Starving for Control

Nomboniso Gasa

Nomboniso Gasa, Chair of the Commission for Gender Equality in South Africa, is trying to save hungry people in Zimbabwe by starving herself. Her 21 day water only hunger strike began on February 11^th. She recorded a video during her first day on the strike explaining that she was, “in solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe who are not able to make a choice about whether to eat or not. That choice is made for them because there is no food, there are no provisions.” She goes on to stress her personal concern with the plight of women in situations such as these. As Gasa emphasizes here, the motivation behind her choice not to eat is the lack of choices that others have. Being able to make a choice is evidence of having some kind of control. Gasa has made the decision to abstain from food in order to feel in control in a space where there is little control. She is also able to protest through her hunger strike the systems in place in Zimbabwe that have been taking control and choice away from the people. Most Zimbabweans cannot decide whether to eat or not. Thus, seizing control over one’s body and diet, as Gasa has done, becomes an exhibition of a far larger social and political power struggle.

Employing self-starvation in order to gain control over one’s body and social position is not a new phenomenon. Starvation is a tool of personal and political power that is engaged in voluntarily in a variety of contexts. Among these, hunger striking is one of the more obvious and influential, especially when practiced in prison where all forms of personal control have dissipated. Another form of control-oriented starvation that is particularly relevant considering Gasa’s focus on women is anorexia. Both anorexia and hunger striking are practiced publicly and privately across the globe as a way to gain control over and as a protest against the circumstances and restrictions that are placed on an individual’s body.

Anorexia is rarely analyzed in comparison to hunger striking. On the surface, these two bodily statements seem unrelated. But a brief look at the testimonies of various fasts reveals common ground between these acts: control. As Bernarr Macfadden stated at the turn of the century, when fasting had become very popular, it was, “a stunning weapon of mastery, an instrument with which to prove one’s superiority over menacing perils ranging from microbes to men.” It is this “weapon of mastery” that lends credence to Nomboniso Gasa’s stand against starvation. Similarly, Brian Keenan, an Irishman taken hostage in Beirut in 1986 confirms the power of starvation during his hunger strike in prison. He says, “I was confident, I was strong-willed and almost ecstatic as I pushed each meal from me…I was in control and control could not be taken from me.” Choosing to starve becomes an instrument of empowerment because it is a choice. This theme resounds in the testimonies of anorexics as well. Aimee Liu is quoted in Susan Bordo’s Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body, saying, “the sense of accomplishment exhilarates me, spurs me to continue on and on. It provides a sense of purpose and shapes my life with distractions from insecurity.” Despite the context, making the choice to refuse food creates a sense of power and control that many find lacking in their social and political lives.

Tomorrow, March 4^th, Nomboniso Gasa will end her 21 day fast. Assuredly, she has gained a personal feeling of control and accomplishment through her choice to go hungry. She has shown mastery over her own body and given shape to her life amidst a culture of insecurities. But the question remains, have her actions helped others acquire control over their lives? Will going hungry become a choice for the people of Zimbabwe? Or will they continue to remain at the mercy of others?

(Photo Credit: IPS News / Save Zimbabwe Now!)

What are the ages of woman? In the U.S. policing prison state, that’s an easy question with a simple answer. One. 92, 15, and anywhere in between, it’s all the same.

On November 21, 2006, three police officers burst into the home of 92 year old grandmother, of 92 year old Black woman, Kathryn Johnston. Breaking the locks and door took the officers a couple minutes, and so Ms. Johnston had time to get her revolver and shoot. She shot once. She hit the porch roof and nothing else. The officers fired 39 shots. They didn’t miss. They then “handcuffed the mortally wounded woman and searched the house. . . .There were no drugs. There were no cameras that the officers had claimed was the reason for the no-knock warrant. Just Johnston, handcuffed and bleeding on her living room floor.” Three men with guns and battering rams shackled a 92 year old woman whom they had already transported to the just-about-far side of death’s door.

