific. The post- World War 2 welfare state saw as its members a society where families headed by Anglo able-bodied males were the focus.
A new take on citizenship
The second area for exploration is what we mean by citizenship. We’ve been dealing with citizenship as meaning the accountablility of government to individuals, but this is evolving to a notion that goes deeper. It says citizens are not just consumers of government services but active contributors to the world in which they live.
What do we mean by social well-being? A third area: what do we mean by social well-being? Population health literature increasingly suggests people’s distances from each other, and states of tremendous polarization are bad for people’s health, that health is more than what you possess, that
it’s the states of relationship you have with other people. There’s a sense that social well- being goes beyond that to recognition and asks how do we feel recognized. Maybe it allows us to find some common ground in what have been separate discourses and struggles. A lot of the themes have come out of different disciplines. Inclusion is another way of saying ‘is there common ground in some of these areas?’
We’re bringing together people who are struggling with some dimensions of this in different worlds, to see whether there is that common ground.
The next focus of the conference emerges – the vision. To have a vision, something’s got to be shared. What does it mean in terms of the kind of nation we are, the kind of communities we want to develop?
A national dimension
It involves policies and practices. It has national dimensions to it. If we want to see equality as membership, and the citizen as a contributor, what are some of the dimensions? This is where the human development agenda becomes very important. Things that can be done nationally become critical, like early learning and why strong and extended public education is so important, the role of the arts, family living standards…
Membership was NOT the old question, entitlement was.
Is it new wine in old bottles? I don’t think membership was the old question, entitlement was. You were there to be consumers to whom people were accountable.
The new way of thinking is understanding what kind of mission would be informed by a notion of social inclusion. Can we come up with a shared vision of it, some common ground? Before September 11 there was a tremendous concern we were becoming a country that was increasingly polarized. A lot of these movements, issues, were stuck. We’d made some advances but we were drifting apart. After September 11, Canadians are once more seeing themselves as a nation when it comes to physical security. The real question is what kind of a nation do we want to create? There is a sense that that the times have shifted, that people expect governments to be active, to reflect the collective wishes of Canadians.
The conference will be a time to lay out the kinds of responsibilities and initiatives we want the federal government and other Canadians to pursue around things like our democratic integrity, what kind of country are we defending. Inclusion asks us to really look at the area of nation- building.
The people who are coming are people who hold important positions of public responsibility and who have been important speakers and activists in a variety of settings. It will be a good opportunity for them to see what’s significant about social inclusion, so if it leads to some kind of common understanding and imperatives, it could be good.
Will it translate into anything? I don’t know. It’s an attempt to seed the foundations of some new directions and initiatives. Particularly in Canada, where inclusion is such a part of the Canadian experience, more so than in the European context…
The chief points of debate are whether people understand inclusion in sufficiently common ways, whether people think their notion of inclusion coheres with that of others, whether people have very different meanings, or whether people assign old meanings, such as integration, which assumes there’s a fixed notion of what a mainstream is. This is much more complex.
Recreating society – not just letting outsiders in
An inclusive society needs to recreate itself. It’s not just letting us into your world. It’s what kind of common world we build that recognizes diversity, recognizes we share important things in common. Debates may occur over the old meaning of inclusion – organic solidarity – or they may take inclusion to mean an order – you’re participating. That’s what workfare is all about. Ask yourself what kind of membership and recognition there is there. There might be people who say as long as people are able to function they’re included. That’s the old welfare notion.
There could be divisions where people want to deal with the violations they’ve experienced: misogyny, homophobia, racism… If it stays there, we miss the point that at some point outrages have to become transformative agendas for social change.
Inclusion asks us to look at how we connect with others, how we share with others. It requires us not to dispense with differences but asks us how can differences be accommodated within commonalities.
The full text of Marvyn’s keynote presentation can be found here.
Ish Theilheimer is a writer, theatre producer, and community activist who lives in Golden Lake, ON. This article was originally published in Straight Goods.