Interview with Kenneth Rutherford, History 150 Spring 2020, Conducted by Ellen Franzen, March 17, 2020.

Bibliography

The person I interviewed is Kenneth Rutherford. I did not know him extremely well prior to this interview, but he is a professor at James Madison University who came to my Honors 300 seminar class to talk about disabilities. Dr. Rutherford is a professor of political science who started his career in the Peace Corps when a landmine tragically blew his leg off; eventually he had to get both of his legs amputated. As a result, he became very passionate about encouraging countries to stop using landmines and started the Landmine Survivors Network. The Landmine Survivors Network led Dr. Rutherford to travel around the world. He tried to bring as much attention to his movement as he possibly could, so Princess Diana accompanied him on his trip to Bosnia-Herzegovina, which was her last humanitarian mission. Additionally, he was very influential in the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997. Finally, he has published four books on landmines.

 

Research

This semester I am an exceptional education class as well as a seminar on disabilities, so I have a basic understanding of disabilities and disabled culture. Because my interviewee has extensive knowledge about landmines and focuses on landmines, I decided to do some research on that topic. As Robert Keeley of Massachusetts Institute of Technology states, there are a few different types of landmines, but one of the most used landmines are anti-personnel landmines (APL). APL’s can be split into two different categories, AP blast mines and AP fragmentation mines (Keeley). Keeley describes AP blast mines as, “small, flat and cylindrical, typically 60-140 mm in diameter. They rely on the effect of explosive blast to damage the victim, and are designed to detonate when the victim steps on them. They are often buried in order to camouflage their presence” (Keeley). Keeley goes on to describe AP fragmentation mines as, “[They] use the detonation of their explosive content to drive metal fragments into their victims. They are usually able to be initiated by the victim walking into a tripwire, and can thus often kill or injure several victims at once” (Keely). Having a good understanding of landmines enables me to have a better visual of what Dr. Rutherford experienced, as well as appreciate the significance story and mission. Additionally, I know that Dr. Rutherford has done significant work abroad, so I wanted to learn more about disabilities in other countries. In my interview, he referenced Jordan as having some of the most progressive disability laws, so I wanted to research more about them. In some ways, they are very similar to the Americans with Disabilities Act that was passed in the United States. For example, the law in Jordan states, “The following principles shall be taken into consideration in implementing this Law… Not to discriminate against persons with disabilities on the basis of, or because of, disability” in addition to, “The removal of physical and behavioral barriers for persons with disabilities, that include a lack or absence of reasonable accommodation or accessible formats or accessibility as well as individual and institutional behaviors and discriminatory practices on the basis of disability” (United Nations). However, this differs slightly from the ADA in the sense that Jordan classifies disabilities as long term, but in the United States, the ADA defines disability, “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity,” so a disability does not have to be considered long term for the ADA to apply, for example, when someone breaks a bone (United Nations). Additionally, part of Jordan’s disability law states, “The following principles shall be taken into consideration in implementing this Law…equality between men and women with disabilities in terms of rights and duties” (United Nations). I thought this was extremely interesting because for a long time citizens in the United States have been arguing for a law against discrimination on the basis of sex, but Jordan already has one in place.

Furthermore, recently Donald Trump, President of the United States, passed a new law relating to landmines and the United States’ landmine policy stating, “The United States military can now use landmines in wars; the government believes that landmines are a vital tool during combat, and President Trump believes that he has the ability, as president, to make legislation about landmines” (United States Department of Defense). This was a reversal of the policy implemented by the Obama Administration, which stated, “The United States will not use APL (anti-personnel landmines) outside the Korean Peninsula, not assist, encourage, or induce anyone outside the Korean Peninsula to engage in activity prohibited by the Ottawa Convention, and undertake to destroy APL stockpiles not required for the defense of the Republic of Korea” (The White House). In my interview with Dr. Rutherford, we discuss this new policy and its significance.

 

Keeley, Robert. “Understanding Landmines and Mine Action.” Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sept. 2003, web.mit.edu/demining/assignments/understanding-landmines.pdf.

The White House – Office of the Press Secretary. “FACT SHEET: Changes to U.S. Anti- Personnel Landmine Policy.” National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration, 23 Sept. 2014,   obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/23/fact-sheet-changes-us-anti-personnel-landmine-policy.

United Nations. “Disability Laws and Acts by Country/Area Enable.” United Nations, United Nations, www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/disability-laws-and-acts-by-country-area.html.

United States Department of Defense. “Landmine Policy.” U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, 31 Jan. 2020, www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Releases/Release/Article/2071692/landmine-policy/.

 

Transcription

Ellen Franzen (EF): Okay, so um, is it okay if I record this interview?

Kenneth Rutherford (KR): Sure. Can you send me a copy?

EF: Yeah, definitely.

KR: That’d be great.

EF: Um, so if you don’t mind saying your name and today’s date.

KR: What is today’s date?

EF: March 17.

