Dora Hargitai live at Reading Vegan Festival 2021

Jim Moore 0:11

Hello, my name is Jim, this is my podcast that bloody vegans. You're very welcome to it. Each week I'll be travelling ever deeper into the world of veganism, discovering along the way a multitude of viewpoints from the political and ethical to the practical. I'll be doing this through a series of conversations, each aiming to further illuminate my understanding, and hopefully yours, of all things a plant centric. And this week is a little different. I mean, I said last week that would normal service will be returned this week. Scratch that next week, we'll be back in normal service I watched, like many of you, I watched don't look up recently. And for longtime listeners, you'll know that one of the key reasons I sort of came into veganism. At first was was environmental reasons I watched Cowspiracy that kind of turned me on to veganism. Over the course of time, of course, like most people, you come for the environment, you come for the health and you stay for the animals, that kind of that kind of mantra holds true. But I watched don't look up and it really kind of reminded me took me back to a talk that was given a reading vegan festival by Dora Hargitay. Again, longtime listeners will know the name door has been on a couple of times we did a reading vegan festival live from 2019, I think and we've also had a sit down interview pre pandemic, when we weren't on kind of digital platforms, which was really nice to see somebody in the flesh, and Dora is a pivotal figure within animal rebellion. Is, is a rebel who has campaigned pretty tirelessly over the last few years to raise awareness around the climate catastrophe that every species on this planet faces as a result of human actions. And I wanted to kind of bring that talk from this year to your attention. If you are a listener. Obviously, unless you were at the festival, you wouldn't have heard it. So I thought it would be remiss of me not to put it out there. So hopefully, you will take something from it. I always love hearing from Dora. I always feel inspired and motivated to do more when I hear from her. So hopefully, you will feel the same. Either way, normal service will be resumed from next week, we've got a fantastic lineup of the January profiles, interviews of folks within the vegan community who came to it originally, we threw through the door if you like that was opened for them by the January. And the folks down there and all the kind of work and resources that they provide for people who are vegan, curious and perhaps taking their first steps into the world. But it's really fascinating. Next week's guest, I think you're gonna you're gonna really enjoy, stay tuned to the socials etc. To find out a little bit more about who that is over the coming week. What else to tell you about So, usual ways to support the podcast. If you are an apple podcasts listener, you can subscribe through that inbuilt functions to support the podcast for just 99 pence a month which will occasionally entitle you to early access to episodes, and maybe even some exclusive content over the course of time. As we get around to making it by the way, you can feel great about supporting the work at bloody vegans podcasts. what else what else what else so if you have a review function built into your podcast provider, leaving a review, hopefully a five star review if there is a star system really helps podcast really helps it get discovered by different folks, which would be glorious. And then lastly, if you are familiar with Patreon, if you head over to Patreon, just google search Patreon. or whichever search provider you choose to use, and search for bloody vegans podcast, you will find a whole host of ways in which to support the podcast through there, many of which give you some additional benefits from merchandise and shout outs and all kinds of different things like that. So if you'd like to support the podcast in any way, there are a number of ways to do it. Glorious. All this left for me to say is have a very Happy New Year. Sorry if there's been a little bit of noise in the background of this intro there's a there's a very lively three and a half year old coming here. He probably hadn't just a very lively three and a half year old in the background in the other room, but he's managed to to his voice has managed to carry through the door which is glorious, more power to him, I say. So without further ado, let's get into reading vegan festival live 2021 with a talk given by Dora Hargitay from animal rebellion

