Guantánamo inmate, 60 days into hunger strike, describes constant beatings
The Guantánamo hunger strike is, in the end, a protest against George Orwell’s Big Lie. I have not been able to read much during the 11 years I have been held here, and right now I am so dizzy from lack of food that I can barely focus. But when I have had the opportunity, I have read and re-read Orwell’s 1984. It is very instructive: “The key-word here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings … it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts.” The Big Lie here in Guantánamo is the idea that holding 166 prisoners in Cuba somehow makes America safe from extremism. Ultimately, any Big Lie falls apart, but only if people care to look closely at it.