What would it be like to live in a country that has been
taken over by a totalitarian government?
It happens now and then. It
happened in Iran back when I was in college.
I remember tutoring some foreign students in English. One of them, an Iranian, spoke passionately
about overthrowing the shah. But authoress
Azar Nafisi described how things really turned out in her book, Reading Lolita in Tehran. Though the socialist-leaning college students
in Iran were running the revolution one day, they soon found themselves
shouldered out of the way. The better
organized, more entrenched, Islamic hardliners were easily able to commandeer
the power structure. What happened next could be called disenfranchisement. Not only had the leftist students lost their power, they (and especially
the women like her) quickly became “irrelevant” in the culture that
emerged. She went from being a respected
college professor who wore western clothes, to being forced to wear the hijab,
to being forced from her position altogether.
People like her were no longer “needed”, no longer considered to belong
to the important side of the culture.
Does this scene sound familiar to our seniors? I think so.
They know firsthand what it feels like to go from running the “show” to
relative powerlessness. They might have
lost control of their finances, their families, their health, their homes, or
even their minds. Life goes on without
them or their input. Their children or
even perfect strangers are calling the shots.
Who actually made the decision for them to move to assisted living? Are they doing the hiring and firing of
staff, or setting up the facility budget?
Did they decide to wear a wheelchair alarm? Did they even decide to stay sitting in a
wheelchair for most of the day?
I’ve heard that culture change involves giving the residents
more say-so and opportunities to make a difference in the institutional
setting. That way, the institution
becomes less that and more homelike. We
can’t fix everything, but we want our seniors to be less “irrelevant” to their
own culture. So how come some of the
nicest places spend mega $$ on interior decorating, but don’t allocate any public
space for the residents to display their own art work? Well, it might spoil the perfect image the
facility feels necessary to project. How
come some places spend mega $$ on landscaping, but don’t provide opportunities
for the residents to be actively involved in the process? Well, only landscapers can choose a flat of
pansies, and resident outings need to be to more entertaining places than the
local nursery.
What does it mean to be irrelevant? Well, how many aspects of your facility are
running very–well-thank-you without the residents’ help?
© Donna Stuart, ADPC 11/28/2014
Nafisi, Azar. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in
Books. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2003.