Dora Hargitai 5:27

decided last night to ditch all of my slides and not have anything at all. Because I'm a rebel. As you probably know, if you know I'm in rebellion a little bit. And as you heard earlier, I didn't totally ditch my slide. But I'm not even going to speak about Anna rebellion. So there's a surprise, I'm going to go against everything that you expect from me today. What I would like to do instead is to have a heart to heart conversation with you, and talk about us as people us as a community, us as a vegan group, as people who live in the same country as friends as neighbours, sisters and brothers, without trying to put it under a label, whether that's any rebellion, or veganism, or whatever label you are wearing, or I'm bearing in my normal life. And the, the vegan meat of this talk is going to be about truth. And I've never been a good speaker in my life I never actually pursued to be a speaker. Actually, I was really, really bad at high school, I almost got kicked out of speakers class. But when I found the truth, I want to share, everything has changed. And ever since I've been doing this talk, I co founded and rebellion in 2018 with a group of other people. And I've been going around the country ever since spreading the truth and telling people about what's happening. So today is going to be about stories, because that's all I have, I haven't got any pictures behind me. So you will need to use your imagination a little bit and your memory to remember some stories together and also to replace your stories into the stories that I'm going to tell. So a little bit about me, I went vegan about six years ago, I was living in Scotland at the time I was working in the oil and gas industry. I was an engineer, mechanical engineer. And like probably all of you when you first go vegan, what do you do you look up information, you see all these horrific photos and videos of animals suffering, and then learn about nutrition, a bit about the environment. And it also just makes sense, right? That's pretty much the story of most people I heard of accidentally, I went to a talk. And I lived in Chicago just right after. And a friend of mine said, oh, there's a talk when we go and listen to it. And so I did. And accidentally I landed at a talk held by Wayne Chung, I don't know if you heard this name before? Or have you heard of dxc? Direct Action Everywhere? Right? Yeah, some nods around great. So Wayne is the founder of the XE. And if you don't know what the x is, it is a direct action animal rights group. And what I learned on that talk define how I think about animal liberation and how I think today about not only animal animal liberation, but about climate change, and how it all links together. So what I knew about animal liberation and veganism before I went to that talk was that we have power. And that was a very profound change, I have power, I can change, I can ditch meat from my diet. And that's going to make a whole lot of change. And that is a really empowering thoughts. But when I went to listen to Wayne speech, he talked about something more, he said, It isn't only individual power. But when people get together around the subject, and follow a certain pattern, it is possible to change Entire societies and change the course of history. And that's basically movement theory. I don't know if you've heard of this 3.5% rule. Have you ever Okay, so that basically means that if we look back at Social Justice history of of the past, in every single case, you could see a pattern repeating. And that was that if any social justice movement reached about 3.5% of population to rise up in non violent civil disobedience. Finally, eventually that cause one public interest and public attention and the cause actually, one, so example for example, the suffragette movement, or, for example, Mahatma Gandhi's independence movement, or, for example, the civil rights movement, they all follow the same pattern. So but the good news is, is even though we cannot copy and paste, replace and sort of use flatpack examples from the past, because obviously things always change. We can somewhat rely on the stories from the past. And if you understand why Dave worked, then you can use it right now to make radical systemic change. So I was talking about this experience in in America and how I listened to Wayne speak and how he just opened my mind to this idea to treat animal rights as social justice and use these patterns. And then I came back to England and decided to work and so on. And I was becoming increasingly aware of climate change. But I sort of said, separated this from anywhere, right? I thought, Okay, well, there is veganism sign and there is climate change. And I can't do both at the same time. So I went to an extinction rebellion,

opening day in 2019, April, to do vegan chanting and vegan outreach. And what I actually learned on that day, and throughout that rebellion, was something very profound, that everything I knew about system change for animal rights about the 3.5% rule doesn't apply anymore. My belief and my hope for animals was gone, because what I learned was that you also have a time constraint. If you look back at any social justice movement in history, they had hundreds of years to achieve their goals. For example, the suffrage movement achieved their goals within 200 years, it took them many, many, many generations to actually achieve to have voting rights. And the same applies for civil rights. And still today, we know that this hasn't completely gone through, but at least there has been increasing incredible steps. So we don't have hundreds of years, we do not have the luxury of thinking, Well, if we don't achieve an MRI today, we might achieve it within 10 years, 20 years, 100 years. And this is because of climate change. And so what I want to speak about first is a bit of a science, I know it's a boring bit, and I don't, I'm glad I don't have slides, because it's always there, people start to fall off the chair tired. But it's really important, I think, if we talk about the reality and the truth, and the science of climate change, and why it's so important when we speak about animal rights, because today, and my rights is facing an unprecedented challenge. It's not only that we don't have time, but it's also that once climate change hits, and we are in a social crisis, a social collapse, basically, all rights or justice groups are not going to be able to do any work, whether you are human rights, or animal rights activist, or rights activism ends when you're fighting for your everyday survival. So that's the that's a threat to animal rights. And that's why I invite all of you to think about climate change with me for a second as, as an us thing, this is going to affect all of us, and the way we can work for the animals and the way we can work for anything else for that matter. So, you know, the hockey stick curve, right? You have seen the hockey stick of climate change is basically, if you imagine global average temperature rise, if you look back at hundreds and hundreds of years, it used to be scientists say around minus 0.2 degrees centigrade, warming compared to pre industrial levels as a scientific terminology, what it really means is, we live in this beautiful atmosphere within within the planet, right. And it's a very delicate balance. And it has been going on for hundreds of years in a quite a flat flat curve doesn't make sense in a flat way. So it means that we have been provided with oxygen with with the necessary temperature to live and thrive on this planet, with all the animals and with all the plants. And what happened in the past few 100 years, it's very clear by science is no longer questionable that because of human activity, we have kicked us out of balance. So what's happening is the earth right now is in a big jump of temperature rise compared to pre industrial levels. And you might have heard of this minor thing called Paris Agreement. Right? So that's basically what happened in 2015 16. And what they said is, if we reach 1.5 degrees centigrade, temperature rise to pre industrial levels. That's when we are going to enter a time of collapse and catastrophe and absolute devastation. Today, does anyone know where we are? So we came from about minus point two to zero, going to 1.5?

