Understanding the Fast in 7 Days
September 27th, 2007 at 9:12 am | posted by ONE.Partners-By Robyn Llloyd, Jubilee USA Supporter, filmmaker, activist
JubileeUSA is holding a rolling fast for 40 days from Sep. 6 to Oct. 15 to bring awareness of the urgent need for debt relief for impoverished countries in order for them to meet the Millennium Development Goals of 2015.
This year is a Sabbath Year (seven years from 2000) and the world is midway towards the deadline of the MDGs. But are we midway toward meeting the goals of cutting global poverty and hunger in half?
I am one of more than 10,000 fasters supporting the Jubilee Act (HR 2634), which is co-sponsored by 50 representatives. My congressman, Vermont Rep. Peter Welch has now signed on to the Jubilee Act.
More than 10,000 people nationally are planning to fast — for one day or many — and have registered to fast on the Jubilee USA website. David Duncombe, a 79-year-old minister from Washington state, has vowed to fast for 40 days, and spend his time walking the halls of Congress in support of the Act.
I decide to take part doing a week-long fast. Below are excerpts from what I experienced on different days of the fast. Though I know my experience of ‘hunger’ will have very little resemblance to the day in and day out suffering of one in five people around the world who are impoverished, it’s my way of showing solidarity with the millions of people who cannot and do not choose to fast. For them, it’s a way of life.
Saturday, 9/14:
Tomorrow I start my one-week liquid fast.
I feel I am stepping off a solid earth made up of sandwiches and pancakes and macaroni and cheese, and into a murky sea. How to voluntarily not eat? Eating is so addictive. What will I do with all the extra time I have, not cooking? How will I read the morning newspaper, without breakfast? Will I have bad breath?
Sunday, 9/15:
I begin my fast after attending the Burlington Friends Meeting for worship. Two weeks earlier, the Meeting for Business decided to become a Jubilee Congregation, meaning that we commit to join other faith communities in the struggle to break the chains of debt in the developing world; and to advocate for justice rather than charity.
A few people sign up to help make a presence on Church Street. Later that afternoon, I stop by the library to see what they have on fasting. I find the perfect book: “Hunger: An Unnatural History,” by Sharman Apt Russell.
The dust jacket says, “Every day, we wake up hungry. Every day, we break our fast. Hunger explores the range of this primal experience. From the fasting saints of the early Christian church to activists like Mahatma Gandhi (and the early suffragettes), generations have used hunger to make spiritual and political statements.
Sharman Apt Russell also addresses the devastating impact of famine and starvation on cultures
around the world.” Good. Something to read while I’m not cooking.
Monday 9/16 11 p.m.:
I’m not feeling great. Headache, etc. I go downstairs and warm up some broth and continue reading the book. Russell has a fascinating chapter on hunger strikes. Mahatma Gandhi underwent 17 public hunger strikes and uncounted personal ones. Being a small skinny guy, he never fasted over twenty-one days and, according to Russell, “probably could not have survived much longer.”
In 1932, when Gandhi was 62, he declared a fast to the death in support of the human
rights of Untouchables in predominantly Hindu India. He said his fast was intended to “sting Hindu consciousness into right religious action.” Early on, this fast was difficult for him. He had to be
carried to his bath on a stretcher. The news media in India followed every detail. “All over the country, Hindus prayed for their beloved Great Soul. His desire had been to make each one of them feel responsible for his life, and they seemed to understand. Hindu temples that had previously denied entrance to Untouchables opened their doors.” Villages and organizations passed resolutions banning prejudice.
Gandhi’s biographer Louis Fisher wrote, “The fast could not kill the curse of untouchability which was more than 3,000 years old. Access to a temple is not access to a job…But after the fast, untouchability forfeited its public approval: the belief in it was destroyed.” To practice untouchability now was to be branded a bigot or a reactionary. Gandhi’s fast “snapped a long chain that stretched back into antiquity and had enslaved tens of millions.”
Powerful individuals in the U.S. have fasted for political reasons, such as Dick Gregory or Randall Robinson, but no one has galvanized a nation as Gandhi did. Is it possible that 10,000 fasting people could make an impact when they/we gather in Washington for the culminating Jubilee events in mid-October?
Wednesday 9/18: 4 a.m.:
Everyone says the third day is the hardest. Headache again, even nausea now. I do some desultory stretches. Brush my teeth. Now, its 4:54 am. I go outside and sit on my porch. The night sky is turning blue, and as I watch, the stars become specks and disappear. I am suddenly reminded of the obvious: the stars are still there when the sun shines.
Thursday 9/19:
Feeling great today. We visit Leahy’s office. Why don’t YOU join the fast?
