Not to make light of her situation but in regards to things like hunger strikes or non-resistance, I often think of the Kwame Ture quote, “In order for nonviolence to work, your opponent must have a conscience. The United States has none.” Replace US with any western entity
The point isnt to move the conscience of the machine, it is to move the people who embody the parts of the machine, to change the machine. That includes regular people who sympathize but haven’t been moved to action. If there are 1000 people who were politically inactive, that are moved to start organizing, participating and resisting, and it influences orders more on their development, then it matters.
Being imprisoned changes the meaning of nonviolence. Being imprisoned in GB further changes the way that individuals can engage in decolonizing struggles in Palestine. Idk what violent action you expect prisoners to take that will be more effective than this. Hunger strikes are terrifying to power.
Prison hunger strike has garnered international attention. Greta just got arrested for supporting them which made the news internationally. The message that they would be rather suffer and die than live in a world this ontologically evil is pretty fucking powerful. Courage and conviction are contagious.
The US is evil, but it is made up of people, and if people can change then the US can change. Its a tall order but new people are activating all the time. The people who were new back in 2020 are our leaders now, the people who are joining the struggle today will be the leaders of tomorrow. Even if defensive decolonizing struggle is necessary, there is no real basis for it, and no tangible path to victory. The basis is people. Urging action that has no real basis, or categorically defining social relations (such as the USA,) is idealist.
A lot of activists and leftists have their heart in the right place but are a little naive about the forces they’re dealing with.
It’s not naive, it’s a personality trait. All the great anti-colonial leaders had it, from Castro to Mandela. That’s why so many of them were political prisoners.
The more persecuted they are, the more convinced they are of their righteousness and their own ideology. If you’re not willing to go to the end of your own conviction, then you will sell out eventually. That’s where most of us mortals are at. These people are built different.
A great amount of blood must be shed to rid the west of our deep moral rot
The people who have the power to change the problem are not necessarily the targets of a given action.
What can men do against such reckless hate?
They did it to Bobby Sands so of course they’ll do it again, for PA
Yeah all of this stinks of the actions taken against the IRA in prisons and I loathe all of it.
Is she alone in this?
what is the likely outcome beyond her death and the deprivation of one more person who wants a better world for Palestinians? Her death can and likely will be swept under the Zionist rug.
Teuta is among eight Palestine Action prisoners who have been on hunger strike. They are all on remand, awaiting trial for offences relating to alleged break-ins or criminal damage, with some having been in custody for over 12 months. They all deny the charges.
The hunger strikers demand an end to the UK’s hosting of weapons factories supplying arms to Israel, the de-proscription of Palestine Action, an end to mistreatment of prisoners in custody, and immediate bail.
Read more:
Five Palestine Action hunger strikers taken to hospital
Palestine Action can challenge terror ban after court verdictThank you. I appreciate the reply
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I read stories like this and I think about how my ass is not doing anything.
Me too. But to be clear, she is going to die in resistance and it won’t change anything apart from taking a person who cares out of this world.
It changes us. We watch people like her and Bushnell become martyrs, and it makes us confront ourselves. That’s not nothing.
Unfortunately, without an organized mass movement that can turn martyrdom into propaganda, it’s just as likely to change us into depressed fatalists. You said it: we watch her die and the genocide continues, so the lesson people might take is “nothing matters”.
I don’t think of them as martyrs so much as beacons. It sounds corny but the concept of corny is also a bourgeois Jedi mind trick to keep people cynical. In this absurd, post-truth, post-sincerity world there are still humans of pure conviction. Even if we wouldn’t go down the same path ourselves we can learn from their refusal to bend
Is there a difference?
My worry is that our deaths can be twisted from being an inspiring beacon to being an example of hopeless futility. They died, the genocide continues, and so people will conclude that their deaths didn’t matter. That their deaths were a waste because they seemingly didn’t “accomplish” anything. “See? They died for nothing. You shouldn’t even try.”
A flaw of propaganda of the deed is that deeds don’t actually speak for themselves. Without an organized propaganda effort it’s just more bad news.
I don’t disagree with that.
I guess I was more talking about deciding how I would personally respond, which is something that I can control, and which affects how people around me respond. Grassroots sentiment can’t always be easily stifled by the machine.
the concept of corny is also a bourgeois Jedi mind trick to keep people cynical
Hoxha
Praise be, I hope they will live.
Pretty good last name for a leftist
