In 2015, whether it’s abuse, poverty or disability, we are all survivors and we are stronger together (video)

For the tens of thousands of abuse survivors and current victims of abuse seeking justice, 2014 may yet turn out to have been the critical time when politicians and the judiciary began to take the plague of widespread child abuse seriously. With a few notable exceptions, parliamentarians have resisted taking any concerted action to address this issue for decades but a string of high-profile paedophile gang convictions that exposed police and politicians incompetence and contempt for the child victims drew public outrage and a surge in support for government action on social media. Combined with the dogged persistence of some journalists – Exaro News has received well deserved widespread praise for its role in pursuing the allegations of a MP and VIP child abuse conspiracy – David Cameron and Theresa May were forced to at least give the appearance of taking the matter seriously.

Image credit: cormodeblog.com

Those survivors who have been willing to confront their abusers and face the trauma of the English judicial process have shown extraordinary courage but it is the view of this blog that there are many millions of other ‘survivors’ who have shown enormous bravery and integrity not only in 2014 but for many years. These include the UK’s 13 million working poor who have seen their real wages fall along with the corporate welfare known as the working tax credit, the million households who have to rely on the charity of the food banks or suffer the legalised extortion that is a pay day loan, in order to feed their families and the millions of disabled citizens forced to undertake a special state instituted ‘medical’ assessment to prove (and the overwhelming majority did), as Iain Duncan Smith so revealingly put it, that they were not “pulling a sickie”.

The poor, the young and the disabled have borne the brunt of the Conservative led coalition’s ideological paring back of the state and some have literally paid with their lives. They may have faced different challenges but for suffering through the sometimes overwhelming impediments to basic survival instituted by government and the daily indignity and abuse whipped-up in a sustained campaign in the right-wing media these groups are undoubtedly also survivors.

The government has sought, with some success, to divide the nation by smearing groups of Britons as “scroungers” or “conspiracy theorists” or “shirkers….pulling a sickie” or “benefit tourists”. Fortunately, social media has given these often disparate and lonely survivors a voice and a way of finding strength and influence in sheer numbers.

2015 has the potential to be a banner year for all survivors and that outcome is made far more likely if we remember and act upon the old maxim ‘we are stronger together’. That is my dearest wish for this year.

I wish you all a Happy New Year and hope that this short video makes you smile (I did). Together, nothing’s gonna stop us!

Due to copyright restrictions in order to watch the clip you need to type or copy and paste the password: imincorrigible

Original video © [Lionsgate]

P.S.

If you think you can handle another 6 minutes of pure joy, watch Stephen Colbert doing Daft Punk’s Get Lucky in his Colbchella episode – I promise that it will make you smile!

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