Why is it part of the state’s duty of care to force feed hunger strikers? Why should they not be allowed to starve themselves to death if they are not mentally ill?
About 2,000 Palestinian prisoners have ended a hunger strike after the Israeli government gave in to many of their demands. But why did it? Why didn’t it just keep giving them food, video them refusing it and let them die?
Because it feared the backlash in the wider Arab world, who of course would blame the Israelis and not the Palestinians who refused to eat. But was this the best strategy? If you’re going to give in, do so because the requests are reasonable, in which case you should do it at the start, not after eleven weeks of a hunger strike. Now the lesson is that self torture works.
It shouldn’t. Passive aggressive, self harming behaviour is to me the dumbest form of protest. I’d just let them do it, unless they were mentally ill, which these people aren’t.
Hunger strikes are hardly a new tactic. Members of the Baader Meinhof Gang tried it in 1974 to protest against their prison conditions. They were force fed and Holger Meins died. Bobby Sands and 9 other IRA prisoners died on a hunger strike in 1981. In fact, Irish Republican prisoners had been staging hunger strikes since 1917.
There’s a common theme here: it’s usually prisoners who stage hunger strikes.
I’m not going to discuss here the legality or morality of the detentions, because each prisoner’s case is different. I’m only interested in how people should react to the obvious emotional blackmail of someone trying to starve themselves to death in front of you.
“See what you’ve driven me to? Oppressor! You’ve murdered me!”
No they haven’t. If the food was there and was edible, you killed yourself. It’s all very well to say that you’re martyring yourself for future “victims”, but if you’re allowed to die by your own actions, it’s only an act of faith that your suicide will be meaningful.
In prison, the state has a duty of care to see that prisoners are given adequate shelter, bedding, sustenance, exercise, medical care, a fair and independent hearing of legitimate grievances, rehabilitation opportunities and are not subjected to violence from other prisoners, especially rape, dishonest treatment, or violence from prison staff, other than in legitimate self defence.
If adequate meals are provided and refused, by a prisoner judged by a qualified professional to be of sound mind, that’s where the duty of care ends. If you’re sane and refuse to eat, smear the walls of your cell with your own shit or sleep naked until you die of cold, that’s your own fault. It is not the state’s duty to save you from yourself.
In cases where the hunger strikers are not incarcerated: don’t eat. That’s your right. It’s not going to change my opinion. In fact, I’ll think you’re an idiot and good riddance.
Principles of Liberalism require open, independent bodies, such as the Ombudsman to assist citizens in resolving legitimate grievances against government or private institutions. They do not imply the success of self harm in dispute resolution, nor that people who refuse to give in to such tactics cannot be Liberals.
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