Jim Fussell has updated his essay Fasting as a Method for Opposing Genocide in Darfur. It lists some of the people who’ve fasted on this issue and considers the purposes of political fasts:
In fasting in response to genocide the gravity of the response begins to suggest the magnitude of the crisis. Public fasting causes spectators to become witness to nearby suffering, reminding them of a greater suffering occurring at a distance. Fasting has the power to rouse the onlookers from apathy to action.
