It’s around lunchtime on Friday, October 3rd, and the rain is pouring. Outside Leinster House, Phil, Thomond, and Tessa sit beneath umbrellas. Their signs read “Hungry for Peace in Gaza,” and today is their fifth and final day of fasting.
Phil has fasted in this format for Gaza on five occasions since March. Tessa has fasted on three of the previous fasts, and Thomond did so on their most recent in August, alongside many others who participate in various capacities.
“We’re so very lucky to be electing to fast. We’re not living in the heat and awfulness of an imposed man-made famine”, says Thomond.
She describes Phil as the “dignified presence” and tells me about the many “Heart to Heart encounters” she has had with passersby over the last five days on Kildare Street. “People don’t know where to go, and very often, don’t have the language to say, ‘I’m sick to my stomach about this, my heart is broken’. It’s right that our hearts are broken. We cannot forget what we know and what we’ve seen”.
“We probably don’t talk enough about the visceral, bodily stuff that we actually feel. And we need to do that”.
The group asks passersby to take a photo holding the sign, “I’m Hungry for Peace in Gaza.” A lot of people initially object. They say, “But I’m not fasting”. Tessa notes this. “As if you have to be doing something in order to support it. I think that’s an interesting space, isn’t it?”
“There is no peace without liberation. I thought that was very powerful”.
“I can’t comprehend how you can despise and hate a people. Not see them as human. Not see yourself in them. Prejudice is taught. You don’t come into the world with prejudice, and that’s the alarming thing. It’s what we learn. All of us.”
“I feel that in doing this, one has to have hope. I read that ‘hope is a political act’, and hope is an act of resistance. And I think there’s truth in all of that”.
I ask Tessa whether her background as a psychotherapist impacts her understanding of trauma and her sadness for what has happened, and is happening, in Gaza. “I find that such a huge question and a huge thing to think about. What people are enduring now in terms of trauma and how it’s going to be after….I don’t know. It impacts my humanity as a human being.
The psychotherapy bit…do I think about what it is to engage with people who are suffering? I have a couple of Palestinian friends, and I know that they have a lot of different kinds of support. But what I think is just having a listening ear. Someone who can really listen and be present”.
The Interview
*The following conversation has been cut slightly for clarity.
EM: So, Phil, you’re on Day Five of your fifth fast for peace in Gaza. How are you feeling?
I feel very pleased with what we have achieved. Getting through five days is a challenge. It’s not that huge, but it is difficult getting up each day and continuing to avoid food. It’s nontrivial, is one way that I describe it, but I don’t want to suggest it’s something heroic or enormous [either].
It’s a counterpoint to the everyday consumption that we all indulge in to such an extensive degree, and that changes your point of view and makes you more reflective. That’s why I think this is a useful exercise, a different kind of protest, where people can step back. It involves some reflection, some contemplation, and it appeals to people.
People who stop by frequently say, “Oh, I couldn’t do that”. I think actually they could. And some of those who said that have joined us, and they found they can do it.
I’m eager to promote it more, as an addition to the many excellent protests that are out there.
It’s a different form of activism, but I think it’s really powerful. Going without food for five days it’s quite an emotive thing to do. I think it strikes a chord with a lot of people…do you find that the people you meet on the street, they’re emotionally affected by the fact that you guys are making this sacrifice? Is that why you had the idea originally, to fast?
I did it back in the 80s for a week. A more political activity when President Reagan was visiting here, with a bunch of very good friends. I think I got the seed of it then, and I’ve used it a few times since. And I’ve found I was able to do it.
As you say, it strikes a chord with people. And it may be something to do with our history too, that hunger striking has been quite a significant political action in different contexts over many years in Ireland. And then there’s the resonance with famine. That’s one of the reasons for doing this, [sic] is because of what is now a famine in Gaza. It seems to be a particularly appropriate form of solidarity.
How does this fast compare to when you originally set out on your first back in March?
They’ve all been slightly different. The one that really comes to mind now is the fourth one, where we had a lot of young people like yourself, [sic] Orla, particularly colorful, and she has the most extraordinary network of similar friends, and they came and spent time with us. Orla does this Palestinian tapestry, and she was teaching that to the other women here. And so there was a group of women all doing embroidery together. We had great weather. So the whole experience was very joyful. That’s the word I’d use about it.
Each one is different, and some people have been extraordinary, like Thomond, totally committed. Spent the whole week here with me. Others have come and gone, and it has its own internal organization. I didn’t try to track who was coming when, but I had confidence that there would always be somebody here. There were times in the earlier fasts I was on my own, but not for long. There’s a sense of a group with quite strong bonds developing.
