From the Archive

The Iftar Circle – A Reflection

For me, the spirit of this year’s Torture Awareness Week events can be summed up in a vignette from Friday afternoon.  Two vigils into the day and feeling the effects of fasting, I was walking with Jerica and Jeremy towards the White House, where we would meet up with our coalition partners who had organized a fast-breaking Iftar meal.

As the three of us arrived, dusk had already cast a hazy shadow on Pennsylvania Avenue, and we strained a little to pick out the gathering crowd of Marriage Equality celebrators, flanked by a numerous but relaxed line of police.  Rainbow balloons bobbed above the crowd, and a jumble of red mylar letters eventually sorted itself out, Sesame-Street cartoon style, into the words “Love Wins.”

Looking across to Lafayette Park, a few telltale orange t-shirts helped us find our friends on the lawn.  We joined the circle and before long were immersed in the words of Guantanamo detainees, read aloud.  All of us gathered there listened quietly, took comfort in one another’s company, and reached out from that warm space to write letters to Muslim men in Guantanamo and in the US whose Ramadan celebration was taking place in a much colder environment.

We listened together to the call to prayer and broke our fast with a delicious range of thoughtfully prepared food.  Many of us took the time to meet and talk with members of our coalition partner groups that we had not met before.

There was a sweet, natural intimacy to our gathering that evening.  Maybe it was the circle and the food we shared, maybe it was light at sundown and the power of the detainees’ words.  Maybe it was our desire for connection as we sent out prisoner letters we weren’t even sure would make it past the censors.  As we sat together and strengthened our relationships in the shadow of a White House lit with rainbow-colored spotlights, we shared in the joy of that day’s historic civil rights victory.  And in our hearts, we cherished the small and beautiful steps that we were making towards yet another civil rights victory: one over racism, Islamophobia, and state violence.