Stav, a political activist, shares her diary entries from her experience in prison after being sentenced for direct action against an arms company. On May 21st, she reflects on her routine and finds solace in reading and writing. She expresses her gratitude for the support she has received and her belief in the power of love and resistance. On May 22nd, Stav draws inspiration from philosophers like Epictetus and Frankl, emphasizing the importance of inner strength and surrender to reason. She receives letters of support and prepares for her bail hearing, but anticipates remaining imprisoned. Despite her circumstances, Stav finds hope and inspiration in the nature outside her window and the belief that the love of freedom cannot be held captive.Stav, a political activist, shares her diary entries from her experience in prison after being sentenced for direct action against an arms company. On May 21st, she reflects on her routine and finds solace in reading and writing. She expresses her gratitude for the support she has received and her belief in the power of love and resistance. On May 22nd, Stav draws inspiration from philosophers like Epictetus and Frankl, emphasizing the importance of inner strength and surrender to reason. She receives letters of support and prepares for her bail hearing, but anticipates remaining imprisoned. Despite her circumstances, Stav finds hope and inspiration in the nature outside her window and the belief that the love of freedom cannot be held captive.
In the summer of 2022 I gained insight into the British penal system when I was given a month’s prison sentence for direct action against Elbit – this is my prison diary (pt.2)
In the summer of 2022, I gained insight into the British penal system when I was detained in Her Majesty’s Prison Eastwood Park. I was sent to prison for a month along with eight other activists after taking direct action in Bristol against Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest private arms company. During the month I spent in prison, I documented everything I saw, heard, felt and thought as a form of resistance. This is my prison diary (pt.2)
21st of Mayst 2022.
It’s late afternoon and all the prisoners are already locked in their cells after being served dinner. We don’t leave our cells except for a half-hour trip to the sports hall. It doesn’t bother me at all, and I see it as an advantage because I spend more time reading.
This is my fourth day here and I have already established a busy routine: exercising in the garden (although I don’t have a timer, I think I broke my running record today), reading, filing prison applications and writing. Frankl’s Man’s search for meaning draws me completely into his world. As I read about the horrors he endured, I feel fortunate that I have enough to eat, warm clothes, a mattress and some rest. It is clear to me now that I am a prisoner of conscience. Every step I have taken has prepared me for what is to come and, to be honest, I am quite enjoying my life here. I am glad to be here in my cell, although walking through these narrow and long corridors is a strange experience for me and strikes me in its strangeness because I am used to living an individual life. Yet in many ways I feel less alone here than I did in Berlin. My soul has reached its limits in detesting Germany – the alienation, the bourgeois cowardice and spinelessness, the blind loyalty to the apartheid regime and the grasping grip of the bureaucratic “iron cage” above all. When I was in the holding cell at Bristol police station, I was given a book called leave Berlin. How ironic.
This morning I prepared the wedding greeting card for Dali’s wedding, a wedding I will not attend. Preparing the postcard overwhelmed me with emotions. I blessed her and wished that the sun will always shine on her as a tribute to love – for both of them our political redemption and resistance to oppression will come through love and in love. Love is the goal and the cause, the love for justice and freedom is what unites me and Dali in sisterhood and it is the same love that has brought me to my confinement.
Today I was lucky enough to look through the double-glazed window and see a gray, cute looking squirrel. How happy I was to see him! He climbed the prison wall and sat on the barbed wire. I don’t know how and why such a small squirrel would climb there, but somehow it wasn’t electrified, so I was relieved. It also means that no electricity runs through the barbed wire.
In my mind I see R saying the words ‘the 15’e‘ when we were led down to the basement of the courthouse the last time I saw him. I can see him telling me to observe myself as if I were outside of myself. What do I see? A complex mix of joy and fear of the unknown. But even outside of prison there is always a certain amount of uncertainty. I have to remember that even if I get out (isn’t I already?), here in prison I have become freer than ever. I also find myself excited when I hear the rattling of the guards’ chains and keys. I’ve known this sensation since I was a child, but I don’t know exactly why.
As I was held in the small cells of the Magistrates Court, my heart pounded every time the rattle of chains and keys touched my ears. That day I wrote myself words of comfort: that I am strong and can control my breathing, that there is nothing to fear in the body, for I have prepared myself for the possibility of imprisonment for years, and that nothing acoustic or aesthetic can hurt me; that our role as revolutionaries is to summon inspiration and that I am in fact freer than ever before. This is also what I told Jane at the training ground. I promised myself that I would breathe out more than I breathe in, so that the body knows to relax.