The one I did back in 2016 was just two of us. The reaction on the street was very supportive. It carries you along. Those conversations pass the time. Sometimes I’d like a bit of quiet, reflective space, but that doesn’t happen. I’ve tried to write a journal the last time and this time, but again, there are constant interruptions and distractions! So it’s quite hard to do that, but I might go back to that and try to flesh it out.
Have you found, just from a physical aspect, that your mood has been affected by going without food? I mean, I know if I’m hungry, I find that my mood is quite affected by it.
No, I’ve been amazed, actually. I, for example, like to take a drink in the evening. Most evenings I’ll have a beer or glass of wine. I [sic] forget about it completely. I’m delighted to know I can just let it go. And in that sense, I can just let food go too. But knowing that you’re going to finish after five days really helps, but also the sense of what people who are obliged to avoid food or to starve, what they’re going through, and how this is just a tiny reflection of their experience.
I don’t know how I would cope if I didn’t know when the next meal was. But my emotions have been quite stable. My wife, Sien, is involved in fasting as well, [and that] makes all the difference. That’s been a key element.
Okay, two more questions. The first is about the concept of hope. I was listening to The Rest is Politics podcast. They had a surgeon on. [The episode] was called “The War on Children”. The surgeon went over to Gaza, and he was telling them about his experience. They asked him about everything that he’d seen, and he talked a lot about…the sounds of children crying in hospitals and listening to people without anesthetic. And Rory asked him, you know, against all of that, ‘Do you feel hopeful?’ And he said that ‘I don’t feel that hope belongs to me’. He said something along the lines of, I don’t owe [the Palestinians] hope. I owe them my actions. And he talked about how hope is an act more so than a feeling. And that it doesn’t belong to him. If the Palestinians can still be hopeful in the face of all this, and he said they are, then it’s just about acting. And do you find that? I mean, how do you feel about the future?
I’m terribly concerned about the global situation. I think the possibility of war is increasing exponentially as a result of what Trump is doing and what Putin is doing, and other autocratic leaders. So there’s an escalation ongoing that is very disturbing. However, Gaza has become a focal point for the development of a movement [sic] which is a counterbalance to that, or has the potential to be a counterbalance. The concern is that those two forces may end up in conflict, but it’s having seen yesterday how many people spontaneously turned up as a result of the flotilla being intercepted, and the scale of the marches that are happening here, and the fact that it’s happening all over the country, and the fact that it’s happening in so many countries, it’s become a catalyst for progressive movements, for alternative energies that are hopeful. So that’s where my hope lies, that we can keep building that movement in different ways. It’s utterly essential because the emerging forces of negativity and destruction are terrifying.
Okay, final question, about the people that you’ve met this fast over the last five days, are there any interactions that stand out in particular?
That’s interesting because there were specific ones in the previous fasts. And none has hit me in the way previously when Sammy from Turkey was challenging, saying there’s “no peace without justice”. He was challenging us, saying ‘we’re hungry for peace’. He says, ‘You have to go for justice’. That was one. And the second one was the man who came and asked me, “What is it that led you here”?
And I’ve been grappling with that question ever since. It stayed with me. But nothing this week has had that level of impact, so far. I may remember something or have something in my notes, but I don’t think so. This has been a humdrum fast! Just a regular one!
About that question that man asked, “What has led you here”? Are you any closer to finding an answer?
No, I’m not….The whole area of religion and spirituality, I’d like to investigate it further. But I’ve rebelled against it because of my Catholic upbringing and indoctrination that was so oppressive that I’ve just run away from it. But it’s clearly informing what I’m doing now, and it’s part of the reason that I’m here. But I have to try and find a way to translate it into something that I feel comfortable with.
So you feel that there’s a religious, or maybe religious isn’t the right word, spiritual undertone to this?
Yes. Which I don’t think I can articulate very clearly, but the kind of compassion that I experience in the others who do the fast, and the warmth of the reaction from people. This is just a well of goodness that we can translate into transformative power, I hope.
And I’d like to go back and extract from my own history those influences that helped to form me to do this, rather than reject all of that history. Which is what I think I’ve been doing.
I relate to that a lot. I feel so much anger and resentment towards the Catholic Church, the institution here, and how that was allowed to happen, especially to women and children and young boys as well in the schools… I mean, people talk about Irish Catholic guilt and just carrying that around even though you’re not really a religious person. So it’s interesting how that’s in our roots. And I guess with the famine and all these other aspects of our history, I wonder, does that also play a part in our response to Gaza?
I think it does. The good things in say, the Christian tradition and other traditions, we need to find channels to bring them forth and blend them together.
To embody our past and remember it, not push it down or ignore it?
Yes, exactly.
