by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

Last week four local students went on a hunger strike in protest against the provincial government's plan to ask that more of its money be paid back.

Previously their eating patterns were the private business of themselves and their bellies. But with one announcement their eating became relevant to society at large.

Hunger striking is exploding. It now trails only behind text messaging as the hot thing, according to my trend-o-meter.

Long gone are the days when renouncing food was the last pathetic resort of otherwise powerless prisoners, although inmates are still in the game, including five on death row in Connecticut who refused solid meals in February, not in an effort to accelerate their impending doom, but rather to improve their remaining living conditions.

Hunger strikers no longer feel obliged to duplicate the gravitas of such famous trailblazers as the suffragettes and Gandhi.

Thankfully, few seem to be going to the grave like Bobby Sands and the other IRA prisoners who died in 1981 in a failed protest of prison conditions.

The IRA hunger strikers ordered their families not to feed them even if they later begged for food, which must have made for some strange discussions.

Most don't propose to starve to death nowadays. I'll bet most cheat on the side. It's no fun to go hungry.

Mussolini's granddaughter recently recaptured her headline glory by refusing food for five days to protest an unfavourable political ruling. She ended her hunger strike with great panache, angrily tossing her cell phone against a van and chowing down anew.

And no cause is too trivial. Some Georgetown University employees recently went on a hunger strike for a raise. They got it.

Some Christians in the States are hunger striking to protest the plight of Terri Schiavo who fell into her sad state, ironically, due to an eating disorder.

An Indonesian legislator is refusing food over gas prices. A jailed Norwegian hasn't eaten in 100 or so days to protest his lack of proper psychiatric care. There's a lot of half-assed strikes too. Kashmiri watch company workers are on a "rotating hunger strike." Palestinian prisoners vow to hunger strike but only when Israeli and Palestinian leaders meet.

Montrealers are not to be left behind. Last year, a local blind man identified as Quinn reportedly went on a hunger strike because his landlord forced him to get rid of his dog. Montreal photographer Zahra Kazemi died after a dizzy fall while on a hunger strike while imprisoned, or so claimed the Iranian government, until they admitted she was beaten to death.

I asked local doctor Jacques Chaoulli about the wisdom of such strikes, which can cause hallucinations after three weeks and tissue damage or even death after four. He should know. He went 30 days without food in protest against a ban on privatization of medicine. He tells me that he would have fought his cause strictly through the legal system had he been better informed at the time.

Some criticize hunger strikes as a puerile form of blackmail. It's like vowing to smash your toes one by one with a ball peen hammer unless you get your way.

But hunger strikes put a face on a cause as we become immune to generic images of masses of picketers standing around in an organized protest. These days solidarity doesn't necessarily translate into public support, as evidenced by the student strike.

I once had to picket to get strike wages at an old job. I gave up after about three minutes. I felt like a sheep. As Joe Strummer says in the movie Rude Boy, "If I want to riot, I'll riot on my own."

Perhaps the organization is the problem. I suspect if the afflicted spread news of their plight by word of mouth, in the taverns and bowling leagues and elsewhere, they might gain more sympathy. I'm far more moved by one personal, persuasive testimonial than dozens of press releases on acronym-laden letterhead.

Apparently our student hunger strikers are eating again, even the one who vowed to starve until he had to be carried out on a stretcher. Good planning, though, that stretcher business, sounds highly dramatic.

Comments? kgravy@openface.ca