Bengt Nirje on Normalization

Bengt Nirje: Then we come over then to the right of self-determination, the right to be listened to, to be heard, and to express yourself; to have the groups, to have the clubs; to have the right as citizens, to form your own associations, to form your own clubs, and have a say so; the right to be a citizen and the right to take part in the legislative process as a citizen. And that was in the background of the People First.

So I started the first club in 1965 and there were several clubs. And we had the first Swedish national meeting for twenty persons in 1968. And we had a larger one in 1970. And they formed their own after [Inaudible] and then all hell broke loose [Inaudible]. And those people were so upset. And they say "They can't think. They can't think. That's dangerous. We have to stop them [Inaudible] control."

[Inaudible] in British Columbia, Canada. They have people, young people have started to act on their own and started a movement called People First. And I was called in Sweden and cooperated on that. And one of the leading persons coming out from that was Barbara Good.

And that was the beginning of People First movement in Canada and in North America. And that's been very, very important. [Inaudible] we had the first international conference in Nairobi in 1972, no in 1982, with participants from eight countries. Now the League does it regularly and they have several hundred participants from many more countries. And now People First have their own conference in Toronto some time ago with 5,500 intellectually disabled running their own conference.