(18 May 2009)
It is harder to ignore a fact when it is hissing and growling inside my stomach. And the fact is that, right now, about 2.7 million people from Darfur are starving in displacement camps where they fled from violence and annihilation. And this already dire condition worsened beginning earlier this year, when the Sudanese government blocked the aid coming from international humanitarian groups, which the refugees have come to depend on for survival.
As I write this, deadlines are hounding me. But these are paperwork—concepts and abstractions in the air. The hard realities present a more impending deadline. Lives are actually at stake here. And my humanity is on the line.
In those moments when I’m not distracted, the heart recognizes that the stories of the displaced people in Darfur are closely intertwined with mine. But a full stomach can sometimes muddy this clarity in the busy streets of a harried mind. This is a timely reminder even for a grad student struggling to pay the rent and bills in a “3rd world country” where inner and outward poverty is as close as glancing outside the window, stepping outside the door, and looking in my mirror. Because whether a country is included in the G8 or the Bottom 8, each nation has something at stake here.
But this is more than just an issue of nutrition and physical survival. There is a different kind of hunger which affects more than the flesh and the bones. Sadly, this deeper sort of hunger not only gnaws at the soul and erodes dignity; it also emaciates the humaneness in humanity.
Once self-sustaining and thriving as a community, the refugees now have fewer to call their own and even much lesser to partake as daily sustenance. Yet they and I and everyone else will always be equal in dignity. My hunger strike as a tiny gesture of oneness with every Darfuri may be a drop in the bucket. Yet I’m hoping that that drop will help tip the scales to balance—a more accurate depiction of every person’s equality in worth.
The hunger pangs, trauma, and terror of the displaced Darfuris are mine too. Yet the more disturbing thing is that I don’t just identify with the “victims” in the refugee camps. The perpetrators who have vehemently denied the necessities and brutally forced them out of their lands and homes? Sometimes I am them too—when I know about these things and I don’t even try to do anything about it.
But what do I do about it? I have no clue. All I know is that my voluntary hunger does not directly lead to having at least one famished Darfuri in the camps being fed by what I denied myself. It’s obviously not a simple equation as that. But the experience of fasting to enter the stories of those who are suffering did bring the refugees’ plight to the forefront of my consciousness and the core of my affect. I have become more aware of my own greed, selfishness, and apathy. I had been accustomed to having food when I need or want it that I have to consciously resist it. I am more needled by injustices—whether committed by my own hands or those in power halfway around the globe. More than ever, I am stirred beyond sentiments and lofty ideals.
In particular, I am moved to tell and retell these stories to others. As a section in the website Darfur Fast for Life poignantly attests, Adam, Oumat, Ateib, Dajhima, Nima, the rest of those who are fasting without choice, and everyone else in the planet—each has a story to tell and live for. Since I joined the 3-day fast for Darfur, I have been telling stories of the Darfuris’ forced deprivation and my story of voluntary hunger to friends and family, colleagues and strangers, in planes, buses, gatherings—anyone who is willing to listen.
I want their stories not to end in this bleak plight; I want every heart out there in the displaced camps to be strengthened with stories of renewed hope and sense of dignity. May others join in helping write a more hope-filled story of the Darfuris and then re-write a dark chapter in history into a brighter one.
Join the fast at: http://fastdarfur.org/
