Direct communication

Non-violence, as a word, doesn’t sounds very promising. It feels somehow right but somehow weak too. We know what it’s not - a negative, “not violence” - but what is it? What’s the essence of effective and powerful non-violence, that wears one thing down and builds up something better?
As a counterweight to animal eating we are vegan. If we want to talk about that we don’t need to confront anyone or be judgemental, not because we don’t want to give offence but because too many people (vegan included) are looking for a fight. They find it attractive. It makes direct action seem to be the only effective way of making ourselves heard, but is it going to be a non-violent event? An ‘action’ isn’t just a rescue mission it often involves some media coverage, some drama, a theatrical event that will attract our attention, plus it usually promises all the excitement of a stoush. A direct action event usually makes headlines and through the story we get good publicity for the animal issue in question, along with pictures of ‘the confrontation’ and questions at work the next day, “Did you see us on telly last night?”.
After an event has been reported and shown on mass media it feels as though we’re making progress. The message is getting out there. But unfortunately long lasting change isn’t brought about by last night’s news, it’s more about this morning’s breakfast. It at the shop, in our own trolley, that it counts. Now, this afternoon’s shopping expedition doesn’t sound very dramatic or exciting. But that’s where changes takes place; until we can reach the shopper shopping we won’t stop them reaching for the packet of bacon or the carton of eggs. And we will never reach them while we set up a contest of wills, because we’re up against the consumer’s freedom of choice. Everything vegans do, all our rescuing and protesting activities, have to be measured against the consumption of bacon and eggs. All the time people are refusing to change their eating habits they won’t associate the word “ugly” with “the animal industry”, they’ll see the very opposite. These industries provision us. These shops that sell us shoes and groceries are hardly ugly to most people, since they spend so much of their time in them!
Vegans could mount picket lines outside every shop in the land but we’d need an army to do it. So instead we have to educate people. Whenever we have the chance we should be at the ready to engage people about ‘the animals’. We can talk as casually about this subject as befits the people we’re talking to, as casually as one might chat about a movie or a book we’ve just read. It’s just new information and new ideas. By keeping up our sleeves lots of embarrassing facts and logical arguments we may never need to use them. Instead we can listen and talk as if we were discussing last night’s football results. We needn’t use what we know, but it must be there as a back up. These facts we know, that they don’t, are both shocking and deeply uninteresting to those who ‘don’t want to know’. What we know may be left unsaid. We aren’t engaging in a stoush. We’re not preachers either unless to paint in a background of people full of compassion and peace. And let’s say we get people to agree that we aren’t speaking garbage, then, with our information passed across, our role can be over. Then it’s up to them whether or not to act. To ask advice, etc.
After dropping the egg and bacon habit, life should follow on more easily and certainly more logically. But of course none of this will happen if a person thinks he or she has been railroaded. It’s the free-willed human being we’re talking about here, pre-vegans, those who have decided not to take up principle-driven self discipline for whatever reason. We, as advocates, need to discover each of those reasons, so we can unravel them.
Whether railroaded or obstinate or plain couldn’t-care-less, most people given the chance are spenders, conspiring with animal abusers, jealously maintaining their right to choose what they eat. It’s as if they build walls of thoughtlessness to fight off the wicked vegans, because to them it’s an anathema, the idea of animals having rights, the idea of no more animal products on the market. These consumers aren’t necessarily hard hearted or implacably anti-vegan, it’s just that they’re in love with animal products and won’t relinquish them under any circumstances.
This is why vegans have their work cut out. We’re in the business of communicating with people, explaining to them why they should boycott animal products and why spend their money more humanely.