Archive for March, 2010

This is a guest blog from Chris of the Athens Vegans collective in Athens, Greece. He writes about the importance of creating community and staying true to the vegan theory of non-exploitation. For more information, visit the Athens Vegans’ website at http://athensvegans.blogspot.com.

Dear friends in the L.O.V.E. community, hello!

I’m Chris and I’m posting on behalf of the Athens Vegans, a vegan collective in Athens, Greece. This is our first post on the L.O.V.E. blog and we are really glad to have found you, because for us it’s a great honour to be part of the L.O.V.E. anti-oppression collective, which has been a great resource of support and inspiration and we’ll try in turn to contribute in the most positive way.

Our group is just a few months old and it was formed for the purpose of promoting veganism, which is virtually unknown in this country. Our effort is based on the principle of doing essential and credible work and not just form a group for the sake of it. We perceive veganism in the same broader sense that L.O.V.E. and The Vegan Ideal do: as a theory and practice of anti-oppression, and the words vegan and veganism in this post are used with this meaning. In our mind, we think of this view of veganism as deep veganism (in an analogy with deep ecology). So we feel the huge responsibility on our shoulders to introduce and promote veganism on that basis and not as a dietary trend or consumer practice, as it is portrayed by its opponents.

Our involvement with the issue of veganism and the subsequent study of animal advocacy worldwide, made us realize that there are some serious mistakes being made that we in no way want to repeat. Also, we’ve come to consider as the greatest hindrance to veganism the immense confusion, deliberate or not, present in animal advocacy. Instead of the straightforward promotion of veganism which liberates animals from human oppression, we have four more approaches claiming to pursue the interests of animals: vegetarianism, animal welfare, animal rights, and the animal liberation front. As if the propaganda of the vested interests wasn’t enough, these approaches create confusion, distract from the goal and send a contradictory message to society. In the end, all these things reinforce the current structure and its beliefs and so any approach that functions in this way does not have a place in any struggle. For us, it is now clear that the above approaches are alien and hostile both to veganism and the issue of animals and they are involved in animal advocacy for their own benefit (NPIC) and to promote their own agenda. So we’ve decided to leapfrog these in-between stages of advocacy that have virtually marginalized veganism, towards the clear, movement building approach of L.O.V.E..

The above analysis has led us in setting three goals:

First and foremost, to bring vegans back to the theory of veganism. Veganism as a holistic theory of anti-oppression is the only appropriate theory to shape a vegan consciousness. No other theory or approach can shape a vegan consciousness, nor is it entitled to do it. When it does so, it is for the purpose of misrepresenting and undermining veganism. In other words, vegans need to realise that they can rely directly on their theory and its vision and not on the appropriated, co-opted version of veganism put forth by its opponents. And much to our bitterness, but rather predictably, we’ve faced the fiercest opposition from some local vegans who still stick to this version of veganism.

Second, to promote vegan activism, which is about introducing and raising an awareness of the interconnection of human and animal oppression, it is in accordance with the values of veganism (such as non-violence) and strives towards the creation of a vegan movement.  So, by focusing strictly on vegan activism and not participating in activism by the other approaches, we think that we are sending a clear message to the people.

Third, to make sure that our effort is constantly in the direction of eliminating the confusion. To that end, we will remain focused on targeting oppression and its ensuing ideology (speciesism, sexism, racism, etc), while being as minimalist and concise as possible (no endless, about everything discussions/posts). And since the oppression towards animals is the foundation for all forms of oppression (even the most oppressed human can intentionally or unintentionally oppress non humans), we’ll allocate a greater amount of our time and resources to it, while at the same time being in solidarity and respecting any genuine struggle to eliminate every other form of oppression.

Now, since the vast area of animal advocacy is really a vast desert of disappointment with no sign for the slightest positive outcome, the need for restoring veganism (the way L.O.V.E. and The Vegan Ideal do) is even more imperative. Indeed, now it’s more obvious than ever that we need to make the leap in that direction and this, in fact, is expressed in the identifying slogan of our collective: Let’s make the LEAP in the spreading of veganism!

By that we don’t mean a simple numerical growth of “accidental” vegans but the slow and steady process of building the local vegan movement/collective on the basis of the vegan/anti-oppression consciousness of its members. This requires the formulation of a clear ideological position, by processing the available material and delivering it in a way of our own, that is, finding our own voice. It’s a time consuming process but eventually it will attract the right kind of members to the local vegan movement we aspire to build.

This is our intention and thanks to L.O.V.E. and The Vegan Ideal (actually we discovered  L.O.V.E. through a post from that blog), our great inspirers in this endeavour, we’ve learned a lot on how to get started with this, but we’ll need and count on your help all along the way.

For now, all the best from all of us here and we thank you once again for your kind help and support!

For the Athens Vegans

Chris Georgiadis