Epilogue
The detention of about 800 men by the United States at Guantanamo Bay in 2002 fits the description of a political prison. The authorities used torture and disorientation to make inmates uncertain of their place and to bring an end to terrorism by neutralizing these men. Prisoners, however, engaged in self-organization and collective action, and made themselves into a political community. Although the United States, like all the regimes before it, could impose its will, it could not impose a narrative upon its prisoners. Instead, the prisoners themselves have created narratives of control and of illegibility. Those stories, still very much in development, will in the end be more powerful and enduring than the story the regime tried to write.