Heba Muraisi is dying slowly. She has been on hunger strike for 72 days. To put that in perspective, Terrence McSweeney, a Republican, and Lord Mayor Of Cork, in 1920 finally died after a 74 day hunger strike.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_MacSwiney
Also on hunger strike is Kamran Ahmed, who has not eaten for 65 days. Also refusing food on alternate days, because he has type 1 diabetes, is Lewie Chiaramello.
It’s hard to know what to even type. And no, I’m not just being hyperbolic, I have literally been staring at the screen, for quite some time. Three people are dying in prison, and the British government won’t even entertain the idea of meeting even one of their demands, or even partially meeting one of their demands. Indeed, I’ve talked before about the callous response of MP Jake Richards and other MPs to Jeremy Corbyn’s request that he meet their legal representatives and families of those on hunger strike to discuss ways that the hunger strike could be ended:
Jake Richards says “No” to laughter from other MPs. Then Richards starts following the script, saying the word “review” and “procedures” over and over again. You know, sometimes I wonder is “review” or “procedures” the first word that any MP ever says. You know, maybe a year after being born, Jake Richards was learning to walk, getting more adventurous, and then, finally, the moment every parent hopes they can witness, he said his first word, and it was “procedures”!
But reactions like this, show that many members of the British government, are absolute monsters. They can’t even entertain the idea of granting the hunger strikers bail, not even quashing the charges against them, but even just granting them bail, in the hopes that the hunger strikes will end.
And no, I am not, for a second, saying that my hope is that the government will grant the prisoners bail or quash their charges, but keep the policy of proscribing Palestine action, or refuse to shut down Elbit systems, the Israel-based defense manufacturer with several UK factories. I am not saying that if the British government were to release the prisoners, but don’t bother with, you know, ending their complicity in the genocide in Gaza, that that would be any kind of victory.
What I’m talking about, is the utter cruelty of many British Members Of Parliament. Not even, “I can’t give in, but I’m sad that it’s come to this.” Not even, “I can’t give in, but even though I don’t agree with the hunger strikers, I respect that they have a level of courage in their convictions that I will never have.” No, not even that, not even that, it’s just, “I can’t give in, because I don’t give a shit that three brave young people who are on the point of death.”
I’m seriously wondering do these people just, not have mirrors in their house. I’m not sure how people who have slipped into such a level of depravity would be able to cope with seeing their own reflection.
Isn’t This All Very British?
The British government’s attitude of “We can’t be seen to be giving in” is so infamous that the Stiff Little Fingers wrote a song about it:
In this interview, Jake Burns of the Still Little Fingers talks about the incident that inspired the song (from 6:10 minutes in):
This song, and this interview, was where I first learned of the very British attitude of stiff-upper can’t be seen to be giving in. Even the American government was willing to negotiate for the release of hostages. And the Irish government, a much smaller government without the power and influence of Britain, was also willing to negotiate. Britain, not so much. Maybe they’re worried that if they show even the slightest ability to compromise, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will demand independence.
But yes, the “We can’t be seen to be giving in” attitude was also present during the Thatcher era. This was what Thatcher had to say about the 1981 IRA hunger strikers:
“Crime, is crime, is crime.” Now, if anyone’s asking, didn’t the IRA commit acts that weren’t justified regardless of their cause? Well, I have news for you. Thatcher was full of shit. Even in Ireland, a country that isn’t exactly pro-Thatcher, you’ll still hear from time to time, “Say what you like about her, Thatcher had principles!” No she didn’t! If her logic was “Crime, is crime, is crime,” why was she friends with Pinochet?
So no compromise with IRA prisoners, but for Pinochet, a guy with, a bit of a human rights violation record to put it mildly, she always stood by him, to the point where even famous no principle haver Tony Blair called her out on it. “Crime, is crime, is crime”, only when it’s convenient it seems!
So, through a combination of it seemingly being embedded in British political culture to never give in, and the fact that Britain always stands by Israel no matter what happens, unless we witness an absolute miracle, the British government is not going to given in on even a fraction of one of the demands of Heba Muraisi, Kamran Ahmed and Lewie Chiaramello. The only possible way that this protest can work, is if at least one of them dies.
