The following is an excerpt from Fat Gay Vegan: Eat, Drink and Live Like You Give a Sh!t. (Nourish Books)
Why should vegans (and all citizens!) work hard to build healthy communities?
Community is not all about vegan beer festivals and eating as much as you can at a potluck. We vegans also need to take action for other members of our community in order to foster solidarity and resist oppression. That might result in you having to extend yourself into situations that don’t directly benefit you personally, but being part of a healthy community is sometimes watching your neighbours succeed or be lifted up instead of you.
If you vote in local and national elections, one of the best ways you can help your community is by not voting for politicians with oppressive agendas or policies. Of course we often look for candidates with the most progressive policies around animal welfare such as members of the European parliament who have been vocal in their support of laws to stop the testing of cosmetics on animals (FGV note: this was written before Brexit!), but we need to also back representatives who are interested in protecting our health and disability services, pushing for fair wages, abolishing damaging working contracts, showing compassion for refugees, bolstering public education and protecting the natural environment.
Some of these campaigning issues might feel disconnected from veganism in your mind, but I can assure you that even as a vegan I have required hospitalisation and education. I have needed lawful protection as a gay person and as a worker. Politicians voting to take away your public services are not doing anything positive for your vegan communities — so you need to look for government representatives with an interest in protecting every human. Strong vegan advocacy can only spring forth from strong, united communities and we can help shape such a world by entrusting our political landscape with inclusive and progressive representatives.
If you can afford to do it, donate money or time towards helping independent businesses set up in your area. The entire community benefits from having vibrant, useful and progressive independent businesses in its midst. Money made by a local business is then spent in your community, helping to stabilise and support your area. Look for fundraising campaigns designed to help cover the costs associated with setting up a new business and give funds if you are able. If you can send money further afield, consider supporting small vegan business in countries or regions with less opportunity. You don’t have to limit acts of community to strengthening your own community.
Give back to your community by attending locally organised events that have an emphasis on supporting independent business. If you are able to offer time, volunteer at them: you will be helping organisers keep costs lower, you will meet members of your community and you will be an active participant and not just a passive bystander. Use whatever means you have at your disposal to spread news of local vegan events whether that be word of mouth, offering to distribute flyers, or posting on social media. Do these things even if you know you can’t make it to a specific event. A fun, vibrant and inclusive event is all about developing social capital for the people around you and you have a big part to play in the process.
Look to help vegans in your area even if it’s not a vegan problem they need help to solve. It sounds hokey and dripping with feel good sentimentality, but be prepared to offer your support to people you meet and try to resist the notion of only looking out for your immediate friends and family. Individuals you encounter within vegan circles will all have varying social, emotional and financial strains and stresses. If you can assist to lighten one person’s load, you are actively strengthening your community. Helping others is in your best interest.
I feel that a vegan community really shows its true power when it unites to do good outside of the narrow constraints of veganism, just as we’ve seen with other minority social justice groups raising their voices for causes outside of their own, such as Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners during the 1980s miners’ strike. By the time you read this book, I will have raised money via my vegan beer events around the UK to help support the work carried out by Mexico City-based Isla Urbana. Isla Urbana goes into communities in need to install desperately required water collection systems in homes and schools throughout some of the most economically disadvantaged neighbourhoods of the Mexican capital. These areas are often completely cut off from services such as clean drinking and cooking water even, a basic human right that the vast majority of people within the UK enjoy.
Vegans shouldn’t just care about not eating animals, and our compassion is more convincing and powerful when it is not limited. I asked members of UK vegan communities who came to my beer events to extend their compassion in a small way to people living in Mexico without water. The collective power of the people at these beer events was directed to benefit people on the other side of the world. There is an important takeaway about community in this example and that is an effective, united and empowered community works to improve outcomes for their own members as well as contributing to wellness and equitable outcomes on a global scale.
Community is less about achieving victories for the individual and more about everyone being in it together. It goes against what we are told by politicians and mainstream media, but you honestly don’t need to be the richest person in the room to be happy. Joy and fulfilment will come from feeling loved, supported and respected by your community. Your worth as a human does not stand apart from what you can contribute to all the various communities to which you belong, vegan or otherwise.
Consider what value or long-term happiness you can sustain as a vegan activist if people in your community cannot afford to pay their bills. How will you be an effective campaigner against suffering if elected politicians get to work to close hospitals or strip away affordable health care? The broader community in which you exist is in turn the bedrock of your vegan communities. You have a responsibility to nurture and champion all communities of which you are a member, as well as other communities on the planet to which you do not belong. Improved outcomes for animals, humans and the planet can only be achieved by dedicating yourself to building communities that support all human and non-human wellbeing.
You can order my book ‘Fat Gay Vegan: Eat, Drink and Live Like You Give a Sh!t’ online now. It has been out a while now but is still a good read. You can also listen to the Audiobook read by me!
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