Ambassadors for animals

Being vegan and going public is a bit like being on a diplomatic mission in a foreign country. Being vegan is like working as a lawyer, representing a client – by following the sort of instructions ‘the animals themselves’ would issue (if they could instruct us!) we have to imagine them conducting themselves in a court of law. Their demeanour alone could win their case, and so as advocates we should try to adopt some of that demeanor to be their best representitives. If animals could speak their feelings they would surely NOT recommend showing hostile feelings (and when you think about it they don’t, despite their having suffered from cruel treatment on farms or vivisection labs all their lives). Since they know humans better than humans know themselves (having seen the very worst of them for so long that it’s part of their bloodline) they’ve learnt how to survive human cruelties and stupidities. They would advise us to begin our animal liberation work by first working on our fellow humans, in a slow and steady way.
Although vegans, being humans themselves, know well what human to human oppression is all about we know that we aren’t under the same sort of threat from ‘the human danger’ as domesticated animals are. But we are up against the human mentality all the same. Vegans especially can learn a lot from animals. They know NOT to draw attention to themselves, so that’s how vegans should be when talking with the hard rump of resistant meat eaters - for a time we must wait, as animals always have to, and encourage dialogue by letting them have their say first … if only because we need to earn enough brownie points from them to demand a fair hearing. We small, they big, we need them to allow us in. Then we can give it our best shot and perhaps make our mark.
Why be so ‘indulgent’ towards these people? Because they constitute 95% of our population, if not more. Most of them are at least mildly chemically addicted to one thing or another and can’t make big decisions about their life any more or they are idiot-obstinate to any good advice and must go down the tube, but amongst all these millions of people we eventually need most of them on side. Make no mistake – they will not walk willingly or happily into our arms. People are not compliant on this subject of ours. We have to win them every one, and one by one. They love their animal foods and they love their leather shoes. Like cornered rats, they instinctively do NOT like the position we vegans have taken.