Gerlef Gleiss

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Gerlef Gleiss

Gerlef Gleiss (born December 31, 1954 in Hamburg ; † February 5, 2014 there ) was a German disability activist of the disability movement and a politician of the Left Party . He is considered a co-founder of the radical disability movement, in which he was active as an organizer of demonstrations and actions for more than 30 years. A staunch Trotskyist , he was a member of the United Secretariat of the Fourth International and later joined the Left Party .

Life

Gleiss grew up in the Hamburg district of Billstedt with five siblings. He and his twin brother Thies took part in the student protests of 1969. At the age of 16, they joined the Revolutionary Communist Youth , part of the Fourth International. When Gerlef Gleiss was 17 years old, he fell into a creek while on vacation in France and broke his cervical spine , resulting in paraplegia . Gleiss could not graduate from school because no Hamburg school accepted him.

From 1981 Gleiss became involved in the disabled movement, which was initially called the cripple movement. In 1984 he founded the association Autonom Leben together with other Hamburg members of the disability movement and in 1993 the Hamburg assistants' cooperative . Both clubs were run almost exclusively by disabled people. In the advice center of Autonom Leben , Gleiss supported disabled people in asserting their right to self-determination and in living as independently as possible outside of institutions. He was an honorary member of the board of the Hamburg assistants' cooperative.

Positions

Gleiss came to the disability movement through protests against the UN Year of the Disabled in 1981 . The activists of the left cripple movement were of the opinion that the year of the handicapped would bring hardly any positive changes, but would only appeal to the good will of all. They worried about the beginnings of their self-organization. Gleiss took part in the cripple tribunal , which exposed human rights violations in the disabled.

The right to self-determination and assistance was Gleiss' most important topic, but he also took a position on euthanasia - or bioethics - discussions. He warned against a “selection based on usefulness” and saw the debate on euthanasia as a gateway for calling into question the right to life of disabled people. He called for the topic to be discussed on the left and not to leave it to the churches.

There were discussions about Gleiss within the cripple movement , as he advocated taking non-disabled people into the cripple groups . In 1981 he wrote in the Krüppelzeitung that it was difficult to distinguish the disabled from the non-disabled because "this capitalist society hinders everyone". Critics accused him of failing to take into account the special experiences of people with disabilities. Gleiss refused to accept money for self-determined living projects from the Aktion Sorgekind (now Aktion Mensch ), as he saw independence as being endangered and resisted what he called a “head-stroking mentality”.

As a member of the Left Party, Gleiss ran unsuccessfully for the Hamburg parliament in 2008; among other things, he dealt with the Hartz IV legislation.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A brave , taz article from February 12, 2014, accessed on March 8, 2014
  2. ^ Against the head strokes , Jungle World article, February 20, 2014, accessed March 8, 2014
  3. ↑ "A pretty best life", article by Oliver Tolmein in Konkret, 3/2014
  4. ^ Obituary of the Socialist Newspaper , accessed on March 8, 2014
  5. ↑ Mürmer, Christian and Sierck, Udo: cripple newspaper: explosiveness of the disability movement, AG SPAK books, 2009, ISBN 978-3-940865-57-1 , page 55f
  6. ↑ Entry at Parliamentary Watch , accessed on March 8, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Gleiss, Gerlef
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German activist of the disability movement and politician (Left Party)
DATE OF BIRTH December 31, 1954
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH 5th February 2014
Place of death Hamburg