With "Lesbian and Gay Pride" homosexuals were able to 'come out of their closet', to announce in public that they weren't embarrassed by their sexuality, and to denounce homophobia. Numerous vegetarians and vegans want to do the same thing with 'vegephobia'. They want to be able to express their desire not to exploit animals.
The use of the term pride to defend the rights of vegetarians and vegans creates a parallel between the two demonstrations, which are similar in many ways.
Also, Veggie Pride has an international vocation. Its website (www.veggiepride.org) is translated into several languages; the organisations which support it come from different countries; since the second demonstration many foreigners have taken part, and we hope that eventually similar demonstrations will take place in other countries. The name “Veggie Pride” can be easily adopted abroad, without the need for translation.
Our pride means firstly the wish to proclaim that we shouldn't be ashamed of our decision not to kill animals for our consumption, that we will no longer be intimidated by the jibes that this choice provokes.
From our point of view, animal exploitation is not morally justifiable behaviour.
Therefore, not eating animals is the least we can do - just as we won't rape or torture people.
But those who eat meat are just perpetuating the horrors inscribed in their culture and to get rid of this system is not an easy thing.
This is why we prefer to put forward our pride at having said no to animal exploitation. We condemn the ideology of the exploitation rather than those who participate in the massacre.
The winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature Isaac Bashevis Singer said that becoming vegetarian was the thing that made him most proud in his life.
Our pride means having done the least of things, something very important but elementary, that the whole world must do and can do.
Veggie Pride is a demonstration by vegetarians and vegans against animal exploitation and is therefore similar to other movements whose goals are animal protection and the promotion of vegetarianism and veganism.
What distinguishes Veggie Pride from the other animal rights movements is that it puts vegetarianism/veganism at the forefront, believing that animal consumption causes the most suffering to animals.
What also distinguishes it from other movements is that its goal is not to present a particular diet or way of life, as interesting as it may be. Its uniqueness lies in the inclusion of a moral message (pride in not eating animals) and numerous demands linked to the fight against vegephobia.
We are sometimes reproached for not using all the available arguments for promoting vegetarianism and veganism:
This choice is deliberate. It isn't that we find these other arguments negligible. But we wanted to break away from the ideology that a cause only merits being defended if it serves human interests. The other animals are the main victims of the physical abuse and the killing for meat. To put an end to this is sufficient reason to stop devouring them. Veggie Pride is dedicated to them.
What matters to us above all, as vegetarians and vegans against animal exploitation, the slaughter of animals. Aren't we betraying them by defending our rights rather than theirs?
We are not ashamed of asking for rights for ourselves. It would be absurd to arguethat we do so instead of fighting for the rights of non-human animals. A little story to explain this point ...
A lady enters a shop. She asks if she can put up a poster calling for people to demonstrate against discrimination and violence towards foreigners. The shopkeeper, who is deeply xenophobic, insults the woman and brutally throws her outside.
Is that woman wrong to denounce the aggression she has suffered? Should she keep quiet on the pretext that this unfortunate experience is nothing compared to what foreigners put up with?
In fact, she was insulted for siding with the victims of xenophobia. The reason why she was attacked is the same as the one which causes the more serious suffering to those with whom she is showing solidarity. By protesting at what was done to her, she defends her right to act in order that this suffering ceases.
Similarly, Veggie Pride participants denounce the behaviour that they are victims of which is a manifestation of the attitudes which more seriously damage other animals.
The rights which society gives us are the only ones that other animals possess indirectly today. In this respect they are very precious. It's for this reason that we don't fight on the margins of society, but within society, and that we intend to get respect for our rights as citizens and in particular the right to question animal consumption.
Veggie Pride is just one form of action amongst many. Each of us in our own way is also involved in the struggles to directly defend animals.
From the moment that we admit that we refuse to imprison, force-feed, terrorise, mutilate, deprive of social interaction, asphyxiate, knock out, electrocute, cut the throats of others simply to satisfy old habits or dietary preferences, our ideas are at best mocked, shouted down (over-sensitivity, immaturity..) or, worse, suspected of promoting odious ideologies (hating humanity, allegiance to dangerous cults.) Many vegetarians and vegans prefer to pass unnoticed or to give false reasons in the hope of escaping the mockery and the social reprobation.
Vegephobia is the phenomenon which constrains vegetarians and vegans either not to take responsibility for their convictions, or to find themselves marginalized by their entourage. Through Veggie Pride we want to say that we no longer accept this situation. We want to see a reasoned discussion of our proposals, in place of the laughs and insults.
Saying to people "animals are killed so that you can eat them", is not about attacking these people, it's about refusing to lie to them, it's about considering that they are capable of understanding everything we have already understood.
Through Veggie Pride, we simply want to express publicly, collectively, frankly, without exaggeration or censure, what we think. We no longer want to have a choice between hypocrisy or marginalization. We consider it to be both our right and a mark of respect towards those who surround us.
Questioning what people eat is often seen as a sign of intolerance, an encroachment on an area of purely personal choice. However there is no reason to grant such an exceptional immunity to dietary choices. The legitimacy of the act of eating animal flesh, and therefore of causing suffering to and killing animals, is an ethical question, and can as such become the subject of a debate at the heart of society, just like any other ethical question.
It is, on the contrary, the desire to directly forbid such a debate which seems intolerant to us.
Wouldn't it be more effective, in order to convince people not to eat meat, or to eat less of it, to use, like so many vegetarians and vegans, more consensual arguments than those relating to the fate inflicted on animals; such as the arguments concerning health, the third world, or ecology? Can't we bring people round to our point of view without speaking about the animals, and without getting people who eat animals to face up to their responsibilities concerning the treatment of animals?
We don't believe this, or in any case refuse to accept the discourse which makes that out to be the only acceptable strategy.
We believe that the extent of the suffering and the death caused by the consumption of meat justifies that we speak loud and clear on this subject, at least to have arguments against such frankness which have a stronger efficacy than those presented to us.