Get 1.2 right now. 1.2? Right now, heading to 1.3. So what is a 1.2? degree world look like for us and for the animals? If you look around this year has been an awful example of what's happening. Have you heard of the town in Canada that burned down entirely? More than 400 people died overnight. No one expected that why everybody should expect it because they see is what climate catastrophe means is that that hockey curve goes all the way up. And it's completely unpredictable. What's happening. The way to understand average temperature rise, which is what this curve shows is that, let's say you score an average, seven out of 10 in some kind of competition, right? Average means that you score 10 Sometimes Sometimes one, sometimes seven, sometimes five, but your average is around seven, right? It means you have extremes on both sides, which adds up to your average And there's the danger of climate change. And there's a danger of ignoring this 1.2 Is it actually means that in some places, it goes up to 5349 degrees like it did in Canada, and people die overnight and animals die overnight. Okay, also what happened in Kazakhstan in 2015? About 200,000 deer died overnight again, drop dead. Why? How could it happen? It's again, because three years later, they concluded it was some kind of bacteria that spread because of the increase of the of the globe of the return average temperature. So all of these weather extremes mean that they kick nature out of balance. And this delicate balance of the earth collapses immediately. Now, to bring it back home to you or to us, what does it mean? We live and thrive at about 3637 degrees Celsius temperature, right, that's our body temperature. When it goes high up, you probably end up in hospital really soon, if it goes above 40 for a significant amount of time. And if you are 39, you're probably already taking pills, because you want to decrease it really, really quickly. Because you are in danger if you don't do that. So this is how sensitive we are. And if we imagine this is the temperature we live within and thrive within, and how easy it is to go out of this balance, you can understand how fragile the whole ecosystem is, and why it's so so so important that we keep this within these these limits. So this is about climate change. And I mentioned a few examples about what it means to animals, right, I mentioned about these animals who collapsed in, in Kazakhstan. And we talked about, we could also talk about the collection of colour rooms that you probably know about. A lot of fish rely on those coral reefs. And once those collapse, all of those fish die as well. So it's sort of like this domino effect is once you click one domino, all the other dominoes fall for them. Okay, so what does this mean for animal liberation, I'm going to try to come back to who I was the beginning. And what I tried to achieve, what I wanted to do is to see a world where animal live, animals can live free and free of harm, and we can thrive with them. And what I'm facing right now is that we cannot, we cannot address Animal Liberation without addressing climate change. Because the largest threat to animals at present is the climate and ecological catastrophe. Something that's also important to know about climate change is that it's reaching to an irreversible point. And it's a really funny thing to say that the festival in Redding right now, sort of casually when the music is going on. But what it really means is, the IPCC report in 2019, released a report that said, we have less than 12 years before we reach a tipping point, tipping point means that there is no return. Sir David King also said, we have about three, four years left, before we reach a point that we can no longer make a change. I think Prince Charles said something like this last year as well, about 18 months. So all of these warnings keep coming our way. Yet what's happening. If you think about this, the magnitude of problem we are facing and how little is being done. It's absolutely disgusting and extraordinary. There are people in this country and around the world who are elected I are in charge whose job is whose only job is to keep us safe, all of us safe. Those people are called the government. Their sole job is to keep you and me and all of our all of our friends and all of the animals safe on this planet. So we can thrive only for generations to come. This is an absolute government failure, not only in the UK, but around the world. This year, you probably know something very important was held was called the g7 conference, right? So g7 is the seven of wealthiest countries got together in England, to speak about the planet and how to keep people safe and how to keep the economy safe. Have you even heard of it? Or something? Right. But does anyone know what the outcome of the meeting is? Because I don't see any change for the climate, which means I don't see any change for the survival of the human species or any species whatsoever. This year, there's another important meeting, cop 26. Yeah, the number really speaks a lot about how effective it is. But 26 times they did not manage to make any considerable change to be able to save us from extinction.

