instigate hunger strikes and launch grievances,
never coming to terms with the label of prisoner;
some refuse to work and all refuse to be “rehabili-
tated.” A few prisoners use violence against guards
to resist repression (Makhoere 1988). Some
women are erroneously detained for participating
in illegal political movements, yet upon release,
they actually join the liberation movement to
which they were falsely accused of belonging
(Tesfagiorgis 1992).
In South Africa under apartheid, women political
prisoners attempted to make common cause with
common law prisoners, who were condemned to
hard labor (Meer 2001). The regime refused
acknowledgment of the existence of political pris-
oners, yet it isolated them from common law pris-
oners. Sometimes, the warden placed common
prisoners with a political prisoner to press them
into service to inform on the latter (Makhoere
1988). Northern Nigerian political prisoner Gambo
Sawaba counseled women to say they were practic-
ing Christians to evade harsh sanctions of the
Sharì≠a court (Shawalu 1990).
But at other times, political prisoners distance
themselves from the “unfortunate drunks” and
outcasts (First 1989). This hierarchy is reinforced
by the warden’s “fear of infectious belief”: political
detainees and political prisoners tend to be totally
segregated so that they cannot incite the mass of
social prisoners to rise up and organize for better
prison conditions or raise their political conscious-
ness. Almost all political prisoners have partici-
pated or organized a hunger strike. Caesarina Kona
Makhoere reports that her cohort instigated the
first strike in South Africa’s women’s prisons in
1976 – a time of mass arrests and deaths in deten-
tion of school children in the aftermath of the
Soweto uprising. After 1976, isolation of detainees
increased; this method of punishment attacks the
soul of the political prisoner and was particularly
utilized under the apartheid regime of South Africa
(Mashinini 1989, Makhoere 1988, First 1989,
Mandela 1985). Sometimes, political prisoners are
allowed no literature other than the Bible or the
Qur±àn and they use the scriptures in order to make
light of their own situation (Makhoere 1988, Meer
2001), in particular when they endure psychologi-
cal torture, such as prolonged interrogation (First
1989). Despite the severe psychological and phy-
sical hardships faced by women prisoners, their
situation often is downplayed by male political
prisoners and their community while men’s political
imprisonment is romanticized (Middleton 1998).
Yet, women faced torture and death in detention
under the apartheid regime; political detainees of438 law: enforcement
both genders faced isolation, often without bedding
or thin blankets covering cold, concrete floors.
However, the regime sharply discriminated accord-
ing to the color line; white and colored prisoners did
receive better accommodations than black prisoners.
Many former political prisoners complain of
heart problems, growth of tumors, and other dis-
eases affecting their health in the long term.
Mashinini’s account of her six-month solitary de-
tention reveals an intense level of post-traumatic
stress disorder. Her isolation was only interrupted
by extended interrogations by her tormentors. Yet,
all prisoners’ testimonials note with pride that they
endured persecution, banishment, and prison life
and at times even “confess” to their interrogators
that “everything I had done I would willingly do
again” (First 1989, 90). Fatima Meer, a former
president of the Black Women’s Federation of South
Africa, reports that she would not have wanted to
miss the experience of five months detention,
despite the fact that she was already a banned per-
son by the time she was detained (Meer 2001, 210).
Political prisoners fairly easily reintegrate into their
society, thanks to the community support they
receive; some leave the country to receive counseling
for post-traumatic stress disorder (Mashinini
1989). Common law prisoners, however, face many
difficulties post-release. The majority are aban-
doned by their husbands and even their own fami-
lies of origin. Long-term prisoners struggle with
adjusting to the changes of society, and many face
abject poverty, suffering from property loss and
even mob justice: a Ugandan ex-prisoner may find
her house burnt to the ground and her belongings
confiscated (Tibatemwa-Ekirikubinza 1999).
Is there hope for closing prisons all over Africa?
A few countries, such as Mali, have closed prisons
from the colonial period and have not built new
prisons. Yet criminal activities, even committed by
women, are a growing concern in many African
countries and imprisonment continues to be the
choice of punishment, rather than the aberration.Bibliography
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T. Dirsuweit, Carceral spaces in South Africa. A case of
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