"Khader Adnan, Bobby Sands"

Khader Adnan, a Palestinian, has been hunger striking since December 17, 2011, in protest of his illegal detention without any charge or trial. Israel's use of administrative detention (for up to six months) derives its legitimacy from laws drawn up during the British Mandate period; turns out that the British legacy of occupation is a gift that keeps on giving.

This song, "Khader Adnan, Bobby Sands" by David Rovics, attempts to suture the space between the Republican struggle in Northern Ireland with the Palestinian struggle; such parallels are always tendentious, and often problematic. Sands was a charismatic figure whose death by hunger strike made him a martyr for the cause and brought a kind of political shame upon Great Britain, and its stern intransigence in the face of the guerrilla war in Northern Ireland. I don't know much about Adnan, and whether Rovics gets all the details right; but Adnan, by virtue of this nonviolent resistance to this law, is exposing a deep flaw in the Israel's claims to Western-style democracy.


Khader Adnan grew up near Jenin City
You could say he was a product of his time
Ever since he was a kid he'd get arrested
Though he was never charged with any crime
Spending half his life in prison
A life lived like so many of his friends
Arbitrary and indefinite detention
Never knowing if your jail time would end
Khader Adnan was arrested last December
Again he wasn't told the reason why
He was shackled, he was beaten, he was tortured
There beneath the Middle Eastern sky
Perhaps there was a moment when he realized
That right then, with his body, he'd say no
But from then on he refused to eat another meal
Like in Belfast not many years ago

Khader Adnan grew up in a war zone
But all the tanks and planes were only on one side
It was a type of war that they call occupation
Settlement, removal, fratricide
And anyone who talked about resistance
Who thought they did not deserve to be a slave
Would be looking down the barrel of a gun
And often find themselves inside an early grave
Khader Adnan loves his wife and daughters
And he likes to eat his daily bread
But in prison he can't see his children
Or live life with the lady that he wed
So on behalf of all the children without fathers
He decided he had to strike a blow
He said I will have dignity or death
Like in Belfast not many years ago

Each time Khader Adnan was arrested
In prison he would learn a little more
And soon he became the teacher
And he'd talk about the times that came before
They talked about civil disobedience
They talked about the ballot and the gun
They talked about the Occupied Six Counties
And the H Blocks in 1981
Khader Adnan talked of perseverance
And how someday their people might be free
How someday they might hear their children laughing
Unafraid, how someday things could be
And then at 3:30 on one morning
The soldiers came, their rifles pointed low
And they took Khader Adnan from his family
Like in Belfast not many years ago

They say Khader Adnan is a terrorist
Just like they said of Bobby Sands
Because he dares speak out against injustice
Because he dares to make a stand
Because he dares believe that he is human
And he does not deserve to live this way
Because he dares to consider an alternative
Because he dares imagine a new day
Khader Adnan lost his liberty before he was born
To fight for life it's death he must embrace
But just like others come before him
There are others waiting to take his place
And even the great powers can lose interest
In supporting such a vicious status quo
Because you can't break a man who won't be broken
Like in Belfast not many years ago