Is a hunger strike really productive?

[RedRev]

I just want to know, because it seems pretty useless to me. Of course I could be wrong, and if I am please make it known. And if it is worth something, in what cases?

[Arlekino]

Simple answer NO

[Gawd]

If your in a situation where you would rather starve yourself than live with the conditions; and i am not talking theoretically either. Your body has to want to kill itself. Then yeah it would work, but I think it's the suicide that would work, not the message; nobody would give a fuck unless you were white, upper class and held hostage by some communists.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

It depends greatly on the situation. The hunger strikes in California in 2011 and last year certainly drew a significant amount of public attention to prisons in general, and solitary confinement in particular.
The RAF's various hunger strikes, in some instance, were significant in mobilizing support campaigns.

I think it needs to be understood on a case by case (and even day by day) basis. I suggest doing a bit of googling around my examples though. The real history is probably more useful than any generalizations.

[Danielle Ni Dhighe]

The IRA/INLA hunger strikers got most of their demands met, which probably wouldn't have happened without the hunger strike, and increased recruits and a political base (especially for Sinn Fein).

[mindsword]

in a political protest with media and demonstrations, yes.
in a a revolutionary war, no. i dont think the enemy soldiers / fascist class are gna go, "wait a minute, shouldnt we check if they are fasting first, before we kill them? I mean, maybe we should give away our blood sacrificed power to them: They look awfully hungry."

In fact theyd prolly take the opportunity to kill us faster, simply because were too starved to fight back.

[Slavic]

in a political protest with media and demonstrations, yes.
in a a revolutionary war, no. i dont think the enemy soldiers / fascist class are gna go, "wait a minute, shouldnt we check if they are fasting first, before we kill them? I mean, maybe we should give away our blood sacrificed power to them: They look awfully hungry."

In fact theyd prolly take the opportunity to kill us faster, simply because were too starved to fight back.

I don't think anyone is talking about a hunger strike within the context of war.

As others have stated hunger strike tend to work for single issues, most of which seem to be prisoner living conditions. I think these strikes tend to be effective in prisons because it is an environment where you can not freely obtain your meals. Your eating is the responsibility of the prison as opposed to yourself. Not eating shifts all the responsibility of starvation and death onto the prison. Not many states can endure the bad publicity of allowing masses starve to death that they are responsible for.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Someone on the outside has to give a shit that it's happening first. The guys in gitmo have been on a hunger stike for about a year now, maybe longer, but since the majority of people in the us probably don't even consider them to be humans, it hasn't accomplished anything. Yeah you can shift responsibility to the prison administration but that doesn't matter if no one is going to hold it against them. The successful attempts listed in this thread have all had some kind of mass base behind them in the country where they were being held, thats what makes a hunger strike successful.

On the other hand, even if it doesn't get your demands met, the chance to engage in collective struggle with other prisoners counts for something, anything to break the isolation is useful in that context I guess.

[Organic Revolution]

Simple answer NO

So you're going to tell all of those prisoners on hunger strike that what they are doing is irrelevant?

Are you sure it actually is?

[Nakidana]

Someone on the outside has to give a shit that it's happening first. The guys in gitmo have been on a hunger stike for about a year now, maybe longer, but since the majority of people in the us probably don't even consider them to be humans, it hasn't accomplished anything. Yeah you can shift responsibility to the prison administration but that doesn't matter if no one is going to hold it against them. The successful attempts listed in this thread have all had some kind of mass base behind them in the country where they were being held, thats what makes a hunger strike successful.

On the other hand, even if it doesn't get your demands met, the chance to engage in collective struggle with other prisoners counts for something, anything to break the isolation is useful in that context I guess.

I wouldn't say the the hunger strikes in gitmo are useless. If nothing else, they've further shown to the world quite how barbaric and hypocritical the US is, force feeding prisoners who've never even been on trial.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Yeah but the rest of the world isn't in a position to close gitmo any time soon, and I'm guessing the kind of person reached by the strike already had a clear picture of what the us and it's military was all about. A large us based movement could be successful in getting gitmo shutdown, but like I said even a lot of people opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on moral grounds still seem to be under the impression that everyone there is an Osama that can't be trusted not kill non-muslims once they're released. I imagine that collective struggle, even one that is more or less being ignored, has to be a morale booster for people that have been in the conditions that they have been in though, so even in this situation I don't think it's totally useless. It's just doesn't look like it will do anything to improve their situation in the near future.

[Skyhilist]

Like most tactics, hunger strikes are strategic in some cases and non-strategic in others. It's important to keep in mind that there is no "one size fits all" tactic.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

I just want to know, because it seems pretty useless to me. Of course I could be wrong, and if I am please make it known. And if it is worth something, in what cases?

In some cases, yes. An American journalist was once captured by the FARC, an starved himself to eventually he became invaluable and was then handed over to the Red Cross. Or members of the IRA whom was captured and via solidarity all of them held strong, even to the point of death. Eventually the remaining IRA were released I believe. I can see the practical application of this technique being useful in that, it's hard for a person to watch another human being starve to death; it's a long, slow, very unpretty process. Case dependent IMO. Strategery aside I don't think I could do it. I'd be more likely to kill and eat my captors before I was killed than starve myself.

[Baracko Marx]

It's not very practical.