Lettres envoyées à New York, Birmingham (en), etc.

De Wiki Veggie Pride fr.

Lettre envoyée à Pamela Rice (New York)

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

Lettre envoyée à Verity (Birmingham)

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.)

Réponse à Berlinvegan

Reçu le 11 mars 2011 de Berlinvegan:

Subject: Question regarding pictures on your website
From:    "Doreen Rothe"<doreen_rothe@yahoo.de>
Date:    Fri, March 11, 2011 7:02 am
To:      contact@veggiepride.fr

Hi,

we, a Berlin-based association of vegan animal rights activists
(http://www.berlin-vegan.org/), are planning to follow the example of  the
various cities performing a Veggie Parade. Of course we would like  to
create an
associated website. Since it's going to be our first parade  this year we
don't
have any pictures yet. That's why we'd like to ask  you if we might use
some of
the general pictures on your website.
We would be very grateful!
Thank you very much in advance!

Kind regards, Doreen Rothe from Berlin

Réponse envoyée le 13 mars (par David, mais du compte contact@veggiepride.fr) à doreen_rothe@yahoo.de:

Dear Doreen,

Thank you for your message.

We are happy to hear from you as vegan activists in Berlin, and encourage any initiative
that increases public awareness of the debate concerning the legitimacy of eating animals
and of mistreating them.

However, we must explain to you that the Veggie Pride concept, as we introduced it in 2001
and have implemented it during ten years of demonstrations in several European cities, has
a precise definition. The "Veggie Parades" that have been organized in New York, Los
Angeles and elsewhere to do not fit this concept. We find it important to maintain this
distinction.

Above all, the Veggie Pride is a demonstration centered on the refusal to eat animals for

the animals' sake. This means that any arguments about the various advantages vegetarian
and vegan lifestyles may have for the humans who practice them or for the environment must
be absent or given a clearly secondary status.

We have produced a defining text of what a Veggie Pride demonstration is; it can be found
online here. The text is the following:

> 1. The demonstration must be centered on the refusal to eat animals out of regard for
> the animals. Other motives to be a vegetarian — the environment, health, the third
> world... — must be either left out altogether or be given a clearly subordinate status.
>
>
> 2. The Veggie Pride must be a demonstration of individuals, who come to demonstrate as
> individuals. Associations and other groups may be present, but in a subordinate manner,
> for instance by participating in activities organized outside of the main demonstration.
>
>
> 3. Those individuals come to express the fact that they do not eat animals out of
> regard for the animals; and that they deem that right.
>
>
> 4. The participation in the demonstration is open to any person who refrains from
> eating animals out of regard for the animals (whether or not that person has additional
> motives to be vegetarian).
>
>
> 5. The demonstration asks society to accept an open debate on the issue of the
> consumption of meat in relation to the violence that it implies against the animals.
>
>
> 6. The demonstration is non violent, and, if possible, legal.

Please see the FAQ, which explains why the demonstration is defined as it is.

The "Veggie Parades" in New York, Los Angeles, etc. do not fit at all this definition; in
particular, they are not centered on the refusal to eat animals for the animals' sake.
This empties the event of its basic meaning, as we see it. Furthermore, they are not
defined as demonstrations of individuals refusing to eat animals, but include activist
associations and commercial interests. Individuals, not associations, refuse to eat
animals, and it is individuals who should come out of the closet to express their
rejection of animal exploitation.

We have taken no copyright on the expression "Veggie Pride", but believe that for clarity
any demonstration that does not fit the Veggie Pride concept should find itself a
different name. We regret that the organizers of the New York and Los Angeles events have,
despite our request, chosen to use the term "Veggie Pride Parade", which blurs the
distinction. We think that honest and constructive relations inside the animal movement
should imply that original initiatives should be respected, rather than hijacked.

We ask you to examine whether the event you plan fits the above definition. You may also
read the Veggie Pride manifesto, which expresses the spirit of the demonstration, though
it is not a defining document (contrarily to the above text).

If you do find yourself in agreement with this definition, we will be very happy that the
Veggie Pride will have come to Berlin, after Paris, Rome, Lyon and Milan!

If the event you wish to organize is of a different kind, you have our encouragements
too, since we believe in pluralism and in the right of different approaches to express
themselves. We ask you, however, to name your event in a way that makes it clear that it
is not the same as a Veggie Pride. The expression "Veggie Parade", we find, is too close
to the name "Veggie Pride" and does not convey the distinction.

Concerning the pictures: For many of them, we hold no particular rights; legally, they
probably can be used freely. However, if the event you plan is not a Veggie Pride, in
our mind it would not be appropriate to use them, because it would not respect the
specificity of the Veggie Pride.

With our best regards,

The organizers of the upcoming Paris and Marseille Veggie Pride demonstrations