Was Francisca Braithwaite a victim of an employer’s revenge plot, or a victim of circumstances? Or was she truly a victim of a physical disability and therefore placed in a life-threatening situation, at the hands of someone who should have known better? Or perhaps, in light of some accounts of her death, Braithwaite was murdered by someone with ill intent – one who had been hoping to exploit her disability for some selfish purpose. Or, perhaps, on the contrary, Francisca Braithwaite died as a victim of an accident, caused by the reckless and negligent actions of a motorist who should have realized that she was disabled.
Or, did Francisca Braithwaite fall victim to a culture which, in all likelihood, did not value human life as much as it now does? Her death, it seems, is to be treated as an example of the triumph of civilization over the natural order of things, with each generation blaming the previous for its negligence. This line of thinking is most clearly demonstrated in the attitudes of those who identify with the left, who seem to hold to a theory that Francisca Braithwaite’s death was somehow the result of an ugly cultural backlash against the disabled. If this were true, then the left would have to explain why, in the twenty-first century, it is normal for a woman to be a quadriplegic, but not acceptable for a nurse to work in a nursing home. It also seems strange that the supposedly progressive ideas of the left would put a woman who was born dead in a nursing home, and who could never have been expected to take a degree in nursing from an accredited university, in such a position.
Of course, some may argue that the concept of national identity is nothing more than an intellectual convenience, and that those who deny the existence of such identities are merely exercising their prerogative. But, the fact remains that Francisca Braithwaite is dead, and her legacy lives on. Those who deny the existence of national identity are merely acting out an intellectualized version of their fears, which they have created themselves. If anything, those who believe that a woman’s place of work can be reduced to an unpaid position at the pleasure of a malevolent political scheme would do well to read Braithwaite’s account of the disabled as an example of how such fears can be systematically and viciously generated. Surely, those who deny the existence of national identity are doing so at the cost of their own careers, and those who accept the principle of universal national identity are doing so at the cost of their own lives.