Pushy vegans

Friday 2nd July 2010

We all use force. We use it to drive in a screw; we use it to stop the kids screaming all day. But on a far less benign level we use it unjustifiably. Whatever the circumstances, this force is always ugly and in the long term always ineffective.
Even if the polemic is justified, however deserving the animals are, the bottom line is that we can’t afford to be “pushy”; we live in a democracy, under law, and no one feels compelled to listen to us. In our protest against animal cruelty we want to be seen as confident and determined. But if we start to preach we lose the plot.
On this subject of animals having rights it seems to us, as vegans, so utterly logical and right. Of course we want others to know about it. But in defending the idea, if we get pushy (on the animals’ behalf) it doesn’t help them. Being forceful and making people feel uncomfortable, finger wagging and taking the moral high ground is a bit yesterday, and avoidable!
Whatever the reasoning behind using force, somehow the other way (convoluted though it seems sometimes) feels more genuine, seems friendlier as if we are approachable. Somehow we need to stop them running away as soon as they know we’re vegan. When you poke a bit of fun at yourself it’s a direct signal to anyone who is nervous, and you can tell it’s been picked up by the sense of relief on people’s faces when we start talking.
Once we launch into our ‘vegan’ what is SHOULDN’T look like is an ‘attack on the wicked omnivore’. What is SHOULD look like … impossible to say. How do you describe a whole manner? And each of us is different in our style. Perhaps it’s a gentleness of approach to this very difficult subject - we scream peacefulness. There’s something about this notion of “vegan harmlessness”. It has a nice ring to it. Maybe it’s a bit cheeky, yes, but it’s never pushy and most certainly never offensive.
One can only speak for oneself … my aim would be “not-confronting” – that’s selfish because I’m super uncomfortable with any confrontation, when it’s unfriendly I mean. I’d emphasise this approach, being about 50% of my whole ‘performance’ (because let’s face it, our spiel about animals, veganism, etc. is a rehearsed argument). I go IN very soft, very quickly, until I can gauge their real interest. Mainly I’m friendly because it’s what I expect from them, like when I’m with a sports fanatic and tell them I hate all sport!
We expect interesting but safe interactions with others. We all love a good fight, but a ‘good’ one not involving violence … any sort of violence. Most of us have grown up in relative peace, expecting no hostile attitude from who ever we meet. Here, advocating for animals, we’re representing a significantly important movement. It’s not really about us as activists but about liberating animals. We’re setting standards of behaviour as well as disseminating information. We’re self-appointed ambassadors for the voiceless. If they could speak would they contemplate violence? Perhaps not. They’d keep the peace. And even in the most heated exchanges with other people over the question of animal rights, why would we lose our cool, over anything? Why spoil your day?
As vegans we need to be trusted on all sorts of levels, is our information correct? Are we nice people? Particularly we need to be trusted NOT to fly off the handle over sensitive issues. Vegans need to be trusted not to be boring. By being interesting and showing an interest in others’ views, we stand a better chance of a really spirited conversation. It won’t even get started if we can’t convince people we’re talking to that we do not want to hurt them. We can show that by the tone of our voice and the look of our body language.
For those of us who have violent tendencies we must swear three thousand promises NOT to set out to hurt. After all, if vegans call for harmlessness on one level they must respect it on all levels, surely. There’s so much hurt in the world, why add to it? It’s like a vasectomised man in an overpopulated world who might not want to add to ‘the mix’ …
In a nutshell, never get involved in emotionally attacking anyone, especially if they’ve asked us to talk to them about this issue.