In the summer of 2022, I gained insight into the British penal system when I was jailed for a month following direct action against Elbit—this is my prison diary (pt.6)
In the summer of 2022, I gained insight into the British penal system when I was remanded to Her Majesty’s Prison Eastwood Park. I was sent to jail for one month along with eight other activists following direct action in Bristol against Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest private arms company. During the month I spent in the penitentiary, I documented everything I saw, heard, felt, and thought as a form of resistance. This is my prison diary (pt.6).
May 29th 2022
I’ve decided to accept Frankl’s advice and not try to change my fate but accept it. There’s no point in actively go against the micro-decisions made for me by the jailers. When transferred to the general department, I wish to be in my own cell, but I give up the idea of asking for special consideration. Although I’ve written the application to have my own cell, I have not yet submitted it because I’m unsure whether it would improve my condition. If accepted, I may be transferred to Res 3 where there are signal cells, but the prisoners there are considered “rougher” – poor Lucia, the nose breaker, got sent there. This is why it’s better to let fate guide my way and I trust that I’d deal with everything that I might face in here. No fate, no pain is not too hard to bear, Epicurus teaches. Bodily pain cannot last forever; the peak is present only for a brief period, for if the body could not bear it, that pain would not have been dealt to man.
Outside my window, everything looks as pastoral as a 17th-century Dutch painting. The light strikes me in its beauty, as if I see everything for the first time. The trees, fields, clouds, and hills – my mind can truly see them now.
The never-ending buzzing stopped disturbing me. I’ve discovered true peace here in prison. I don’t even have the desire to escape because here is where I need to be. For the first time, my identity is aligned with my external reality and status as a prisoner. It’s been two weeks since I’ve come to terms with that fact. Yes, they’ve sent us to prison, to kalabush. “We’ll spend some time here”, as R wrote on a piece of paper at the Magistrate court before we got sent away. Now there’s nothing left for me to do but to give myself to fate, to give in to whatever happens, knowing that sufferings that have meaning ceases to be painful. White roses also have spikes. I send him [R] white roses to wear as crown to his head.
Before coming here I used to feel uneasy whenever things got too peaceful – my soul always wanted to wonder elsewhere. Now I take pleasure in the silence and birds singing on this late sunset hour of this summer night. This hour gives me time to observe nature before all the birds and cute animals go to sleep; it shows me how beautiful the world is and at once transforms my cell into the Pergamon, the palace I used to pass by on my way to the library in Berlin. My cell is the palace I imagine it to be, a sacred temple of immortality, a palace whose walls tell the tales of freedom, an altar to the freedom of men and women! Pergamon of cell 8-2-16.
It’s night time. Prison is a place of oppression, and it is meant to break resistance to the existing order coming from the people, not the upper bourgeoisie. The crimes of the ruling elite are far more extensive, but the state protects them, as comrade Lisa was right to point out when we spoke through the hatches in our cells. Indeed the women here are daughters of the Lumpenproletariat. We activists, not the friends of the ruling elite, got locked up because we threatened the stability of the social order and the interests of the state, an institute whose raison d’être is to safeguards and maintains the arms industry. This is why these sufferings are tolerable, and I take pleasure in the quiet I have here. The silence surrounding me does not feed an anxiety of void and emptiness. Prison teaches me how precious the mundane things are, things like oranges and clementines, a banana (how happy I was to get Potassium!), a book, a moment of silence, a ray of light, and music playing on the television. The prison teaches me gentleness, moderation, and kindness; it helps me shake off the German tendency of trying to control everything – all of which are qualities I was missing and needed to develop. This is an opportunity to learn them.
My arrest came at an ideal timing: my body has just overcome pain, and it is still strong and young, before it losses it vitality and before the process of aging starts to erode it slowly. We can never know if we will get sick tomorrow or remain alive the next day. This is why I’m grateful for the goodness that time brings. I would not have waited any longer to take action against a murderous factory. Time is pressing, and we mortals must decide “the monument of our life” and shape it in “the endless sea of time”, as Frankl wrote. We shall not live again, and I would not have wanted to look back with tearing eyes for opportunities that weren’t taken. History is nothing but the unfolding of a never-ending revolution! Good night to all revolutionary souls who pursue justice! Long live the revolution!
May 30th 2022
In the morning dream, I dreamt that I ran fast up the [Elbit] factory’s staircase along with the comrades and we ceased the computers in the upper floor. On one of these computers, I found some material in Hebrew but couldn’t find any meaningful results. The results I’ve found were all superficial, so I’ve moved to looking quickly into another computer. When I turned it on, I noticed it belonged to a woman my age. I could see her family and vacations photos. She was whoever I could have been if I only had collaborated with the system and cashed in my privileges to maintain a rich, luxurious material life. I was trying to look for more information when the pigs arrived and got me. That’s how the dream ended, and I woke up in prison, where I indeed would have ended up if the dream was real, and here I am! Dreams and reality converge and become one in here.
I keep thinking of the existence of people that like power and collaborate with it – either by voting in an election, an action which they happily perform to participate in and legitimize their own oppression, or by actively being the bootlickers to those in power – just like the people I saw assembling in front Narendra Modi’s hotel suite in Berlin shortly before I arrived in the UK. They threw this human scum a reception followed by drums and trumpets, singing and waving flags. Outside of the hotel, some women wore their best suits and took photos next to Brandenburg Gate for their social media to mark the special day when a despicable criminal visited the city of Berlin. I was unable to understand why they even bothered waking up in the morning to make it all the way only to receive the face of the criminal.
People in Britain are preparing for the celebrations of the queen’s 70th year of reign (Platinum, they call it) not seeing that, in fact, they celebrate inequality and privilege – the source of their own oppression. No one would be sitting in prison eating beans had the crown distributed its unimaginable wealth, built on centuries of colonialism and oppression. The same goes for the sacred values of “democracy” – a “value” against which, paradoxically enough, one is not allowed to speak in prison. I have long ceased to respect everything that the regime calls “democracy” which is no different than masking oppression and inner tyranny, where the oppressed are asked to participate in their own subjugation. It’s no wonder then that they stuck me in jail. I will continue to hold on to hope just like the seagulls were holding to the currents of the wind above of Bristol prison’s yard.
~ Stav
