[continued from previous message] 
  
 struggle for liberation into a criminal enterprise, your government 
 rescinded political status for the Irish political prisoners. 
  
 Margaret Thatcher, your prime minister during that time, liked to 
 posture a lot with tough-guy tautologies like "crime is crime is 
 crime." Engulfed in privilege and surrounded by bodyguards, Thatcher 
 never put herself in harm's way for her principles, did she? Heaven 
 forbid! Nor have you or Tony Blair, our own George II or Dick Cheney. 
 It's so much more comfortable to send other folks and their children 
 off to war and occupation isn't it? 
  
 In 1981, a courageous young man stood up and said That's Enough 
 and--Gandhi-like-- began a hunger strike for the principle of political 
 status. His words were bold. "They have nothing in their imperial 
 arsenal that can break the spirit of one Irishman who doesn't want to 
 be broken," said Bobby Sands. 
  
 For "Irishmen," insert any nationality struggling against oppression. 
 At that point and forever, Bobby Sands represents the political 
 prisoners of the world: Nelson Mandela, Mumia Abu Jamal, Leonard 
 Peltier, Lori Berenson, Gerard Jean Juste. And all those unknown 
 prisoners on a list which is growing like a cancer in a socio/political 
 milieu where imperial oppression, not justice, is the order of the day. 
  
 After sixty-six days, while the world watched in horror and pleaded 
 with your government to negotiate, Bobby Sands passed into history. And 
 then-one by one over the following three months--nine more young men in 
 the hunger strike died hideous deaths: Francis Hughes, Raymond 
 McCreesh, Patsy O'Hara, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, 
 Kieran Doherty, Thomas McElwee, and Michael Devine. 
  
 Margaret Thatcher has written in her memoirs that her meetings with you 
 were "quietly businesslike and Her Majesty brings to bear a formidable 
 grasp of current issues and breadth of experience." 
  
 What did you and Thatcher say to each other when you talked about the 
 hunger strikers? Were your conversations "quietly businesslike" while 
 these young men died the horrible death of starvation? Did the 
 telephone ring to inform you that another one had died? Or was it 
 really not that important in your conversations? 
  
 Do you or Tony Blair ever chat with George Bush or Dick Cheney about 
 Abu Graib and Guantanamo, two of the latest products of the 
 Anglo-American empire? I wonder if George and Dick are also "quietly 
 businesslike" in their discussions of things like waterboarding. 
  
 Do any of you hear the screams of the tortured in your sleep? 
  
  
 [Don Santina is a cultural historian who received a 2005 Superior 
 Scribing award for his Counterpunch article "Reparations for the 
 Blues." He can be reached at lindey89@aol.com.] 
  
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