KR: Ken Rutherford, March 17.

EF: Awesome. Thank you. So, I guess we can go ahead and get started with the interview. So, for the first question, how did you adjust and adapt to life after your landmine experience? And I guess if you want to talk a little bit about like, how, like what happened before, like leading up to that as well?

KR: Okay, can I ask you a question? What made you interested, sort of, in my presentation and to interview me?

EF: Um, honestly, I’ve like always been really fascinated about disabilities and advocating for different disabilities, too, so I guess that made me really interested. And then I also loved the international piece because I want to teach internationally someday so, yeah.

KR: You want to teach internationally?

EF: Yeah, I think so.

KR: Awesome. Have you thought about Peace Corps?

EF: Yeah, I have I’ve really considered that.

KR: What year are you?

EF: I’m a freshman.

KR: Oh good, so you got some good years ahead of you.

EF: Yeah.

KR: Yeah, good, okay. Alright, so back to your question, what was it again? Can you remind me? 

EF: Yeah! How did you adjust and adapt to your life after your landmine experience and then if you want to talk about what happened leading up to that as well?

KR: Okay, so I lost my legs to a landmine in Somalia in 1993. My right leg came off that day. My left leg was surgically amputated in 1997 from the same accident, and the way I’ve adjusted is a big part, well you heard my speech, but a big part of my life as a double amputee has been just really by the grace of God that I, you know, didn’t live. I very close, multiple times to dying, and I realized at the time, at least at one time that I was might die. So, you know, do you want to be dead, buried in the ground or do you want to be six feet above ground? You know, you might be 6 feet below ground in a grave or do you want to be above ground with no legs and so the latter option is a pretty damn good option. So, the way I’ve adjusted is I just use that as positive fuel and momentum to carry forward with my dreams, which was to marry my girlfriend, become a professor like my father and become a father. And all those dreams have been achieved, but not without hard work and not without a lot of support.

EF: Yeah.

KR: We live in a, we live in an awesome country where medical care, it has some issues, but overall compared to a lot of other countries in the world, such as Somalia, or Afghanistan, where there are a lot of landmines, it’s pretty damn good.

EF: Yeah. So, um, after that happened, um like, how did you start becoming an activist for disabled people, particularly with landmines.

KR: Initially, I was invited to speak as a survivor of a landmine at conferences and around the world. After a while, I realized that other people were discussing the inhumane use of landmines. So survivors, including myself figured we had a more valuable role to play, not only in sharing our personal testimonies, but in helping define what an international law banning landmines should be and could be to support survivors of landmines, so that was the beginning of my activism stage, in realizing that we just didn’t want to become poster children, we want to get off the poster and actively engage.

EF: Yeah. So, I guess, um, how has it changed, your movement like, since you started to now?

KR: I think there’s less landmines going into the ground and more coming out of the ground than when we started. Every country in the world except 32, so around 164 countries I believe, around 160 have, banned landmines and support survivors. And when we started this, every single country in the world thought it was legal to use landmines. In addition, the landmine ban treaty was the first treaty in the world’s history, uh, weapons treaty in the world’s history to support victims of that landmine, of that weapon.

EF: So, where do you think, like, based off where the movement currently is, where do you think it should be headed? And what can people do to help support the movement, even if they haven’t been disabled?

KR: I think, good question. I think it’s evolving towards supporting survivors not only like with just artificial limbs, but beyond that expanding the terminology of victim assistance to include human rights, to include vocational training, to include occupational therapy, just, you know, historically survivors would get to hospital, get checked out, maybe get artificial leg, but I think more needs to be done to support those survivors, learning the new life and new career, etc.

EF: So recently, the United States like passed the new law about landmines, as you talked about in our class, but I was just wondering if you could talk about it now and maybe like your thoughts on it.

KR: Yeah, I think under Obama, the United States disallowed the use of landmines in all areas of the world except the Korean Peninsula, and would look at ways to banning landmines and the Trump administration recently, I think about a month ago, reversed that policy and will allow military forces to use landmines anywhere in the world. I think it’s a slippage and a moral lapse in our country, because landmines are indiscriminate, the targets are unintended, many of the targets are unintended, over 90% are civilian. So, I think it was a misguided policy and I don’t know what Trump’s thinking.

EF: So, I guess, um, talking about laws in the United States, so the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed in 1990 [Americans with Disabilities Act] and I was wondering, like, how does this impact your daily life?

KR: Well, it helped me out a lot because I got my PhD at Georgetown, which is the oldest Catholic University in the country, a lot of structural barriers, which the ADA allowed to remain because there’s a lot of historic buildings, but what the ADA gave me, what Georgetown gave me was a lot of resources, I wouldn’t say a lot of resources, but realize, but for example, I looked at a bus line cause I was in a wheelchair a lot, so I couldn’t get on the bus because the bus was a wheelchair accessible, so Georgetown would send me a van, a wheelchair van to pick me up from school. In addition, I was on a lot of pain medicine, so I had an extra room to, an extra room to sort of pass out and take medicine and sleep all day and then go to school at night, cause I was in so much pain. And so, what the ADA allowed it, allowed me to compete on equal footing, so to speak, with other students. I’m very grateful for that.

