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Sunday, 7 May 2023
Khader Adnan and Bobby Sands: Hunger-Strikers
Obviously, the Ukraine war is continuing. A war that was entirely preventable. A war that did not need to happen. Starting with the overthrow of the democratically elected Ukrainian government by far-right political forces openly supported by the United States in 2014 and the resultant outbreak of a civil war in eastern Ukraine, there have been multiple opportunities for peace that were systematically sabotaged. The US pressured Ukraine not to abide by the 2015 and 2016 Minsk Accords that were supposed to end the conflict. The US categorically refused to negotiate with Russia in the critical months before the conflict escalated in February 2022. And the efforts of the Russians and Ukrainians to negotiate a peaceful end to hostilities in March 2022 in Istanbul were likewise undermined and ultimately scuppered by Western governments eager to keep the war going. What we see in Ukraine is an American Empire using the bodies of the Ukrainian people as a meat shield against a geo-political adversary. It’s a classic imperialist proxy war and Washington frankly doesn’t care if hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians have to die for it to secure its strategic objectives in Eastern Europe.
But I’ve talked about that at length on this show last year and there’s something else that demands attention tonight: a brave man’s sacrifice for his people living under one of the world’s most brutal occupation regimes. Khader Adnan was 45 years old when he died on May 2nd 2023 after 85 days on hunger-strike in an Israeli prison. Like so many Palestinians placed under administrative detention by the Israeli authorities, he was never charged with a crime. Like Bobby Sands, the Irish hunger-striker who gave his life on May 5th 1981 after 66 days, Khader Adnan fought his oppressors to the end.
This is what Bethlehem-based journalist Yumna Patel of Mondoweiss had to say about Adnan’s case. It provides an excellent overview.
You’re listening to Back in the USSR on 93.3 FM CFRU. That reading was taken from the diary of Bobby Sands for March 1st 1981, the day he began his hunger-strike against the brutal prison regime of the British occupation authorities in Northern Ireland. He kept that diary going for 17 of his 66 days on hunger-strike. I read from it today as a statement of solidarity with Khader Adnan, the recently fallen Palestinian hunger-striker, and all others who continue to fight for the freedom of Palestine and the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people, like the Irish people, have resisted occupation and colonization in every conceivable way. They discovered, like the Irish, that peaceful protest won’t stop the occupiers from shooting you down in the streets or arbitrarily detaining you for years on end without charges. Like Yumna Patel said, at least 105 Palestinians have been killed so far this year, many of them civilians.
I’m recording this on May 7, the anniversary of the final assault by the Vietnamese army against the colonial French forces at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu on May 7 1954. This crushing defeat forced the French to abandon Vietnam and their other Asian colonies. Last month there was the anniversary of the fall of Saigon in 1975 when the American military was at last kicked out of Vietnam after their bloody drawn-out efforts to dominate the country. No occupation can be maintained indefinitely. The same is true for Palestine. Palestinian political forces are increasingly united against the Israeli occupation and resistance is growing both in scale and effectiveness. Just like the resistance against Apartheid South Africa, resistance against Apartheid Israel takes many forms, but all of it combined brings the colonial regime closer to collapse.
To emphasize this point further, in a way that only poetry can, I’d like to play one of Bobby Sand’s most beloved pieces: The Rhythm of Time.
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