The raid was bogus, the cover up was as botched as the break in (and the prosecution), and the three officers were sentenced last week.

For many, this story is one of corruption. For some, it’s the corruption of over reliance on “paid or otherwise compensated snitches” also known as confidential informants. For others, Johnston’s killing, two days before Thanksgiving, “laid bare the corruption of an out-of-control narcotics squad that lied to get search warrants and planted drugs on suspects.” U.S. District Judge Julie Carnes suggested that “Atlanta Police Department performance quotas influenced the officers’ behavior”. One of the officers “said his moral compass failed when he began to think “drug dealers were no longer human. `I saw myself above them,’ he said”. Department policy or workers’ mentality? Either way, the story wants us to believe the culture of the thin blue line has been corrupted. In Atlanta, many, especially in the African American communities, suspected that corruption in the police force was rampant. The federal investigators did as well. After what is called a full investigation, it has been determined that the officers who killed Kathryn Johnston were `a rogue unit’, and that corruption is not rampant.

If Kathryn Johnston’s murder was not racially motivated, because the three were two White and one Black officer and because the Chief of Police is Black, if her murder is not the result of mass corruption, then how is one to understand the sense of this `senseless killing”? Let’s stop making senseless, if only for an instant.

The three were sentenced Tuesday, February 24. Three days later, at another corner of the nation, in Seattle, “a video showing a King County Sheriff’s deputy pummeling a 15-year-old girl in a holding cell was released Friday over the strenuous objections of the officer’s attorney.” Two fifteen year old girls were picked up in a reportedly stolen car, in fact not stolen but owned by the parents of one of the girls. In a holding cell, perhaps something happened perhaps not. Regardless, as you can see in the video, at one point one officer “ lunged through the door and kicked her, striking either her stomach or upper thigh area, court documents say. He pushed her against a corner wall before flinging her to the floor by her hair. He then squatted down on her and made “two overhead strikes,” although it’s unclear where the blows landed.” There were two officers in the holding cell: “The second officer shown in the video was a trainee at the time and is not under investigation.” This holding cell was a classroom for the trainee. This is `education’, and it’s all about big boys and little girls. Today’s lesson, how to treat the female juvenile offender. First, throw her to the ground. Then, beat her. Repeat if it feels good, because Justice, swift and armed, hair yanking and female body flinging, Justice squatting, feels good.

Finally, Sunday, March 1, the following story, in New York, began to emerge: “The NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau is investigating a claim that the patrolman raped an intoxicated business executive after the cop and his partner responded to a cabdriver’s 911 plea for help with his drunken passenger, the sources said.” The police officer and a companion were not only caught on surveillance tapes returning to the woman’s apartment, but also are clearly trying to hide, once they see the camera. I don’t know how old a “business executive” is, but I think it’s safe to say, older than 15 and younger than 92.

In the reports of the New York and the Seattle police events, police involvement of some sort with drugs and alcohol is suggested. That may very well be the case, but if we focus on the women, something else emerges. Repeatedly the rule of law is the force of law is the law of violence is the rule of violence, and an important element binds that wrangled mangled syntax: women. Black women, White women, old women, young women, women of indeterminate age, low income women, affluent women, women of indeterminate income. Women thrown to the floor or to the bed, dead, alive, unconscious, seen by the law as not human. In that context, you know what’s lower than a drug dealer? Women … literally.

Whether or not the two officers in New York or the one in Seattle are `found guilty’, the point is that the story of their violence in the service of the law, though shocking, is not surprising. What is the value of a woman’s life in the United States policing prison state? In Atlanta, along with the jail time served, “each defendant was also sentenced to serve 3 years on supervised release following his prison term, and collectively to pay $8,180 in restitution for the costs of Ms. Johnston’s funeral and burial.” $8,180. That’s the accounting of the value of a woman’s life in the marketplace of the rule of law.

(Photo Credit: Eidard.com)

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