A century of hunger strikes: the sacrifice of the Scots suffragette who inspired Gandhi and the IRA

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A century of hunger strikes: the sacrifice of the Scots suffragette who inspired Gandhi and the IRA

http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2518264.0.a...

Sunday Herald - Glasgow, Scotland, UK

The centenary of William Wallace-inspired heroine who changed protest forever

By Jasper Hamill

IT IS the political weapon that has haunted the British and taunted oppressors across the world - and it was pioneered by a female artist from Ayrshire who claimed to be descended from William Wallace.

Today is the 100th anniversary of the first political hunger strike by Marion Wallace Dunlop, marking the day a Scottish suffragette decided to starve herself in Holloway Prison as women fought for the right to vote.

Her example inspired many other protests throughout the twentieth century, when self-induced starvation became a vital weapon of last resort used by disempowered prisoners to campaign against their captors.

The suffragette movement quickly took up Dunlop's tactic, prompting prison bosses to introduce force-feeding to keep the women alive.

Gandhi later went on hunger strike three times, starting in 1922, when he was imprisoned for his part in efforts to abolish British rule in India. Political prisoners in Ireland also adopted her tactic, first using it in 1917, then most famously in Ulster in the 1980s, when the Maze prison protests resulted in the death of Bobby Sands and nine others.

Today, some of the men imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay have been on hunger strike for more than 1000 days, kept alive by a force-feeding technique that is deliberately designed to be so painful that human rights activists claim it is tantamount to torture.

Dunlop was imprisoned for a minor act of graffiti in the House of Commons. While in prison, she deliberately disobeyed movement leader Emily Pankhurst to launch her hunger strike, flummoxing the authorities who were forced to free her after 91 hours to avoid turning her into a martyr.

She was part of an Ayrshire family, the Dunlops of Dunlop, which claimed to be descended from William Wallace.

Elspeth King, a Scottish historian and director of the Smith Art Gallery and Museum, described Dunlop as "an inspirational woman".

She said: "Dunlop started the hungerstrike and it was used by people ranging from Gandhi to the Irish, as a way of overcoming the prison system. It came about as she was sitting in her cell thinking: what would William Wallace do? Prison staff didn't know how to deal with someone who wouldn't eat.

"She used the hunger strike to fight in the spirit of William Wallace for women's suffrage."

Mass hunger striking by the suffragettes resulted in the passing, in 1913, of the Prisoner's Temporary Discharge of Ill Health Act, known as the "Cat and Mouse Act", that allowed hunger strikers to be discharged and then re-imprisoned when they had recovered.

After the suffragettes, Gandhi starved himself in a British prison. He knew that Westminster would not risk his death in their custody, so put his own life at risk rather than promote violent struggle.

Irish republicans then used the same methods. In 1917, Thomas Ashe, a founding member of the Irish Volunteers died in Mountjoy Prison after undergoing force-feeding. The Lord Mayor of Cork, Terence MacSwiney, died in 1920 while on hunger strike in Brixton prison.

But the most famous hunger strikes came in 1980, when Irish republicans embarked on a protest against the British government's refusal to recognise them as political prisoners. Although the first strike was resolved after 53 days the second resulted in the death of 10 prisoners, including Bobby Sands, who was elected to Parliament during the strike. Around 100,000 people attended his funeral.

Raymond McCartney, 54, from Derry City, took part in the first hunger strike. He said: "It was part of a political struggle in Ireland and centred around the defence of the integrity of that struggle. Unfortunately, to do that, 10 men had to sacrifice their lives.

"When I went on hunger strike in 1980, it was very much a possibility that I could have died. I could never say it was an easy thing to do. I had to steel myself to do it, so if there was any battle with the continuing urging of your body to eat, then your mind would remind you of the reason why you weren't eating and offset the hunger."

Tibetans protesting against Chinese occupation, Cuban dissidents and, more recently, Muslim prisoners in Belmarsh campaigning against non-Islamic practices such as strip-searching have also used hunger strikes.

Most famously, the men in Guantanamo Bay have been on strike since August 11 2006, kept alive by a brutal technique the Americans call intensified assisted feeding'.

Clive Stafford Smith, human rights lawyer, has clients in Guantanamo. He said: "According to America, the woman Dunlop you mentioned would be regarded as a member of al-Qaeda. The Americans take the position that if you go on hunger strike, it's prima facie evidence you're a terrorist with al-Qaeda."

He has witnessed the aftermath of the "sickening" technique of force-feeding first hand. Stafford Smith continued: "Many of my clients went on hunger strike at one time or other because they have no alternative. This is the tactic of those with very little power."

 

Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218.  Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net

 

"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs