Brave

1270: 

To stand up for animals you have to be vegan, and to be vegan you have to be brave enough to see it through to the end.  It’s a lifetime thing.  It’s a celebration of truth, of compassion but mainly of intelligence.  It’s not something we need to be grim about.  It shouldn’t be cause for bitterness or anger, just braver.

We, as vegans, must have no tickets on ourselves.  We can’t have any sense of being better than anyone else.  We are as much vegan for our own selves as we are for the animals’ sake.  We just need to be brave. Being vegan is not for the faint hearted.

We have to be able to say “no” - no to meat, no to visits to the zoo, no to ice creams on a hot day.  If it’s tainted we say no to it. It’s that simple.

To us it’s straightforward why we say no.  But to others we may seem anti-social, as if we just don’t want to join in, as if we’re being stand-offish.  To others, being vegan is a bit like shooting yourself in the foot, socially.  To others, we have a reputation for causing trouble.  Those of us who don’t look for trouble prefer to avoid the carnivores at play – if I ever get invited round to dinner it’s likely I’ll refuse because of the problems it will cause.

For example, whenever I do mix socially, and my ‘vegan status’ is known, people say things to me they don’t always mean.  I hear them tell me they admire what I stand for, ingratiating themselves for fear of being attacked.  They say, “Well done” and “I wish I could do it myself”, but they’re cautious.  Thinking, “Avoid this one, he’s a tree-hugger” (or whatever they see me as).

I avoid dinner invitations, and eventually the invitations dry up.  Why would anyone want a vegan to come round for dinner?  Imagine the problems of cooking special dishes for a vegan, or worse, allowing them to discuss ‘ animals’ with others at the table.  Or much worse than that, starting a discussion of ‘the principles behind a plant-based diet’.  When you’re enjoying your crab salad, the last thing you want is to discuss the ethics of boiling crabs alive.

By standing up for animals, we usually have to stand alone.  We have to get used to the fact that there’ll be no friends to back us up.  Our efforts will go unnoticed or unappreciated, and of course, we can’t expect the cows and chickens to give us any encouragement.  This is a solo journey, and our motivation has to come from within.  Not only do we have to be able to withstand people’s lack of sympathy, but also the market’s lack of suitable replacement products.  Food and clothing depend so heavily on the Animal Industries that alternatives often don’t exist.  So we have to search out suitable products and be prepared to pay more for them too, because there is still such a small market for them.

On top of all this we need to look about us.  We need to support the efforts of other vegans who are trying to raise public awareness.  And that’s the problem- the pressures of Society are so great that just to be vegan is hard enough without needing to be supportive of other vegans.

But this is essential if we want to be better known, as a movement.  On a personal level, I may be on top of my diet (and clothing choices) but I still need the sort of help that can only come from fellow vegans.  The energy we get from our vegan friends is of greatest value, if only to help us keep up the pressure, the persuasion, the passion to communicate the principles.

Vegan principle – what is it?  There isn’t much discussion, here in Australia, about animal use.  Animal activism is generally concentrated on the worst abuses of animals on factory farms and in vivisection laboratories.  It doesn’t address the wider problem of fundamental attitude change.  And yet if this were established, if it became the fashion to boycott anything coming out of the Animal Industries, we’d start to see everything else fall into place.  Once vegan principle is established in the hearts and minds of the consumer, the market would accommodate that.  The abattoirs would eventually close and animal farming would become unprofitable, the animal-testing labs would be closed down and zoos would have to stop their breeding programmes and shut their gates.  With an attitude change, we’d be less needy for companion animals and that would dry up the pet trade.

But at present we have a very piecemeal approach to the whole business of animal-use.  And so, things stay much the same.