The nurse told me today that my blood pressure was slightly elevated when I walked into the prison. It seems that I was nervous, but that was a good kind of excitement, that of happiness. I am sure that our efforts paid off, because every day that the war machine can’t work is a good day for humanity. Even if I had to spend years here, I would spend them knowing it couldn’t have been any other way. May heaven cover us with white roses.
It’s early evening. The sheets and towels all smell like piss. The smell was vomit-inducing when I first came here, but now I’m addicted to it. How funny! When I get home I complain that the sheets smell too good!
Tomorrow I will begin preparing my legal defense and writing the draft of my opening statement. I plan to use the time productively and spread the news of our captivity to the public. I hope that the juries will acquit us and that we will emerge triumphant. We have already won, one way or another.
May 22ndnd 2022
There’s a tree of eternity growing inside of me now. It is stretching through me –
Horizontally Vertically
It expands and bursts out of my body till infinity.
I say I am free; and I am free in the sense that even though my body is imprisoned and I can be robbed of everything I have, there are still things that no one can take from me: my mind and its power, my freedom of thought, my love of freedom, my love of philosophy and my ability to choose. Prison cannot take Epicurus from me. It cannot take away Epictetus, Plato, Aristotle, Marx or Seneca. My mind cannot be taken from me because it is not material.
I can now read Epictetus from the record of my mind. He argues that we should not fear what lies outside the sphere of choice, but rather be concerned with what lies within it—our control over our own actions and thoughts. So I choose to be kind to my captors. Either by choice or necessity, they must live the life of a prisoner to make a living. They are worse off than the prisoners; I choose to be kind to the prisoners around me, for their hard lives and cruel society have led them here. I extend my inner strength to all who need compassion. I choose to smile at every being I encounter here. I will not give in to negative thoughts, but instead choose the good, eternal sun.
The only choice left to us is to surrender to reason, as Epicurus taught. My time in this world is limited. I am a mortal being. Because I have been granted reason and Logos, I, like the rest of humanity, have ascended beyond time and space to see what is past and what is evolving.
It’s early evening in Eastwood Park and I’ve received letters of support from people all over the world. I was thrilled when I received the letters saying that we have raised the bar for activism – long live the resistance!
I have been informed that my bail hearing is tomorrow and that people are expecting to meet me outside. I doubt I would be released. We are denied bail. I’m mentally preparing to spend a long time here, and I’d rather admit that than endure the disappointment. In fact, today marks a week since I was arrested, imprisoned, taken to court, got into the “Zinzana” (the prisoner transport van in Hebrew slang) and arrived at the prison. All this has turned out to be a blessing for me, because otherwise I would never have been able to read Frankl’s book. Frankl writes that only those with a rich intellectual and spiritual life could survive the Nazi concentration camps, and that the damage to their inner selves was less severe. Those who were able to withdraw into themselves found inner peace, and those who practiced a certain moral code may have suffered greatly, but their inner selves remained intact.
I cried this morning reading Frankl. He describes how a young woman, neglecting her spiritual life, turned to her only remaining friend to soothe her loneliness as she died in a Nazi concentration camp: a chestnut tree, one of whose branches had begun to blossom. Hallucinating, she spoke to the tree, and it responded, “I am here—I am here—I am life, eternal life.” I quickly wiped away the tears before anyone noticed.
From my window the same trees of eternity bloom and the same birds fly past my window, they all tell me that the love of freedom cannot be held captive. It is the irony of fate that I was allowed to read Frankl in a prison cell; that I have not read it until now, after so many friends recommended it to me. The prisoners who gave me the book did an act of mercy.
Before I went to Bristol, I laughed with R about the feeling in my stomach – butterflies – just like the ones I had before a big exam at school. He started reciting “The Song of the Sea” and we laughed together. How I was afraid not to quote those lines from the Bible at primary school! Our experience has indeed been a test, a test of character. All I have to do now is continue to show courage to pass this ordeal, excel in this exam – not to quote “The Song of Sea” but “The Song of Freedom” – and remain indifferent to whatever decision might be made in my case – release or imprisonment – for I may be a prisoner but it is impossible to take away my inner joy, or its twin: the love of freedom. Good night to all prisoners and captives the world over! May birds of beauty visit our windows and keep us company – I will ask for no more than that.
~ Stav
