Non-separation

Being associated with the animal rights movement or the vegan movement requires a big commitment. There’s so much ground work to be done by so few people. But to keep up our drive we need to have a high frustration threshold, because almost everyone is opposed to what we are saying. And people don’t necessarily say so, instead, they assiduously ignore us and hope we will go away. Of course we won’t, but it’s like being buried under an avalanche of indifference. It’s debilitating. No other activists, in any other minority group, put themselves up against such a brick wall, against such a universally observed convention as that of animal eating. Almost everyone is implicated, and if it’s not eating them it’s wearing them or using them. What happens to animals is ugly, we all know it. But people don’t want to be reminded of it, which is precisely what vegans are trying to do, to help raise consciousness regarding our use of animals.
We are a thorn in the side of almost everyone, and for that reason we are not liked. And because we are scorned, we’re lonely. And lonelier still because, within this small grouping of people, there are so many different approaches, each one believing their way of ‘breaking through’ to resistant people is the best way. Inevitably there’s antipathy between activists. This of course is the stuff of any political grouping but it’s worse for vegans working for animal rights because we comprise such a tiny percentage of the overall population, especially here in Australia.
The realities of ‘animal activism’ are hard enough on a personal level, without our adding to our difficulties by distancing ourselves from others, by feeling superior to other activists or other people in the wider community. The aim, after all, is to connect not to draw apart. As soon as we separate from others we make ourselves look morally superior, which is not a good look. So we’re looking here at non-separation.