In contrast to the Brighton Vegan Fayre, the Incredible Veggie Show in London on Saturday, April 18 was professionally managed. I know from experience how much work goes into organizing events of this kind. With one very serious complaint, VIVA! deserve to be congratulated on their accomplishment. For a while I stood in the lobby and watched people arrive at the show. Attendees ranged in ages and backgrounds with a healthy proportion of men present. There appeared to be a mix of newcomers and stalwarts. The show was particularly successful for people exploring animal welfare and discovering how to live vegan/vegetarian and cruelty-free.
My three main grumbles about the Brighton Vegan Fayre (see here and here) was the location (the Brighton Centre was too big and inhospitable), the food (there wasn’t any) and the admittance fee (£8). The Incredible Veggie Show gets good marks on all three. The Royal Horticultural Halls in central London is an accessible location and a venue that suited the show. The entry fee was £4 (both shows offered discounts). This is reasonable amount if a fee is to be charged; however, I think these events should be free in order to get the maximum number of people through the door (“bums on seats!”). There were more food choices at the Incredible Veggie Show, including Leith’s, the Hall’s official café, offering a vegan menu, albeit a limited one. Also, there appeared to be more food exhibitors offering free samples and opportunities to buy even more stuff. Appearances may be everything, however. The Incredible Veggie Show looked and felt busier in the Royal Horticultural Halls whereas the Brighton Vegan Fayre seemed empty in the cavernous Brighton Centre.
As with the Brighton Vegan Fayre, it was again noticeable which animal welfare groups were absent. The Vegan Society, PETA, BUAV, NAVS, Born Free, Animal Rights International and others were not present at the Incredible Veggie Show. By my count, there were 20 plus animal groups exhibiting, including the organizer, VIVA and its sister organization the Vegetarian and Vegan Foundation (VVF), who occupied several stalls.
The show occurred on the same day as UK Aware, which was billed as the “UK’s only green and ethical lifestyle expo,” at Olympia 2, about 30-45 minutes away on the Underground. I wanted to go to both shows. This meant that the day had to be divided between them. As someone who is reasonably current with what’s happening, it did not take too long to walk around the Incredible Veggie Show to see who is doing what. Basically, these shows function as an opportunity for people to learn more about issues and discover alternative products and services. The challenge is to keep them fresh to not only attract new people but also to keep oldies like me who can easily say “Been there! Done that!”; coming back for more.
One way to tackle this challenge is to offer a strong educational program of speakers and films. The Incredible Veggie Show had the stronger of the two, which is not much of an achievement because the one at the Brighton Vegan Fayre was feeble. Nonetheless, at the Incredible Veggie Show (as I keep typing this I’m thinking a new name is needed) there was an impressive line up speakers. Slightly more than half of the speakers were from the twins, VIVA! and VVF. I have no issue with the organizers having a presence on the line-up but anymore than half and it starts to look unseemly. A larger and more diverse range of speakers will most likely attract more exhibitors and attendees. This is particularly true if each year the show’s speakers program is expanded and improved. This will help to bring repeat traffic, including jaded old fools like me coming back. Sadly, I did not have time to attend a Rose Elliot cooking demonstration (I’ve been using her cook books since I first bought one in 1974) and hear the barrister, Noel Sweeney, speak about an animals’ ombudsman. And, yes, it would have been fun to hear Heather Mills speak and see what all the fuss is about.
As you know, I needed to leave early to fit in the UK Aware show and only had time to go to one presentation. Of those I could attend I was pleased to see that there was a talk I had time for which was about making a difference for animal politically. This is a subject I know something about, active in and feel strongly about. The talk, “Why SPEAK Political Can Make a Difference,” was given by Keith Mann, founder, of the Animal Protection Party, which was originally known as SPEAK Political (apparently, there had been a recent name change). I may have met Keith in the past. I have his book. I am familiar with his involvement in direct action, including seven plus years in prison. But I had no idea what he was going to say.
Given the subject matter which I will come to next, I am surprised Keith Mann was invited to speak at all. The organizers made a significant error of judgment in inviting him to be a presenter. They are to blame equally if they knew what he was going to say and if they did not because they should have known.
As an experienced speaker I know it is unwise to speak for the entire time allocated and not leave time for discussion and questions and answers. I once heard Nathan J. Winograd of the No Kill Advocacy Centre speak and begin by saying he was going to talk for more than two hours because he had a lot to say and then proceeded to do so. No one needs more than 45 minutes to say what they need to say.
