The more I consider my entry yesterday, the more I like the conclusion I came to. Many of my readers will know how critical I have been in the past of religion, and I still find it illogical. In the past I’ve considered it dangerous – one of the factors which divides humanity. Yet it also has the power to bring people together, to give them hope and strength. This is why I am more comfortable in framing the disabled community with belief rather than politics. Politics can be and usually is founded on antagonism – if you are a conservative you are not a liberal, etc. in framing the disabled community in politics, we make it innately confrontational. Moreover, this cannot account for the social aspects of the disabled community. Belief can. It is belief which unites us: belief in ourselves, and each other. From this we can derive strength to fight the battles which need to be fought, not necessarily through confrontation but explanation. Moreover, this bypasses my reservations over ostracisation; while I still see dan as going to the extreme, I see no problem in wanting to show who you are. As long as we don’t ram disability rights down peoples throats like the proverbial Jehovah witness, our unity will help set us free.

To my mind, this goes some way to resolving my reservations over a cultural model of disability. It is not pride that unites us, but belief in our capabilities and in comradeship. It was not enough for us to, in a way, set ourselves apart from the rest of humanity without an underlying cause. Pride has negative connotations, seemed to divisive and did not stand up to analysis. Everyone is proud of who they are. On the other hand I find the concept of belief very satisfactory: one can believe in yourself and the strength of your community without placing yourself outside of or opposing any other community. It allows one to retain that slight feeling of difference from which everyone in the disabled community draws strength, without implying fundamental opposition or antagonism.