The last weeks of the life of Bobby Sands, the first of the republican prisoners to die on the 1981 Long Kesh hunger strike for political status, is to be made into a film by Channel 4 and the artist Steve McQueen. Bobby Sands died after 66 days on hunger strike and having been elected to Parliament for Fermanagh/South Tyrone after 41 days. He recorded the experience of the hunger strike for the first seventeen days without food in the book Writings from Prison. On the day that he died, 5th May 1981, Margaret Thatcher said 'Sands was a convicted criminal. He chose to take his own life.'
The Independent suggests the film is 'likely to rekindle bitter feelings in Belfast' but we can hope it will also be a vital tool to express to younger people the depravations that republicans accepted to demonstrate their commitment to the struggle for Irish unity, a struggle which has brought us to the success that is the Peace Process.
Channel 4 said the decision to dramatise Sands' death was motivated by an attempt to examine the mind of a man who was prepared to die for a cause rather than to glorify him in any way. 'The film will give an emotional insight into what it is like to die for a cause and is a serious examination of the human cost paid by everyone, when fundamental conflicts cannot be resolved through politics and negotiation.'
Although there are few details currently available, McQueen said he was fascinated by the concept of using the body as a form of 'political warfare' and also said 'It will be a film with international contemporary resonance. The body as site of political warfare is becoming a more familiar phenomenon. It is the final act of desperation; your own body is your last resource for protest', prompting the possibility that he will link Sands's death to those of modern day suicide bombers in Palestine. However, his statement that 'I want to show what it was like to see, feel, hear, smell and touch in the Maze at this time,' provides some hope that it may play some educational role in expressing the discipline and comradeliness of republican prisoners in appalling conditions.
For a well-made video with footage documenting the events of the hunger strike, set to Bik McFarlane's tribute to Bobby Sands 'Song for Marcella', click here.