EF: Is there anything that like, is not included in the Americans with Disabilities Act that you wish was included?

KR: I know for me, you know, I don’t know. It was very, it was very helpful to me to get my PhD. I’m very grateful for that. And I’ve been a big fan of acknowledging and appreciating what you have and just not focusing on what you don’t have.

EF: Have a lot of the countries that you’ve been to have like something similar to the ADA or not really?

KR: You know, that’s a good question. I think a lot of them do, but they’re just not enforced or not implemented. Yeah. So, the ADA, maybe except for some European countries is very strong. But a lot of countries around the world, there’s laws in the books, but they’re just not being enforced.

EF: So, kind of going off of that, how are people with disabilities seen around the world in different cultures, in particular, like the countries that you’ve been to?

KR: So that could be a book, because every country in every culture is different. Some countries hide people with disabilities in the back rooms because they’re embarrassed or they think their other children will be on marriageable. So, so many countries around the world you don’t even see people disabilities. Because they’re hidden, it’s a cultural faux pas on that. So, yeah, so but you know, so it just depends on the culture and my experience has been people disabilities are looked down upon. So that’s my impression.

EF: How do you think like country should go about maybe changing this like, like, I guess if that makes sense?

KR: I think more education awareness programs, maybe more, more support for parents to take their kids out of schools. I mean, that are discriminatory. More, more mainstreaming, allowing disabled kids to go to regular schools, just more education.

EF: So, like out of all the places you’ve been to like, which has been the most impactful and why?

KR: I say Jordan, because Jordan has the strongest disability laws, and they had the first disability laws in, in the Middle East. So, they’re a shining example. There’s a lot of brave people in Jordan who stuck their necks out and the use of political capital to support people with disabilities. So, it’s a fascinating case study of under strong leadership and morality, that good things could happen. So, the answer’s Jordan.

EF: And then this is kind of not really related, but a lot of people have like, different definitions of disability. So, I was just wondering, like, what does the term disability mean to you and as a disabled person, what kind of language would you like people to use?

KR: Well, I think disability is a good word. I don’t think it’s a good word but a normal word that I’m used to. I think somebody who is, due to various reasons, mental or physical, is unable to achieve or accomplish what they normally otherwise would be able to do so without challenge or barrier that’s either mental or physical.

EF: Um, so I guess that’s like, pretty much all of my questions. So, I was just wondering if you had anything else that you’d like to add about your movement or just in general, your story?

KR: I think feelings without action are meaningless, and so there’s a lot of good people who are talking a lot of good things, but if they’re not willing to act, those good things won’t happen. So if you feel it, like for you, you feel a pull towards advocacy for disabilities, you feel pulled towards international teaching, those feelings would be meaningless if you did not follow through on those feelings.

EF: I think that’s all I have, so thank you so much for being my interviewee for my social change project!

KR: Yeah. Where are you right now? Where are you based?

EF: Um, I’m currently in DC. Um,

KR: Okay.

EF: Yeah.

KR: So, you guys start online courses on Monday, right?

EF: Yeah.

KR: Have you already heard from your professors?

EF: Um, yeah, a few of them. Um, I guess, um, my history professor, she already teaches online classes in the summer, so shouldn’t be too much of a problem for her, and then a lot of my other classes I I’m just going through PowerPoints, I think, so.

KR: Yeah. Okay, well, good luck.

EF: Thank you. Um

KR: Send me the paper when you’re done.

EF: Okay. Sounds good.

KR: Thank you!

EF: And, um, is it okay if this is published on the website for my class?

KR: Sure.

EF: Okay, thank you

KR: Let me look at it first, though.

EF: Okay, sounds good.

KR: Thank you, bye.

 

Overview of Interview Process

Due to the coronavirus, this interview was conducted over the phone. I did not have to edit anything, I just had to create the transcript. I had initially planned on using a call recorder app on my phone to record the interview; however, the app malfunctioned, so I used my computer to record the conversation instead. Finally, my house can be somewhat chaotic, especially when everyone is in quarantine, so I tried to find a quiet room in my house early in the morning before everything became too crazy. I also informed all of my family members in advance that I was conducting the interview so they could try to lower their voices.

 

Conclusion

I really enjoyed conducting my interview. If I could do anything differently, I would try to prepare more questions. I did not realize how quickly I would go through them. I went off script a little bit, which was helpful for when I was running out of questions. Doing this also enabled me to learn more than I thought I would about my interviewee and his topic, therefore the divergences were quite positive. Furthermore, sometimes while my interviewee was answering questions, I would think of another question to ask, but then later forget. Because of this, if I had to redo my interview, I would write down my additional questions as they came.