Stage 5

Some practising vegans might choose not to be activists. Even if they reckon vegan food is the best food for them to eat, it doesn’t mean Animal Rights is a cause they want to promote. It may seem a hopeless case and becoming an activist a waste of time. They may think it better to leave ‘politics’ to others. If these ‘home vegans’ speak about the subject at all it will be with people they know.
Stage 6
If we decide to go further and attempt to persuade people it means taking on a lot of hard work. Obviously if we are vegan, protesting animal rights, demonstrating, getting involved with direct action, we need to believe the cause is worth fighting for. If we feel really strongly about promoting Animal Rights we have to remain passionate about it for a long time against a tide of seeming lack of interest amongst people. We need to be optimists, both in seeing the urgency of change as well what is already happening in people’s attitudes.
Optimistic activists aren’t starry eyed, they know it’s a mixture of concern we have, for the damage certain sort of foods are causing to people’s health and their guilt at what animals are being used for, for food. These twin concerns constitute personal change. With some of the plentiful supply of high energy (from our vegan diet) we should be able to direct our activism into inspiring people. Our aim should not be to separate from them, not leave them behind but involve them, include them in our concerns, along with our concern for the animals.
But we do have to keep our feet on the ground, knowing how unaware 95% of people still are that there is even a problem let alone about the level of animal cruelty and the dangers in eating animal foods. From most of the 95% we can expect negative reactions because this is an almost unknown language to them. Their reactions can range from indifference to passionate resistance. And so if that’s the way things still are today, we might have to get used to that, by recognising the different levels of acceptance and work through them systematically.