Whingeing at meat eaters isn't the answer

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At the moment it doesn’t seem that people are ‘interested’ in us. The very mention of ‘Animal Rights’ makes most people want to switch off. At a rally or a street demonstration, they pass by without even glancing our way. We’re astounded. We wait … and nothing changes. And so it goes on.

Perhaps we can’t think of another way of publicising animal issues. It’s difficult when we’re so much on the back foot. In the Doldrums you can’t feel a wind from anywhere, you can’t move in any direction, everything becomes that much more self-conscious, the voice becomes shrill when we talk. I’ve often felt like saying, “Hey you”, implying you’re asleep. My tone is too earnest. I’m shocked by the indifference. “Wake up, why can’t you?”

But of course they are NOT asleep, they just don’t want to be confronted. When they see us holding placards on the street, their first thought is to avoid us. We represent an uncomfortable truth.

Amongst ourselves we talk. We say how we feel. It makes us feel better, preaching to the already converted. But if we talked the same way to omnivores our words would explode in our face, which is why whingeing to meat eaters never works.

Their food almost defines who they are. And perhaps their clothing does too (women’s shoes, men’s leather jackets). So, they don’t take kindly to being put on the spot over their choices. Sure, they can admire what we stand for in an abstract sort of way, and they can sympathise with vegans for the tough time we have of it, for being so excluded from the world. But it boils down to pity, and it’s probably a pity for our stubbornness and our self flagellation.

So, here we are, ‘vegans’, trying to talk about the most tabooed subject on earth and not even getting to first base. All I know is that omnivore-bashing isn’t the answer.