Beginning with a discussion of an exhibition of the creative work of former political prisoners in Khiam prison, South Lebanon, this article reflects on the unique capacities that former political prisoners have to transform the perceptions of others. It is argued that former political prisoners — whether they are Palestinians who were detained in Israeli prisons, or those detained at the behest of the US and UK governments in the ‘war on terror’ — have special gifts of authority and insight, which make them extraordinarily effective social workers in their own communities.
Soha Bechara, Resistance: my life for Lebanon(New York, Soft Skull Press, 2003); <http://www.galerienikkidianamarquardt.com/presse/20001001.pdf>.
2.
Moazzam Begg with Victoria Brittain, Enemy Combatant: a British Muslim’s journey to Guantánamo and back(London, Simon and Schuster, 2006).
3.
Padraig O’Malley, Shades of Difference: Mac Maharaj and the struggle for South Africa (New York, Viking, 2007); see also Brian Campbell, Nor Meekly Serve My Time: the H-block struggle 1976-1981 (Belfast, Beyond the Pale, 2006) and Heba Dabbagh, Just Five Minutes: nine years in the prisons of Syria (Toronto, 2007).
4.
Henri Alleg, The Question (Lincoln, NE, University of Nebraska Press, 2006); Benjamin Stora, La gangrène et l’oubli: la mémoire de la guerre d’Algérie ( Paris, Editions La Découverte, 2005).
5.
Abdelhamid Benzene, Le camp (Paris, Editions Sociales , 1961).
