Marc Morgan – Report on the International Fast
Haringey CND’s Marc Morgan
The International Fast against nuclear weapons has been taking place, almost without exception, every year between Hiroshima and Nagasaki days, since 1983. It currently involves approximately 30 people fasting worldwide, in 5 different countries (details of four are given here; individuals also fast in the UK, and possibly in the US).
Marc Morgan has fasted every year since 2013, as often as possible with fasters from other countries. This is an excerpt of his report from this year’s fast. The full report can be found here.
The International Fast is known as an Action-Fast: it goes hand in hand with other forms of protest (conducted by fasters and non-fasters alike), and is seen by participants as a call to public opinion, rather than as an introspective exercise in self-mortification. By making a break in their usual (eating) habits, however, the fasters reate a special internal and collective space in which to reflect on the enormity of the threat posed by nuclear weapons, and to commemorate the victims of the two uses of nuclear weapons on Japan.
Fast and actions at Buchel airbase
This year I joined several fasters in Germany, where the fast was organised by the German Quakers and the German branch of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation. We fasted at Büchel, the German airbase at which US nuclear weapons are stationed, in the Eifel region in Western Germany.
The Peace camp outside the airbase in pictures
Each day we set out our colourful banners outside the main gate of the airbase. Banners from the main German organisations, including the German Quakers were set out along some fencing a short distance away. Throughout the fasting days, we sang songs, went on walks, greeted numerous visitors some of whom knew of the fast and planned to visit, others of whom were locals out for a stroll who almost always expressed sympathy when we explained what we were doing.
24 hours vigil and conclusion of the fast
On Saturday 8th August at 11 am, a 24-hour vigil started. At hourly intervals, we fasters and other participants in the event were invited to read out texts. These were freely chosen by all of us, but came within the overall theme of the fast, and within particular themes such as “Prophecy and the prophets”, “the role of women in anti-nuclear campaigning”, “anti-war campaigning more generally”, etc…
In between the hourly readings and associated conversations, we went on walks, chatted, engaged with passers-by and even with the police dispatched “for our security”, and generally enjoyed the sunny and convivial, but serious atmosphere of the fast. Two brave fasters maintained the vigil overnight, the rest of us repaired to bed at our nearby Airbnb, until the morning when we all gathered for the final commemorative service for Nagasaki.
Needless to say breaking our fast at midday felt wonderful, and we parted full of enthusiasm to recreate the dynamic of the fast another year.