Towards Freedom

Posted: Fri Feb 20, 2004 1:16 am

Well, here goes...............

I really had no awareness of vegetarianism until I met my husband to be, Prad, when I was 18. He had become a vegetarian for health reasons in the early 70?s. The connection between the meat at the table and the murder of animals didn?t become clear to me until much later. So Prad and I were very ?flexible? vegetarians, never having meat in our house but occasionally when we went out. In the early 90?s I learned of the incredible horrors of the meat industry and the intense suffering of animals.

An incident which stands out in my mind occurred when I was a summer student working in a medical lab at the University of Toronto. I witnessed the beginning of a surgical ?procedure? on a rabbit. I couldn?t tolerate it. I ran out crying and shaken at what I had seen. That was the first time I ever faced what animal experimentation was. And I was horrified.

I became a total vegetarian after my son was born. Prad had been to a meeting at our local library which explained the connection between the food we eat and the suffering of animals and the destruction of our environment. After he told me what he had learned I wanted to know more. I began to read. I couldn?t understand the connection between dairy and suffering of animals and wanted more information before I gave up cheese in particular. When I finally realized the relation between dairy cows and the veal industry the path became clear. As I began to link the feelings I had had in the past from incidents such as the one in the lab, to what I now knew, my conviction became stronger. As well, around this time, Prad, became involved in an animal rights group at the school where he taught. The student who was the leader of that group helped us to become more aware of what we were eating and more consistent with our values. This was Sangeeta. Now that we were parents we also began to think of what kind of example we would be to our son. This too led to self-examination and made us stronger vegetarians.

We haven?t looked back since. I have become increasingly intolerant of my actions that support abuse of animals and I continue to evolve and make changes in my life.

in friendship
Ranjana

Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2004 3:28 am by fjord

Great!! But watch out Michael. In this tempo there will be not much left of you after 15 months Wink


Here comes my first chapter about my struggle with proper food.

My first confrontation with the question of eating meat goes back to the early sixties. Right, at the beginning of the flower power. I lived in The Hague and had decided with 5 of my friends that it would be good to get a taste of the countryside and become a bit more natural (haha).

So we moved with almost nothing to the north of the Netherlands where nobody wanted to go to, because it was there too quiet and flat. We found a small farm where we could sleep in the barn. The owner was a rather eccentric figure, very well fitting in our frames of mind. Tall, lean, wild hair, long beard, barefoot. He was married, had one little child and printed left orientated books. Mainly Marxist and anarchistic literature. Anarchism had really stolen his heart.
He was chairman of the local PSP (3 members) which stood for the Socialistic Pacifistic Party. This was not really what he wanted, because he would have a preferred a Bakounin Party, but there were no members to find. This frustrated him intensely and I think he had the hope he could turn us on.

There was a rather funny incident that will illustrate his frustration and at the same time was the beginning of changing my food habits.
He had printed posters for the PSP and asked me to help him spread the posters in the neigbourhood. So I went out with him in the evening to glue the posters to signposts and blind walls. During that work he told me he thought we should become vegetarians. I told him that I was not ready for that neither my friends. This pissed him off. He told me that as long is we were eating meat we couldn't use his kitchen and had to eat outside. This meant we had to cook our meal on a fire outside and eat in the barn or outside. No problem for us; that was in line with our longing to go back to nature.

So the next day a farmer came early in the morning to pick is up for work. We were digging potatoes out of the clay ground. It had been raining a lot, so it had to be done by hand, because the machines got stuck in the wet soaked clay soil. It was extremely hard work for city boys. After loosing a kilo of sweat and turning our delicate study hands into workingman-heroes hands in which the pinky colour of the lines and nails had changed to earth colours. We returned tired and proud to our shelter place.

Wow, we were really hungry. So we made a fire in the back garden and started roasting a great piece of pork which the farmer we worked for, had given us.

I talked in the meanwhile with our anarchistic landlord. He was upset for several reasons. He told me he had a bad night sleep. First of all he regretted we had spread these posters. It was too much against his anarchistic principles. So he got up in the middle of the night and made the same route we had done together the evening before. He had covered all the PSP posters with blank sheets of paper. I couldn't help to bend with laughter, what only did help to raise his temper.

Then he turned to the meat thing and told me it was shame what we did. I shrugged my shoulders and said he should try to be a bit more tolerant. And he told me I shouldn't be so lazy and think more about things. I promised and was glad he went inside. After an hour food was ready and we started eating in the garden. We were almost attacking the food, hungry as we were.

But after we had started eating with our hands and feeling satisfied about our lives our landlord appeared again and put himself firmly at the end of the table. He looked at us with fire in his eyes and said with a very deep thundering voice: : Cadaver gobblers!. Then without saying anything more he went back inside.
I felt a frozen, looking at the piece of meat in my hands. That was the beginning of a change in my eating patterns.