So, when Keith Mann took the microphone, wearing a sleeveless red singlet exposing his tattooed arms, to talk about animal welfare and political action, and tell us that he’s “Only got an hour” and “Got a lot to say” that the alarm bells began to ring. The title of his talk and its description in the program bear no similarity to what took place.
About 10 minutes in from an introduction that explained and justified his past actions with the ALF and nothing substantive about political action for animals, Mann spoke for the vast majority of the rest of the time with only a few minutes at the end for questions on why the terrorist attacks, which we colloquially know as “9/11” and “7/7,” did not happen as we are led to believe, as he argued, by the media. Apparently, there is an international conspiracy by forces unknown to create one government, one bank, one army, etc., with the express purpose to control and dominate the world’s population. Apparently, this will be achieved, in part, with adding fluoride to the water, spraying chemicals into the atmosphere and injecting microchips into our bodies. All of this, Mann said, is to make us programmable to behave in ways against our nature and interests. (At which point I thought to myself, “Is not television already doing this?”)
The talk was a conspiracy-theory rant. “Once you start to see.” “Do a bit of research to find the truth.” “Everything we’re being told is a lie.” “We have all the power in the world but we don’t know we have it.” “All the footage on 9/11 is fake.” “Obama is a puppet of the masters of the system controlling our lives.” “There are massive amounts of information out there.” “The information is out there if you’re prepared to look for it.” (I am surprised he did not quote the “X Files” and say, “The truth is out there!”)
It appears that either something good or bad, couldn’t tell which, is going to happen in 2012. It might have something to do with the monuments to David Icke on Mars. Or was it that Icke said space aliens are controlling the Earth? As you would expect, it all got very confusing. But you could buy the “Loose Change” DVD on his table. Joking aside, it was offensive. For example, among the slides Mann showed was one comparing the images of Hitler and the burning of the Reichstag with George Bush and the attack on the Twin Towers.
And what has all of this got to do with animal welfare and political action? The link was tenuous, to put it politely. Mann’s case is that because we are animal rights activists who demonstrate we can see through to the truth. It was almost as if he was saying we are a special group people because we see animal suffering and willing to speak out against it. Somehow, this enables us to see and accept the reality of our world as Mann understands it. Sorry, but I don’t get it. What’s more, I don’t get how his strategy with SPEAK Political, sorry, the Animal Welfare Party (he kept making the mistake himself), is going to achieve what he says it will. (Well, of course, I realise it won’t but you’ve got to make some effort to understand what he’s saying.)
Apparently, the Animal Welfare Party is an animal rights political party unlike any other. It’s certainly not like the “other one” which wants to “give a banana to a monkey on Christmas Day.” It has no policies. And yet it wants to take power away from existing MPs. It’s unclear if the Animal Welfare Party will put up its own candidates. But if they do, apparently, “you can get TV time and get the message out to even more.” It all depends upon how many charity shops they get. They hope to have 10 shops by the end of next year. And so it went on. It was rambling and incoherent. It was insulting and embarrassing. It made you wonder if the animal rights cause had been put in the back pocket as a lost cause and the 9/11 conspiracy theories were pushed to the front. Is the thinking that people’s self-interest through an alleged threat of world domination will help them to see that there are animals suffering and dieing in cages? In short, it was a wasted opportunity to talk seriously about a fundamental flaw in the long-term strategy of the British animal welfare movement.
Further, are we to assume that by inviting Keith Mann and SPEAK Political/Animal Protection Party and giving them a valuable opportunity to present at the Incredible Veggie Show that this is an indication of what VIVA! understand political action for animals to mean? Will VIVA! partner with SPEAK Political/Animal Protection Party at the forthcoming general election in a campaign against the culling of badgers and demand the next government to also acknowledge there are buildings on Mars? I am sure this will not be the case. Nonetheless, it was a serious error of judgment on their part and significantly spoiled what was otherwise a successful event.
UK Aware did not feel the same as the Incredible Veggie Show. The latter had a unifying theme of cruelty-free living whereas the former, notwithstanding its billing as a “green and ethical lifestyle expo,” had no coherent pro-environmental message. It felt confusing and disorganized, which is most likely due to its weird mixture of exhibits and activities.
I concluded my post about the Brighton Vegan Fayre with this paragraph.
All I saw of the future of the vegan community and the animal welfare movement in Britain at the Brighton Vegan Fayre was more of the same. Was there something else new and different that I missed?
I don’t think I saw the future of the British vegan community and animal welfare movement at the Incredible Veggie Show. This question remains unanswered. Nonetheless, the Incredible Veggie Show appeared to be a professionally managed event.