Yeah, I’ve been staring at the screen, not knowing what to write again. The only way this protest can work, is if one of them dies. Sometimes there are situations like that in life, where, for example, somebody has fallen into a river, and a rescuer has to decide to sacrifice their own life in order to save the person. But situations like that where someone must decide to sacrifice their life, are a result of a horrific accident. This situation, where at least one of the hunger strikers must sacrifice their lives in order to make further progress towards the end of the genocide in Gaza, is entirely down to the fact that the British government has absolutely no moral compass.
I wake up every day hoping that the hunger strikers will have started eating again. I know that the British government is so rotten to the core that this is the only way, but I still don’t want them to die. They would have had decades ahead of them, if the British government cared even a little, even a fraction, for their health and well being.
But of course, is it any real surprise that they don’t care about three people, when they don’t care about the over 70,000 people who were killed in Gaza? I react with horror and disgust when I see Jake Richards and other MPs acting with callous contempt towards the hunger strikers, but really, none of this should be surprising. All it really means is that we now know that they don’t care about 70,003 people as opposed to 70,000.
What Happens Next?
Many people, and I know this because every day I visit a dystopian cesspit known as the internet, are very dismissive of the hunger strikers. They say that they must be secretly eating if they’ve lasted this long (even though even Heba Muraisi still hasn’t been on hunger strike as long as Terrence McSweeney, so there is precedent for lasting that long.) There are claims that all of the hunger strikers are fasting on alternate days. This is only true of Lewie Chiaramello, which is more than understandable since he has type 1 diabetes. And in any case, in any case, fasting on alternate days is more than the vast, vast, vast majority of us are willing to do, even those of us without serious medical conditions, so I don’t know where anyone gets off criticizing someone for being only willing to fast on alternate days. And there’s a bunch of unsubstantiated rumours flying around about the hunger strikers stopping for Christmas dinner. Again, like the fasting on alternate days thing, I don’t get it even if it was true, a Christmas dinner is ONE meal, it doesn’t make sense even if were true!
So basically, there’s a cynical attitude among many in the general public, that these three brave people are just playacting at protest, that either they will eat soon enough, or that they’ve been secretly eating all along.
All of that is going to implode as soon as one of them dies.
As long as they are alive, it can never be disproven that they aren’t secretly eating. Not something I believe for a second, but it can, technically speaking, never be disproven. That all changes in an instant as soon as one of these hunger strikers dies. Now, anyone who is either a hardcore Zionist, or even someone who is just a bit right wing, is still going to make up some excuse, “Oh, they were secretly eating all the time, but then they died as a result of an undiagnosed health complication.” It’s going to remind me a lot of when racists, I mean, people with, alternative views or something, tried to say George Floyd died of a health complication and it had nothing to do with Derek Chauvin crushing his windpipe.
One consequence of the public outcry is that, I believe Starmer’s government, if it’s not already over now, is going to be definitely over. Starmer’s the most unpopular British PM on record NOW, somehow less popular than the vacuous entity known as Liz Truss:
You need some next level unlikeability to be less popular than Truss! But really, I don’t much care. I don’t care if this is the final nail in the coffin of the Starmer regime. Sure it would be nice if he was replaced with someone better, but if he’s replaced by someone as bad or worse, than that’s nothing to celebrate.
What I want to know is, will the death of one of the hunger strikers result in, at the very least, the decriminalization of Palestine action, and, hopefully, Britain shutting down Elbit Systems, and, more hopefully again, the end of the genocide in Gaza?
For the first one, I think there’s a really good chance. Arresting all of those people who support Palestine action, including pensioners who never committed a crime in their life, has been a consistent source of embarrassment and shame for the British police. I think one hunger striker dying will be the nail in the coffin of the criminalization of Palestine Action, unless Britain has gone in a far more dystopian direction than even I realized.
The shutting down of Elbit Systems? Maybe. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if the British government figured out some way of still working with them in secret.
