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Hi Pamela,
I am writing to you on behalf of the organizing committees of the Paris and Rome Veggie Prides.
First of all, our apologies are due for not getting back to you earlier after you contacted us last June. We are not many and there is a lot to do, and each of us is also engaged in the organization of other events; that is one of the reasons for the delay.
We have learned that you are finally organizing a Veggie Pride in New York. In itself that is reason to rejoice. However, after visiting your website, we were disappointed to find that the basic defining principles of the Veggie Pride are not implemented in the event you are planning. Yes, that is partly our fault, for not discussing the matter with you after you contacted us in June.
Specifically, if you read the French Veggie Pride site, which is translated in English and several other languages, you will find that a Veggie Pride is defined as a demonstration of people who are vegetarian for the animals. To call to the demonstration people who are vegetarian but who are not vegetarian out of regard for the animals would void the event of its basic meaning. To put on a same level the suffering and death of the direct victims of meat-eating and other indirect or personal reasons to be vegetarian also trivializes the interests of animals. So we also ask there to be no banners or slogans, whether written or chanted, that put forward environmental, health or other reasons to be a vegetarian. The aim is to have a gathering that is centered on what is done to the animals, and that celebrates the fact that some people refuse to participate in their massacre.
Another point is that we feel it important that the demonstration be defined as a gathering of individuals, rather than of groups. Only individuals are vegetarians, not groups! That is why we do not accept banners from organizations. Each individual should be at the demonstration to express her or his own decision to refuse to eat animal corpses. That does not mean that organizations cannot participate at all, but their role should be strictly limited, for instance to a gathering at the end of the demonstration.
It is important for the animals that the Veggie Pride should become an international event; and especially important that it should take place in a city such as New York. Animals are butchered everywhere, and the globalization of the Veggie Pride idea is important to us. But that will not be the case if the concept itself is changed and is no longer that of a protest against the butchering of animals! The impact will not be the same if instead of a demonstration centered on animals and on our pride at refusing to eat them, it is simply a joyous parade of people who wish to celebrate a certain lifestyle that they happen to have adopted for a variety of reasons.
The best thing as we see it would be to manage to convince you to make changes in the demonstration you are planning to bring it more in line with the Paris and Rome events. If that is not possible, we will ask you to make it clear that the New York event is not the same as the Paris and Rome Veggie Prides, and to change the name and delete or rephrase the references to the Paris and Rome Veggie Prides.
We do not want you to feel this message as hostile, and, as we have said, it is largely our fault that we did not get back to you earlier. We would like to discuss the issue with you. If necessary, we could discuss it by phone; I can call the US without charge, so if you could give me your number we could have a chat.
Below you will find an outline of the basic defining points of a Veggie Pride as we have written them down. Those conditions may seem stringent to you, but the fact is that they leave a lot of room for variation, adaptation and innovation. For instance, the Roman Veggie Pride, organized for the first time this year, will be markedly different from the Paris one.
David, for the Paris and Rome Veggie Pride organizing committees
Dear Verity,
Thank you for your email. I'm sorry it took us a few days to put this answer together.
Unfortunately, I must tell you that we cannot consider the event you are planning, in the way you are planning it, as a Veggie Pride, and that we object to its being called such.
The basic conditions that define a Veggie Pride demonstration are in the short text that Agnese Pignataro already pointed out to you in her June and July messages and that can be found on the Veggie Pride international page, at:
http://www.veggiepride.org/en/definition.html
We would like to explain a bit more our position because it is important for us that you understand it.
The Veggie Pride demonstration was invented in 2001, in Paris. Before that date, the name “Veggie Pride” simply did not exist; there was no event by that name and there never had been one before. The event we created was based on a specific, original, idea. Thus our request is whoever wants to hold an event that not fit that idea should not call it a Veggie Pride. There are many different possible names in the English language; you could call your event a “Veggie Parade”, or a “Veg Carnival”, or anything else; we only ask you not to call it a Veggie Pride, please!
The basic idea of the Veggie Pride is that it is important, in the face of the immense worldwide suffering and slaughter of animals, for those who refuse to participate in that suffering and slaughtering by eating animals to speak out and publicly display their existence and their refusal. And that it is important for them to do so without blurring and diluting their message with human-oriented claims concerning health, the environment or the third world or anything else.
Why on earth is it impossible for the animals to count enough in their own right for there to be at least one day in the year, just one day, in which people have the courage to publicly denounce their plight by itself, without feeling obliged to add in other motives?
It is clear from your website that the event you are planning is not in line with the definition of a Veggie Pride. On your website, you invite all vegetarians to the event, whatever their motives for not eating animals; the environment, human health and third world issues are placed on a par with the suffering and death of the animals. You also invite non-vegetarians to the demo; the idea being to celebrate the vegetarian “lifestyle”. But the Veggie Pride is not about a “lifestyle”, which is something there is no reason to be either proud or ashamed of; the Veggie Pride is about refusing to eat animals, for the animals' sake.
The Veggie Pride is the first, and to date the only, demonstration where people clearly state that the interests of animals are reason enough to refuse to eat them and to go to the streets to voice their refusal. By using the name “Veggie Pride” for a completely different event, you are, in fact if not in intent, silencing our voices.
In addition to the definition of the Veggie Pride demo:
http://www.veggiepride.org/en/definition.html
please review the FAQ on the Veggie Pride website, and specifically the third section concerning the fundamental choices defining the concept:
http://www.veggiepride.org/en/faq/3.html
Please understand that we do not criticize your planned demonstration. If you do not adhere to the basic Veggie Pride ideas, as they were defined when the concept was invented, you are free to organize a different event. However, to appropriate the name of the concept that we founded and to use it for a completely different event is to effectively silence it. It will make it ever harder for us to have our message heard, which is that the animals count, and that people feel strongly enough about the animals to refuse to go on eating them. We ask you to respect our demonstration and to change the name of yours.
We wish you all the best for the event you are planning — but not as a Veggie Pride!
David, for the organizers of the French and Italian Veggie Pride demonstrations
(Though of course, if instead you change your mind and decide to organize an event that is in line with the definition of the Veggie Pride, you are very welcome to call it a Veggie Pride, and we will be happy to list your event on the international Veggie Pride site.)