Text

E-book A History of Force Feeding : Hunger Strikes, Prisons and Medical Ethics, 1909-1974

---

Penilaian

---

n March 2013, a group of detainees at Guantánamo Bay Detention Camp, Cuba, went on hunger strike. At the height of their protest, 106 individuals were refusing to eat. For detainees incarcerated for over a decade without charge or trial, food refusal offered a potent way to rebel. Having been stripped of their capacity for political communication and placed in an institution that severely restricted personal freedom, the simple act of not eating allowed detainees to reassert control over their bodies. It granted autonomy and self-determination, posing a challenge to Guantánamo’s disciplinary ethos. These hunger strikes were also highly political. By rejecting food, detainees openly defi ed the authority of the American government which had incarcerated them. They used their bod-ies as weapons, the last remaining resource available for remonstrating against adverse institutional conditions. 1 In turn, the newsworthy nature of these protests drew international attention to allegations of institutional torture and violence seemingly supported by the Obama administration. The protestors knew that hunger strikes attract worldwide interest from journalists, human rights activists, politicians, ethicists, and doctors. They had posed a formidable moral question: Is it acceptable to allow a prisoner to starve to death? Corpses present problems. A dead hunger striker can offer evidence of deplorable prison conditions. A death also goes some way towards validat-ing dissident political perspectives. These, after all, had been worth dying for. Surely they must have some value? In the event of a death, less sympathetic observers always assert that hunger striking amounts to suicide and that the corpse was once a ‘terrorist’ intent on endangering the public with mindless violence. Why, they ask, should anyone care about a dead ‘terror-ist’? Yet, in politically charged circumstances, a lifeless hunger striker can swiftly transform into a martyr, a victim of political cruelty whose despera-tion led him/her to perform the unthinkable act of mutilating one’s own body, entirely eradicating it in a grotesque act of disfi gurement that (s)he could have halted at any time simply by eating. Throughout the twentieth century, the emaciated bodies of hunger strikers provided a powerful symbol of determined resistance to aggres-sive states, not least in Ireland. Hunger strikers who died there did so for a national or collective cause, not to selfi shly escape individual suffering or institutional misery. Their deaths were altruistic, selfl ess acts performed for the greater good of a national, religious, or political cause. 2 They became ‘good deaths’, not suicides. In turn, death by hunger strike reshaped pub-lic perceptions of victim and aggressor. Bobby Sands provides a compel-ling example. Allowed to starve in a Northern Irish prison in 1981, the image of his emaciated body still raises claims of political intransigence and cruel, unnecessary treatment at the hands of Margaret Thatcher. Now valorised as an emblem of Irish self-sacrifi ce, Sands metamorphosed from ‘terrorist’ to martyr while the British state adopted the role of violent oppressor. Alternative perspectives on Sands’ death exist, but this account predominates. 3 On a less ideological level, Sands’ death sparked rioting throughout Northern Ireland, aroused international concern about the treatment of republican prisoners, and altered the trajectory of Northern Irish politics throughout the 1980s. Meanings became attached to Sands’ withered body; his corpse became politically encoded. 4 Both his hunger strike and death provided a public spectacle.

---

Ketersediaan

Informasi Detail

Judul Seri

-

No. Panggil

943.9 MIL a

Penerbit

London : Springer Nature., 2016

Deskripsi Fisik

265 hlm

Bahasa

English

ISBN/ISSN

9783319311135

Klasifikasi

943.9

Tipe Isi

text

Tipe Media

computer

Tipe Pembawa

online resource

Edisi

-

Subjek

History of Modern Hungary

Info Detail Spesifik

-

Pernyataan Tanggungjawab

-

Versi lain/terkait

Lampiran Berkas

Komentar

---

Anda harus masuk sebelum memberikan komentar