Article: Still observing the Ramadan fast

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I wonder if people are fasting in Iraq, in the middle of all the hardship and confusion there. I wonder how Muslims in Darfur, who are starving anyway, feel about the Ramadan fasting. How about in Gaza, where the Israelis are tightening the noose? How about the prisoners in Guantanamo?

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At least most Muslims are fasting in groups, families, villages, all together, sharing the hunger and the heightened spirituality as they pray for peace, as they pray to be closer to Allah.

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I fast all alone. My family, my closest friends won't join me. One woman in her 70's wrote to say she'd join me, because she cares about the future for her great-grandchildren.

So many people are willing to give up a Sunday and join a peace march, but who in the US is willing to experience hunger? Who is willing to fast in solidarity with the people of Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Palestine, and other places where Muslims are being persecuted and starved by American/Israeli forces?

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Ezra 9: 6-7a

I said: “My God, I am too ashamed and confounded to raise my face to you,
O my God, for our wicked deeds are heaped up above our heads
and our guilt reaches up to heaven.
From the time of our fathers even to this day
great has been our guilt...

We are responsible for the acts of our government, whether we agree with them or not. The Iraqis have suffered at the hands of the US since the days of Saddam, from the mass deaths of Gulf War I, from subsequent plague of stillbirths, cancers, etc from depleted uranium, from the sanctions of the 90's, and now the current invasion and occupation.

We have not stopped our government from committing mass murder. Our taxes pay for the US military as well as for Blackwater and other private armies. Many of us put flags on our SUV's, or ribbons to "support the troops".

I fast to atone for the sins of the US. Great is our guilt.

Who will join me? Ramadan continues until October 12. We fast from sunup to sundown. Being elderly and working full time, I modify this- eat breakfast around 9, drink juice and coffee all day. Still, I get hungry, and remember the hungry people around the world.

Who will join me?

In the name of the Prince of Peace, who is called Mahdi as well as Messiah,

Carol Wolman