I am connecting with a couple dozen folks of faith and conscience who are crossing over and committing to some form of fast during the daylight hours of Ramadan. It’s a small step towards strengthening our solidarity with Muslims in Gaza, the West Bank and around the world. We are giving up food or caffeine or alcohol or sex or something else - or all of the above. I am abstaining from eating food and scrolling on espn.com and social media. Our goal is simply to deepen our spiritual and political commitments to collective liberation.
A week before Ramadan, we joined a protest for Palestine in Orange County. There were probably five hundred "protestors" taking up the four corners of a suburban intersection, filled with flags and beautiful signs. When I parked and started walking over, a teenage boy walked beside me with a huge smile on his face. He told me he just left his mosque and he drove by the protest and just had to stop and join in. He said he did not know it was happening and he could not believe how big it was. That young Muslim man melted my heart - so did many of the other people, mostly Arab-Americans, in the small crowds on each corner.
We are one week into Ramadan. In the waves of early afternoon weakness, I have consistently been washed over with feelings of deep respect and reverence for the fact that Muslims fast during the daylight hours for an entire month every single year. I continue to hear about this Palestinian virtue they call “sumud.” It means something like steadfastness or resilience. Ramadan must play a crucial role in cultivating their capacity to creatively resist what the Western world has done to them for the past century.