I Am a Political Prisoner, Not a Hero
Editor’s note: Palestine Action activist Francesca Nadin, 39, has been imprisoned on remand awaiting trial since 29 June.
She was arrested and charged with “conspiracy to commit criminal damage” against two Leeds banks, Barclays and JP Morgan. Both banks invest in Israel’s biggest weapons producer, Elbit Systems.
This is Francesca’s second letter from inside a British jail, exclusively published by The Electronic Intifada.
In the Western world, we are in the midst of a linguistic battle which affects all of us and our freedom of speech. To control how we speak is to wield power. That is why it is so important to carefully consider how we define ourselves.
I define myself as a political prisoner, a contentious term for which there is no standard legal definition – least of all in the UK, for the obvious reason that it is not in the government’s interest to make one.
There are currently 21 Palestine Action activists jailed in Britain. We are all political prisoners, not only because our actions are politically motivated, but also because we are victims of state repression.
Our incarceration is the result of the political motives of the authorities and is clearly disproportionate. Many Palestine Action trials that have already taken place were politically biased, with legitimate legal defenses of our motivations denied to us in court.
To define myself as a political prisoner is a direct challenge to the state’s narrative of us as dangerous criminals, thus defying the legitimacy of their repression. At the same time, this definition legitimizes our cause and method of direct action.
Orchestrated campaign
We take action to prevent war crimes in Palestine and to uphold international law, something the British government is unwilling to do.
They cannot tolerate the fact that we lay bare their lies and hypocrisy, so they persecute us and in the act once again violate international law – this time against their own citizens. We are denied the right to a fair trial, freedom of expression, freedom from police harassment and unfair imprisonment.
They manipulate the machinery of justice, smearing and intimidating us by using every tool they have available.
Most worrying of all is the use of anti-terror legislation, which gives them carte blanche to disregard all the legal rights usually afforded to prisoners.
The idea that we are terrorists is laughable. We have never before seen such a flagrant misuse of these laws against protesters.
This is an orchestrated campaign spearheaded by John Woodcock – the disgraced former Labour MP also now known as “Lord Walney.” Woodcock is the government’s supposedly independent advisor on political violence and disruption.
Earlier this year, he published a report recommending that Palestine Action be categorized as a proscribed organization – in other words banned. Since then, the number of Palestine Action prisoners has increased dramatically.
Israel lobbyists
Yet despite his job title, Woodcock is not independent. He is on the payroll of various lobbying groups that represent arms manufacturers, making a farce of any pretense of impartiality. He protects his clients’ interests by repressing us, all the while lining his own pockets.
Here from my prison cell, I have a unique perspective. I am able to see and feel all the cogs of the war machine turning in unison – from the banks that invest in it, the arms companies that profit from it, the government that sanctions it, to the police, prisons and courts that pursue those who oppose it.
For this reason, I also see how essential an international perspective is, both to understand how we have arrived at this critical juncture, and how we can resist.
Western colonialism and capitalism gave rise to the military industrial complex that dominates not just the Middle East, but the entire world. We continue to see the results of British interference in Palestine which, since the British Mandate and the Balfour Declaration, has sown division, death and destruction on its soil.
The UK is not merely complicit – it is instrumental in instigating and perpetuating this genocide, despite what it says to the contrary.
Human rights are a bitter joke to the British government where, ironically, a human rights lawyer sits as prime minister. They disregard international law both here and anywhere else where the people stand in the way of their dominance.
Cracks in the wall
However, it is true that our rights will never be trampled upon in the same way that they are in Palestine – as a British citizen, I am hugely privileged, even in prison. I am protected and given the spoils of colonialism to live off, and I am not in danger of losing my life here.
We must continue to recognize our privilege and take action, with internationalism as our guiding principle.
It is the only response that makes sense in the face of a global system of repression that murders children in Palestine and imprisons us here. We fight to awaken our society’s humanity and to keep our own alive, standing in solidarity to say: not in our name.
As imprisoned Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd El-Fattah said, what we can do to help is to fix our own democracy. After all, a loss of rights in a colonialist country is used as an excuse for even worse violations in colonized countries.
We can see this playing out before our very eyes. And it may well be that our struggle means more to us than it does to the Palestinians, but that makes it no less valid. In the end, all that is asked of us is to fight for what is right.
We are the crack in the wall of the system, and we will continue to hammer away with whatever tools we have to hand. Slowly but surely, that crack gets a little wider, and we see the possibility of the wall collapsing.
To be a political prisoner is both a blessing and a curse. In prison, I am forced into inaction, and it takes all my strength just to resist the apathy that prison envelops me in.
I am not a hero as some people tell me; if anything, my imprisonment is a symbol. It represents the state of our democracy, but also the strength of our movement, and the depth of our humanity.
https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=13975
