Veggie Pride UK will be a fantastic fun-filled festival and carnival procession, celebrating and promoting compassionate, healthy, eco-friendly vegetarian and vegan lifestyles. Taking place in Birmingham City Centre on Saturday 16 May 2009. It`s the first event of it`s kind in the UK!
Transport is being arranged from the Leeds/Bradford area as well as from other locations from around the country.There`s only 5 weeks to go, so get your coach seats booked soon! See also their Urgent Appeal for Funds.
Mimicking the hugely successful Veggie Pride events in New York, Paris and Rome, the Vegan Midlands Campaigns group has organised a large gathering in Birmingham to celebrate all that is good about a meat free lifestyle.
![Veggie Pride UK 2009](/images/2009/04/427264.jpg)
Attracting sponsorship from a variety of ethical organisations such as the Vegan Society and Animal Aid, it`s an opportunity for everyone following compassionate, eco-friendly, healthy lifestyles to come together for a fun, carnival style event whilst also raising awareneness of the many benefits - for human health, animals, environment etc.
The group hosting the event has previously held a variety of Vegan Food Fairs and the West Midlands Vegan Festival and are all active campaigners for a meat-free lifestyle.
Transport has been organised from the following areas. If you can arrange coach or minibus transport from your area, please contact the organisers as soon as possible so they can display details on their website.
Yorkshire
Picking up Leeds at 9am, Wakefield at 9.20 and Sheffield at 9.40am. £10 a seat.
email animalrightswestyorks (at) yahoo.com or ring 01924 374295 for more details.Manchester
- more details coming soon...
Bristol
- May also pick up in Cheltenham, Gloucester or Worcester depending on interest.
Contact 07595 745441 or barc (at) hotmail.co.uk for details. London
- Leaving Central London at 8.30am.
For further details, contact info (at) londonanimalrights.org.uk or 07899 775493. Nottingham
- For details, contact nar (at) veggies.org.uk or 0845 458 9596 or 07870 861837.
See you all in Birmingham!! :)
Comments
Hide the following comment
A criticism of Veggie parades
23.04.2009 02:48
At least with a parade that is explicitly and consistently vegetarian, the organizers would not be stepping on the ideological toes of people interested in taking a serious stance on human/nonhuman relations (i.e. vegans and proponents of nonhuman rights). It's tremendously unfortunate that vegetarianism managed to outlive the 20th century. Vegans don't help matters by participating in or promoting 'veggie' events. Vegetarians should skip these parades and spend that time investigating veganism.
But what if they were "Vegan Pride" parades? I would still demur, for the following reasons: Temporary satisfaction in becoming vegan is understandable, but pride in being vegan is unwarranted. Fulfilling our minimal obligation demanded by the rights of sentient beings should be expected. Most would find it peculiar, and probably inappropriate, to have parades for people who denounce sexism or racism. So why should we have them for those who condemn speciesism?
Furthermore, such an event could reinforce perceptions of vegans as self-righteous. Veganism isn't about you or me. Vegans are not heroes, nor the elite few. If we ever hope to have a serious justice movement oriented toward abolishing nonhuman slavery, our efforts must cultivate an external focus on nonhumans. Marches, rallies, and other demonstrations could certainly do this if carefully formulated. But I do not believe the 'Pride parade' model fits the bill.
That the LGBTQ community or another group subject to discrimination would have Pride parades is understandable. Such events can focus attention upon victims and their resistance to hegemonic societal norms (e.g. heternormativity), as well as challenge the moral legitimacy of society denying them equal consideration and respect because of whatever "defect" it has identified.
The vegan movement must begin to recognize that the fundamental problems are anthropocentrism and speciesism. Thus, the relevant victims are enslaved nonhumans. An appropriately analogous Pride parade couldn't even be organized without undermining our vegan principles!
Vegan Abolitionist
e-mail:
nathan22t [@] gmail [.] com
Homepage:
http://vegan-abolitionist.blogspot.com