Climate Justice Fast

I am not an activist. So why am I on a hunger strike?

Submitted by Daniel Lau on Tue, 24/11/2009
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Building a climate movement is a complicated process. But finding an opportunity for individual action and acting on it was surprisingly straightforward, even if not easy.

I'm amazed at the intensity that others in CJF - many of them younger - demonstrate and constructively harness to do more than their share of work to prevent catastrophic climate change. And at long-term activists' commitment, which looking at the environmental movement over a longer period has faced many setbacks; and the climate movement in particular seems so frantic (warranted) that its individuals risk burnout.

So it was an honour to join the hunger strike, albeit a week late. I wanted to tie up an academic paper, and felt unprepared after learning of CJF barely a month beforehand. These reflect the fact that I am not as well informed and dedicated as my fellow fasters. I want to answer whether this was to be expected given my background. I hope other activists, and indeed everyone, will forgive me for it and for my limited involvement in the climate movement to date. The movement ought to accept members with open arms to all constructive involvement.

I have not been an activist before. And nor can I see myself being a fulltime activist yet, though it seems there should be more - we need to see more action on the streets, more civil disobedience, more people writing letters, science-based policy, and politics standing up to business.  And if even more people were engaged, there may be no need for fulltime activists, and I may not be fasting. My skills are not in activism and organising. Except I'm doing well at fasting: I haven't eaten! I've lost only 6kg in 12 days. My mood is mostly up, and I'm mostly able to carry on with daily work.   

How did I arrive at such an activity as fasting? I was a student campaigner on development issues. I first appreciated the gravity of climate change consequences in 2004. I had the idea to write a development paper on climate change consequences in 2007, but didn't find much material, nor interest from classmates. Only in 2009 did I earnestly try to relieve my ignorance. And so passed 6 months of listening to mp3 lectures, reading climate-related blogs, a couple of academic papers. I consider myself a broad reader, thinker and fairly flexible to different ideas and situations, so if it takes 13 years (since Kyoto) to be relieved of ignorance, and 5 years to get active, what will it take others whose situations are not as flexible and open as mine? Who are not in a learning environment, without financial or health pressures, or family to care for.  Drastic actions are required to dramatically shrink the timespan from individual awareness to action. I see my action as a very rational response to my experiences and my abilities.  As I mentioned before, I don't think my skills match a fulltime activist's tasks, as broad as they are. I donate, but I want to be more personally engaged.

And why fasting in particular; put another way, what other drastic measures can one take? The hunger strike is one of the most powerful forms of moral protest. In The Art of Moral Protest, Jasper writes, "the gift of protesters is that they create controversy, [which]... leads to the weighting and testing of perspectives and values."  The last 3 posts on this blog have related personal accounts of how this occurs, and why it is neccessary. This is exactly a part of what we hoped to achieve. In a short amount of time.