But the one we all hope for, the end of the genocide in Gaza. Will the death of one of the hunger strikers achieve that? Not be itself, it would have to be the catalyst for great change. Will it be? Sadly, I don’t know. Frankly, my worry, is that there is so much going on right now, with Trump’s invasion of Venezuela and threats to invade Greenland, with Grok, and its horrifying capability to producing non consensual sexual images, with the continuing attack on trans rights, and the horrific murder of Renee Good, that the death of one of the hunger strikers could become just the “latest thing” in a series of horrific events that the brain cannot process. To be clear, I’m not saying that the hunger strikers should be given priority in the public consciousness over these other injustices, but what I am saying is that I’m worried that people in general will be so fatigued, by the constant dystopian onslaught, that people will be too overwhelmed to deal with ANY of these injustices.
So, that’s my worry, that the death of one of the hunger strikers will be just a footnote in what’s already turning out to be an absolutely horrifying year. Indeed, the reason I haven’t covered Grok or the murder of Renee Good on this blog, is that, I admit to experiencing a kind of a psychological fatigue, and I admit that things are moving so fast, and that there’s so much happening, that I haven’t even have had a chance to formulate a response to these awful events. It could well be that for others, the death of one of the hunger strikers causes a similar feeling of mental fatigue and they just can’t process it.
I’m going to give you an answer where I try to temper both my optimism and my pessimism, not let myself be pulled in either direction too much, and try to give the best answer I can.
I think the death of of either Heba Muraisi, Kamran Ahmed or Lewie Chiaramello, will make a very important difference in the struggle for Palestine liberation, but sadly, not as quickly as anyone would like. I recently watched a video on the horrific Zong Massacre. Content Warning, this video is extremely upsetting:
In 1781, the crew of a slave ship murdered a large group of the people who they regarded as “property” by throwing them into the ocean to drown. It caused absolute outrage, and caused many to sympathize with the plight of enslaved Africans that didn’t before. The Zong Massacre was a pivotal moment in the struggle to end the slave trade. However, it’s not like slavery ended in 1781, or even that decade. For example, in Britain it was in 1833, and that was with compensation for the slave holders!:
Imagine that, after the horror of the Zong massacre, it took another half a decade to end slavery, and, no compensation for the victims, but instead, compensation for the perpetrators! It’d be like if the Allies liberated the concentration camps and then compensated the Nazis for not being able to continue with the Holocaust, it was absolutely sickening and disgraceful.
So, I think, sadly, unfortunately, horrifically, that’s what we could be looking at. The sacrifices of the hunger strikers, and the sacrifices of others in the Western world, and the pain, suffering, deaths of the people of Palestine, might well lead to an outcome that is, disappointing. Perhaps the genocide ends, Gaza is rebuilt, but Nehenyahu, and the Israeli government, and the Western governments who are complicit, get off scot free. I wish this ended with Nehenyahu being thrown in jail with the key very much thrown away, but it could be that the end of all of this, is an outcome that is, better than things were, but still disappointing.
A Cathedral Of Justice
There’s a quote, and, I’m sorry, I’m not going to source it because I know it’ll just lead to a rabbithole of it being miss-atributted to someone, and I just couldn’t be bothered with that, but the quote is “You build a cathedral, knowing you will never live to see its completion.” For example, the Cologne Cathedral literally took centuries to build:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cologne_Cathedral
What will the world be like after we’re all dead and gone. Say 500 years from now. 1000 years from now? Perhaps I’m guilty of stubborn optimism in the face of reality, but I still haven’t lost hope that the future of humanity can be a beautiful utopia, where all racism, misogyny, homophobia and ableism is put away for ever, where there is no war, no genocide, and where everybody has enough to eat. Where no child is born into a world where they have to fear being shot. Where no parent cries over the death of their children, killed in a completely unjustifiable bombing attack. Where humans, can just get on with the business of just living, and not worry about being hated for their skin colour, or their sexuality, and don’t have to worry about being enslaved or murdered by some tyrant. Where we see animals as our fellow citizens on this planet, and not just objects for us to exploit or kill. If it’s possible, we will die before it’s here. But let’s let such a world be our cathedral. Let’s place the first brick, even knowing that we will have disappeared from this Earth long before the completion of the spire.
Ponderings Of An Autist 