Difference and defiance
The roots of prejudice - and the birth of a revolution. Vanessa Baird takes a fresh look at disability at the end of the UN Decade of Disabled Persons.

Forbidden fruit
Having sex and babies is taboo - if you're disabled. Anne Finger examines a prejudice that runs deep.

Liberation!
Disabled people in poor countries may be leading a wider social revolution. Frontline reports from Nawaf Kabbara in Lebanon, Mark Todd in Nicaragua and Joshua Malinga in Zimbabwe.

Simply - Friend or foe?
A guide for non-disabled people.

Tyrannies of perfection
Eugenics, euthanasia and genetic engineering. Jenny Morris puts medical ethics under the microscope.

LIBERTY, EQUALITY, DISABILITY -
THE FACTS

Fear for sale
What's going on behind the charity ads, by David Hevey.

The eye of the beholder
Poverty is one thing. Attitude is another. Balakrishna Venkatesh on what it's like to be disabled in India.

Revolution!
Imagine: disability is the norm - and it's non- disabled people who have 'special needs'. A salutary tale by Vie Finkeistein.

'Nothing about us without us!' It's a popular slogan of the disability movement, of which we have taken heed in this month's issue of NI. All the commissioned articles, 80 per cent of the illustrations and many of the photographs are the work of disabled contributors.

This issue is unusual in another way. It has been produced in collaboration with the BBC Education Department to coincide with a new three-part BBC documentary series - Disabled Lives - with the aim of radically changing attitudes towards disability and moving the issue centre stage for a mainstream audience.

Early on we discovered that our views and approaches were very similar, which made co-operation easy. Of course, this issue of the NI and the BBC series can each stand on their own. But we hope that a combination of the two will give you an even richer understanding of an issue that affects directly one in ten of us - the proportion of disabled people in the world - and has implications for us all.

The first film, Altered States, explores what happens when a person suddenly becomes disabled. The second, Where Angels Fear to Tread, takes us to the mine-ridden paddy fields of Cambodia - and the controversial attempts by Western charities to provide amputees with artificial limbs (see fear). The third, The Gospel According to Berkeley, focuses on the Independent Living Movement, which is sweeping across the world. In the UK the films will be screened on 7 July, 14 July and 21 July at 7.40 pm on BBC 2. The series will be shown in Australia and Canada in the near future.

While researching this issue of NI I attended an international conference on disability in Vancouver. The vast majority of the 3,000 or so people there were disabled. At first the able-bodied amongst us kept colliding with each other - almost as if we were thrown off balance by our sudden abnormality. Yet again it made me think about how much disability has to do with what is perceived as normal.

I was also struck by the up-beat expressiveness - and impressiveness - of the disabled delegates from all over the world. The atmosphere can perhaps best be summed up in this short poem by Micheline Mason, the woman who appears on the front cover of this magazine. It's also the underlying ethos of both this issue of NI and the BBC series:

Our people can be found
In every class and race
Of every age and nation
Our people are awakening

We will not beg
We will not hide
We'll come together
To regain our pride.

Letters
Letter from Lahore
Updates
Reviews: plus Alex Haley classic
Curiosities
Endpiece: by Anuradha Vittachi
Country profile: Zambia

FRONT COVER PHOTOGRAPH: MICHELINE MASON AND HER DAUGHTER LUCY PHOTOGRAPHED BY BRITISH PHOTOGRAPHER DAVID HEVEY, WHO IS HIMSELF DISABLED. THIS PHOTO IS PART OF AN EXHIBITION SPONSORED BY THE ROWNTREE TRUST.
ONLINE MAG MAINTAINED BY SIMON LOFFLER