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In Defence of Revolutionary Veganism: A Talk and Q&A at London Vegfest, October 2019.

11/11/2019

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I'm always keen to talk about the radicalism in the values of those who began the vegan social movement in the 1940s - and I'm always concerned if their vision is challenged in what I regard as movement-damaging ways.

Currently, it seems to me that the ideas that (1) veganism is a diet and (2) veganism is only about human relations with other animals are movement-damaging trends.

Here's part of the official "blurb" for the talk..

In 1944, during “World War II,” the vegan social movement emerged as declared peace and justice-for-all. At least three of the anti-authoritarian founders of the vegan movement were conscientious objectors, refusing to kill anyone, and prepared to suffer the consequences of their moral consistency. Donald Watson says that people were “shattered” by the experience of a global conflict, and the early vegan movement pioneers set about analysing why humanity was so violent and what could be done – their solution was a revolutionary philosophy of veganism. Their vision of a vegan future was truly remarkable.
 
Presently, that vision is being challenged and reduced versions of veganism are currently proposed. In this talk, I will argue that modern day veganism has lost the radicalism of the founders of our movement: a revolutionary vision needed more than ever at a time of climate crisis.​

Many thanks to Tim Barford and Alan Lee of VegfestUK and Jeremy Hess of Vegan Interactions who filmed and edited the talk. Special thanks to Karin Ridgers of VeggieVision TV who helped us to find the correct exit. 

​
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On Human Relations with Other Sentient Beings Nominated for Prestigious VegfestUK Vegan Awards 2016 - Vote Now!

8/16/2016

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This blog site has been nominated in the "Best Vegan Bogger/Info Website" category at the VegfestUK Awards 2016, which celebrate the very best of a vegan lifestyle in the UK.

YOU can vote for this site HERE




Running since 2007, the awards are the highlight of the year for many vegan businesses, organisations, projects and people, with tens of thousands of votes cast each year. Small vegan businesses and charities especially benefit from the marketing and prestige the awards create, and they have become a much loved and much valued part of the UK vegan community.


The VegfestUK organisers added, “With over half a million people identifying as vegan, and half a million veggies actively seeking vegan options, there have been a huge explosion in vegan products, projects and organisations. The VegfestUK Awards 2016 reflect both the quality and diversity within the vegan market today, and to be nominated for an award in 2016 is a huge achievement in itself. We expect the “best vegan blogger/info website” category to be hugely contested.”



Bi-weekly updates of the awards results will be announced under “Awards” section on the Vegfest Express online vegan magazine www.vegfestexpress.co.uk 
Voting will close at midnight sharp on Friday September 30th 2016.


The awards results will be announced at the presentation ceremony to be held on Saturday October 22nd 2016 from 3:00 - 4:00pm in the Auditorium, at Level 3 of Olympia London Exhibition Centre, as part of a huge VegfestUK London 2016. Trophies for the awards will be presented by Karin Ridgers, presenter of VeggieVision TV, alongside frontman John Robb of punk rock band Goldblade and singer with The Membranes.


The official hashtag for the VegfestUK Awards 2016 is #VegfestUKAwards2016


As one of Europe’s biggest vegan events, VegfestUK London is a celebration of all things vegan, spanning the whole weekend October 22nd 23rd 2016. The event consists of 250 stalls and 20 caterers, plus a Vegan Athletes Summit on the Saturday, a Pro-Intersectional Vegan Conference on the Sunday, a Vegan Health Summit, a Vegan Activists Summit, a Mature Zone, a Teen Zone, cookery demos, a living raw zone, on top of standup comedy, music, kids activities and more!


Advance tickets to the event are on sale at www.london.vegfest.co.uk/ticket-info They are priced at £12 for adults and £8 for concessions, plus small booking and transaction fees. BUY ONE GET ONE FREE offers are available for a LIMITED PERIOD ONLY, after which advance tickets will then be on BUY ONE GET ONE HALF PRICE for another limited period. Limited quantities of tickets are available on the gate at £15 for adults and £10 for concessions. Kids under 16 can enter for free.


VegfestUK also organises 3 other big vegan events after its London edition:
Vegfest Scotland, December 3rd 4th 2016, SECC (Hall 3) in Glasgow,www.vegfestscotland.com 
VegfestUK Brighton, March 11th 12th 2017, Brighton Centre, website live from September 2016
VegfestUK Bristol, May 20th 21st 2017, Amphitheatre, website live from September 2016

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My Four VegFest Bristol 2016 Talks

5/30/2016

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I've collected together the four short talks I did at VegFest Bristol 2016.

The most challenging one was the one on animal rights philosophy - or what I called rights-based animal rights. A 25 minute slot is barely enough time to scratch the surface, but I hope that it planted a few seeds and encouraged people to check out the works cited.
​

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​Tim Barford's VegFestUK Helping to Bring the Vegan Animal Rights Grassroots Together and to the Fore

11/25/2015

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World Vegan Day 2015 saw the inaugural Dublin VegFest, the first ever vegan-focused all-day festival in Ireland. It was a spectacular success, not least in my view because the entire event was grassroots orientated.
 
None of the usual representatives of the “animal rights corporate sector” were there – and neither there were the usual stale superstar talkers peddling “reducetarianism” and other business-led less-than-vegan positions.
 
One of the things I remember most of the day is the number of Irish activists who came up saying words to the effect: “where have all these vegans come from?”
 
They were remarking on the huge numbers of people who no-one active in the Irish movement had seen before; people who were saying that they had been vegan* for one or two years, several months, even three or four days sometimes.
 
This raises a few important movement issues, not least the worry some people have, Ronnie Lee for example, and Bernie Wright of the Dublin-based Alliance for Animal Rights, that there are far too few vegans who are active campaigners. The other thing worth pointing out is that there is absolutely no reason to think that the word “vegan” is a societal scare word that should be avoided at any time.**
 
In the light of this Irish context – and is written from Ireland during World Vegan Month where the whole animal advocacy community is buzzing from the effects of the brilliant Eden Farmed Animal Sanctuary’s Go Vegan Ireland poster, billboard and bus/train/tram campaign – it is heartening to see the recent developments in the VegFestUK campaigns.
 
VegFestUK manager Tim Barford is focusing on, and rightly emphasising, the importance and centrality of grassroots campaigning. He’s also underlining the fact that the vegan movement is, first and foremost, a social justice movement, something elements of it seem keen to jettison or downplay.
 
I think Tim Barford shares a concern that has bothered me in the last few years: the deliberate reduction of veganism from a justice-for-all philosophy to a diet, often based on shallow, often temporary, plant-based celebrities, and increasing driven by data from sales and pop psychology research which does not necessarily fit well in a radical social justice setting.
 
Justice is not for sale – or shouldn’t be.
 
It seems to me that animal advocacy in Britain as well as in Ireland – with Barford as a prime mover (he greatly assisted Dublin VegFest) – is regaining something it should never, ever, have lost: the recognition that the nub and nucleus of a social movement is its grassroots.
 
Long may this welcome phase continue, and let’s hope that this renewed focus sees off the current fad of “reducetarianism,” again based on weak research findings (if that’s not too grand a word for it).
 
So, a big shout out to Tim Barford for helping to bringing back the heart of the animal advocacy movement.
 

​

* there’s obviously the issue of whether these people were saying they follow a plant-based diet, or the expansive philosophy of veganism.
 
** this raises the question of the use of the name “VegFest” as opposed to, for example, “vegan festival.” However, it seems fairly clear from media and movement reaction that it’s understood that “VegFest” means vegan-based.



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    Roger Yates

    Dr. Roger Yates is a rights advocate and sociologist

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