The following piece is a guest article from Mogamat Reederwan Craayenstein, a hero of the South African anti-apartheid struggle and former political prisoner who now lives in the UK and continues his fight against racism and discrimination everywhere.
A Palestine Action detainee on hunger strike calls for assistance. The hunger striker grasps her chest and asks for an ambulance to take her to the hospital. The nurse arrives and scolds the detainee, saying that the detainee is in prison and cannot decide when to call an ambulance or go to the hospital. The nurse is the ‘responsible medical officer’, she insists, and she is the one who decides on matters of medical treatment. She performs an ECG and promises to be back in ten minutes. Many hours later, the detainee is taken by ambulance, and the staff are overheard saying something troubling about the ECG.
This reminds me of the Irish hunger strikers in the H-Blocks, prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, detainees at Bagram base in Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib, Iraq, in 2003, kidnapped people subject to extraordinary rendition and held in black holes sites all across the world during the so-called war on terror, and the Nazi Holocaust. I am also reminded of Palestinian detainees without trial and other prisoners released from Israeli jails.
The Palestine Action hunger strikers are demanding the right to bail, an end to the conscription of Palestine Action, and the freedom to communicate with their lawyers and families. They are accused of taking action against an arms manufacturer that is shipping weapons to an Apartheid regime that is also committing genocide.
The hunger strikers are Qesser Zurah, Amu Gib, Heba Muraisi, Teuta Hoxha, Kamran Ahmed and Lewie Chiaramello. Jon Cink and Muhammed Ummer Khalid ended their strike this week.
Some of the hunger strikers are now approaching 50 days without food. Bobby Sands from the Irish Republican Army died in 1981 after 66 days. The prison officials who are keeping them in detention until their next court appearance are coming down on the wrong side of a serious conflict of interest. Medical professionals, even if employed by the prison service, have a professional duty to ensure that they “do no harm”. Politicians also: they are supposed to hold the Secretary of State, the responsible political officer, to account. Few are.
Unfortunately, we see clearly how elected officials, responsible prison governors, and medical professionals lose sight of their moral responsibilities. These hunger strikers are putting their lives on the line in defence of a people who are being genocidally wiped off the map and ethnically cleansed from their land. Our government is complicit in these war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Lawyers for the detainees, who have already been in prison without trial for eighteen months and face months or years more before their court dates, have been joined by human rights organisations in their appeals to the Secretary of State for Justice and the Prime Minister to intervene to ensure that their human rights are upheld, that their treatment in detention complies with the law and is humane.
I recall Mrs Thatcher’s response. Deafening silence. In South Africa the Cabinet Minister of State for Justice, Jimmy Kruger, said that the death of Steve Biko in detention left him cold and unmoved. Starmer and Lammy say that Nelson Mandela is their hero, yet exhibit the same lack of humanity.
In the 1980s, the IRA hunger strikers were all over the news. The same media are silent about the Palestine Action hunger strikers. This is a systemic moral collapse. These are not independent media fulfilling a democratic function, but collaborators in injustice. The media are manufacturing the silence around both the hunger-strikers and the Apartheid and genocide inflicted upon the people of Gaza that they are committed to resisting. These media do not deserve the right to journalistic freedom. Their silence is complicity in the inhumane treatment of the hunger strikers. The reason is clear. The arms manufacturer is Israeli. The Apartheid and genocidal regime is Israel.
I come from apartheid South Africa. I owe the anti-apartheid solidarity movement a debt I can never repay. My writing on this matter is an attempt to repay it in part.
South African government ministers, prison wardens and medical professionals collaborated in Apartheid detention without trial and in the torture of prisoners and detainees, just because the prisoners dared to say that the Apartheid emperor had no clothes.
When an activist engages in non-violent action to oppose a genocide, that activist is doing what one’s human nature and innate moral compass dictate, even before what national and international law dictates. If an arms manufacturer was to put weapons in the hands of someone who commits systematic cruelty to animals, that arms manufacturer would be shut down and prosecuted. These activists are on hunger strike to defend a people subject to crimes against humanity and war crimes. The arms manufacturer they disrupted supplies weapons used to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity.
We have seen that there is a consensus, among the public, international institutions like the UN and experts in international law, that the government is overreaching in seeking to ban this direct action solidarity group. Thousands of older people who have seen the fight against fascism and racism are amongst those opposed to this ban. The government is persecuting them too.
I do not blame Keir Starmer, David Lammy, and Shabana Mahmood for not knowing anything about those struggles. It is breath-taking that many people who spoke about the marches against the fascists, the battle of Cable Street, etc, are now mumbling not a word. Ultimately, the country against which these hunger strikers are taking a stand is Israel. Taking a stand against Israeli Apartheid and genocide is a moral imperative but a bad career move. It is also bad for your bank balance.
The UK often regards itself as one of the most humane societies in the world. There was a time when Keir Starmer himself was a human rights lawyer. He even called for Israel to be kicked out of FIFA. David Lammy, oh dear. I thought he was a lawyer trained at Harvard.
When Steve Biko died in detention, the Labour Party in the UK was outraged. Labour party MPs used Early Day Motions to debate the evil of the South African apartheid regime, condemned the torture of Steve Biko, and demanded consequences for his murder in detention. In apartheid South Africa, more than 40 people died in detention. Labour Party members were active in the Anti-Apartheid Movement in the UK. Trafalgar Square was a constant site for demonstrations opposite the South African High Commission across the road. In the black anti-racism struggles in the UK, Sivanandan used to say that what the Tories debate the Labour Party legislates.
I pray that the hunger strikers do not die in prison. However, I come from a political tradition that says, “If you see something that is wrong, then change it with your hands.” The hunger strikers tried to do exactly that when they disrupted the operations of the arms manufacturer.
The tradition also says that if you cannot do that, then speak out against the wrong. The hunger strikers and the demonstrators in defence of Palestine Action have done exactly that. Hundreds have been arrested for opposing this sordid proscription. The tradition consists of saying that if you cannot even do that, then at least pray in your heart. Many are doing this. Thought crimes legislation is also in the making to target even that.
This issue is not even about the dire situation of the hunger strikers. This government is complicit with the Israeli apartheid and genocidal regime that is starving Palestinians to death in Gaza. I hope the hunger strikers do not die. However unlikely it may seem, perhaps the prison officials, Lammy, Starmer and the medical professionals will find a moral compass that works.
If the activists were to die in prison, as an activist I know that if you cannot defeat your enemy, then shame him. Their blood will be on Starmer, Lammy, the prison wardens, the medical professionals and the MPs who kept their heads down and would not even start a conversation – not just about the hunger strikers but about Israel and its war crimes and crimes against humanity. The hunger strikers are a symbol of our spiritual and moral collapse.
In post-Apartheid South Africa, those responsible for the deaths of detainees in Apartheid prisons are now being pursued, half a century or more later. Those of us who are trying to intervene should also build the record. We must seek justice for the hunger strikers before the guilty die. Starmer, Lammy, Mahmood, the prison wardens and the medical professionals we must compile the dossiers and pursue justice as we try to urgently build the movement to intervene on behalf of the hunger strikers.
Featured image via the Canary
By Skwawkbox
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