So where does that leave us right now. Looking back at history and what I learned from rain back a few years ago in Chicago, he was talking about this 3.5% rule, but there is something more important behind that rule. And that is, how that change was achieved and how it was achieved through non violent civil disobedience. Now, if you think about nonviolent civil disobedience, you probably have these these pictures in our mind like I was talking about Gandhi or suffragette movements. But what it really means is putting your body on the line through sacrifice, and through nonviolent action. And through the sacrifice, you don't only give up yourself or give up anything, a few, but you actually live as if you believe that the truth was real. And that's why nonviolent action, and this is why all these movements succeeded, because there is this element of sacrifice that is so touching to people, but then they see it. It separates those people who are acting on the ground from the oppressors, which is happening in our world right now. But this is a story we all know, rights of millions, millions of people who seem powerless, and there is sort of an emerging power of power holders and leaders, it is the Star Wars story a little bit, isn't it? Or I could say, I watched actually, funnily enough, The Hunger Games last night is the same story. There are people who try to do their everyday living, and there are people who capture power captured most of the economy, and ignore what happens with the majority of the people and then the people rise up. And that's the story we are writing today, with not only about rebellion, but the movement of movement, which I will speak about a little bit later. So this is where I want to sort of end this talk, and then I will speak a bit about something else is that nonviolent civil disobedience is in all of us. Because when danger hits home, all we have left is our bodies is our voice is our pure being. And that's the highest level of action we can take. And this is why all of these movements have worked in the past. And this is why this movement is going to work through non violent civil disobedience. So when I say this movement, what do I mean? Because like I said earlier, there are so many labels, we can all there. Right? So I was introduced as an a rebellion. I could also say, actually, I've worked with extinction rebellion a lot more last year than any rebellion, it doesn't matter. I don't think so. Could I also say, I'm social justice rebel, I could say so as well. There are so many labels, we can vary, but it comes to climate change. But it's really important to acknowledge is that no one owns the suffering of climate change, we are all going to go through or already going through the suffering. However, it's also important to acknowledge that we all don't equally experienced this. So why people and animals in the Global South and in the forest and in slaughterhouses already experienced the neglect and the pain and suffering in tremendous numbers. us here in this room in this country, most of us still have an incredible power and privilege to be able to act without significant repercussions.

So I think this is where I would like to leave you. And before I go, I wanted to say just back to my previous point, no one owns the suffering of climate change. And back six years ago, when I first went vegan, I started to hear all these phrases you probably heard before as well, that you can't be a vegan, you can't be an environmentalist, unless you're a vegan. Or if only you eat enough vegan food, then you can save the planet and so on. What I would like to say is that we have to overcome these separations. This language makes us see as if we are separate from each other. And if we are fight against each other, but we are not each other's enemies, remember where the enemy is. The enemy is in this industrial society that we have built up and in the hands of the power holders who don't allow us to change this, the power is in you and me together to change and to create a whole new narrative, not only around veganism, but about who humanity is and who we are as people and what we are capable of this, this requires imagination. This requires for you and me to be able to tell the truth about how bad the situation is coming to terms with our possible extinction and the extinction of our species. But then to create a new story, and think about how else could we live on this planet? This requires extreme courage to even think about it. What would the world look like without cars? What would my job look like? What would it be like if there wasn't a vegan faire? Because we couldn't afford to produce anything anymore? What would it look like if there wasn't a microphone? If there were no slides? Could we sit around the campfire? Would that be a good life? Would that be a better life? Would we actually be fulfilled? Because there is something worse than death, there's something worse than extinction. And that is a slow, uncontrolled, painful extinction path that I don't think anyone wants to see. And that's what we're fighting against. And that's why I am I became a non violent civil disobedience activist, but not only in rebellion, but extinction, rebellion, and all that the movement of movements. And before I go, the very last thing is what I would like to encourage all of us is to think of not only climate change but veganism as a movement as a part of a movement of movements. Because we cannot achieve Animal Liberation without achieving environmental justice and the other way around, we cannot achieve environmental justice, without any more liberation, we are sisters and brothers to each other. And it's more important than ever, that we are open to all all forms of oppression and all aspects of suffering, and come together educate each other, and find where our real power is, and strategically align in civil disobedience, just like our ancestors did Mothma Gandhi or the civil rights movement, or the suffragette movement, so I invite you to join the conversation and if you would like to go under one label in particular, I wholeheartedly recommend animal rebellion or extinction rebellion, or even insulate Britain, whatever feels close to your heart because we are all coming together in one big movement of movements. that's it thank you. This is a bloody vegans production