Ranjana, your story about the poor rabbit in the laboratories opens up in me a tremendous shocking story that played when I was 8, 5 years after WW II. I will tell it here. It clearly happened before my adventure with the anarchist. But I have suppressed that memory for a long time. It actually came back in all its horror when the landlord yelled at me and my friends "Cadaver Gobblers" and your story brings it back again. Not nice, but worth telling.

1950.
A new family member had been born, my second brother. My mother had troubles with breastfeeding and got a breast infection. So the doctor came in and told her that she needed lumps of ice to fight the inflammation. The only place he knew where you get ice was at the abattoir. So the doctor kindly went there and came with an incredible lump of ice. He promised to return next day.

So he did. My mother wasn't feeling much better and had to stay a bed. My father was working. The doctor told us we needed more ice. He did not have the time to get it himself so they decided I had to do that.

The doctor helped me to get a saddlebag on my bike, explained me how to get at the abattoir and gave me a scribbled note that they should give me two lumps of ice. It was about a 20 minutes ride. I had never been so far from home on my own. I felt a bit scared but it kept hammering in my head that I had to save the life of my mother. Then I reached the industrial area. The largeness, emptiness, grayness, and coldness of the atmosphere overwhelmed me. The area was covered with greasy, slippery stones. My heart went bonkerdibonky and lumped my throat.
Never seen such big buildings with such big iron doors and with holes instead of windows in the walls.. I was dwarfed. Timidly I drove to smallest door I saw. Which, of course, was the office. There was sitting a rather friendly man. I gave him the paper from the doctor and he told me kindly to which gate I had to turn.

A bit more secure now I went to that place. The doors, 3 meters high, were open. The inside was all-concrete. Then, when I stepped inside horror struck so vehemently that I was shaking like a poplar. In the concrete floor there were big gutters, about a meter deep.
Water was floating. Water? Dark red coloured liquid it was. Above these streams were iron sticks and on these sticks were cows, split in two parts, beheaded. There were only men in work clothes and with big gloves with red stains all over. A guy came up to me, I gave him the note again and a grin came on his face. He told the other guys what I had come for and all started laughing. It was Dantes inferno there. I was so lost as I never have been after that. Totally without any compassion (how could it be there in such a surrounding) the guy told me to bend down and to try to get some ice blocks which were floating in the bloody stream. I put myself on my stomach, vomited and cried in the stream and tried without looking what I was doing to catch the ice and grabbed some slimy substance. I panicked, looked, and saw these eyes, these tremendous big eyes floating in the red water.

At the end the guy helped me to get the ice blocks, still laughing, and helped me to carry them to my bike.

All the way home my saddlebag was dripping and so was I.

When I arrived at home my sick mother was so proud of me and I didn't dare to tell her what had happened. I just wanted to see her happy and recovering.

That evening I told my father the story, he cuddled me and promised me that I never had to go there again. I asked him why we were eating animals and he told me we needed that. So I kept eating meat and tried to forget what I had seen.


In Vriendschap
Fjord

Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2004 1:43 pm by redlentils

i became a vegetarian when i was 21. i was brought up in a very "meat and 2 veg" household. i had seen a film a few years before "the animal film" narrated by julie christie with haunting music by robert wyatt. it was a documentary about vivisection and factory farming. it sowed the seeds to my becoming veggie but the seed was nurtured by a chinese student i share a YMCA flat with - he was a vegetarian and basically it was by sharing meals i learned how to cook properly for myself. i became vegan years later when the link between milk production and animal slaughter finally dawned on me. doh.

i love to cook and am partial to making my own indian curries and dhals (hence the name, "redlentils" Smile ) I'm now 40 and have been married for three years to Sue, who is also vegan and the local vegan contact for the Vegan Society (UK).

I have an interest in buddhism and see a vegan diet as an expression of compassion that we in the "more-developed" world could show to others in the world. "you must be the change you want to see in the world" said gandhi

the buddhist sangha i belong to is an engaged pureland group who have been involved in campaigning against animal cruelty -

www.amidatrust.com
www.meditatetoliberate.org.uk

Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2004 4:59 pm by redlentils

hello fyord,

it is indeed a small world! i know of sally from reading the news section of the amida trust web site. i have visited narborough once and found the residents at the buddhist house to be very supportive. i have not met david or caroline brazier yet. i was particularly impressed with caroline's book on "buddhist psychology" - i would like to complete their distance learning course. "interconnectedness" -indeed!

ray
_________________
"There is no place the moon does not shine, But it only illuminates in the heart of those who gaze at it". Honen