The Rise of Veganism and Watermelon Politics

Veganism has gone mainstream. Gone are the days where supermarkets resigned fringy vegan goods to a rarely frequented corner shelf - plant-based products these days are centre stage material, displayed with pride. There are vegan butchers, clothes, perfume, gifts, household goods and even furniture. Last year, Deliveroo reported a 163% spike in vegan orders while ‘veganuary’, the pledge to eat only vegan food in January, was taken on by half a million people. Eateries offer vegan options, in many cases even a full vegan menu, some primary schools and universities are taking meat off their menu, supermarkets celebrate vegan recipes on their websites and celebrities from Ariana Grande to Joaquin Phoenix sing veganism's praise.

Yes, veganism is trendy and on the rise - there are currently between one and one and a half million vegans in the UK, while the US counts 10 to 15 million vegans, marking a staggering 300% increase from 15 years ago. 

Can this global rise be attributed to greater awareness of animal suffering alone, or are there also cultural/societal shifts at play?  

Here I will concentrate on three factors contributing to veganism's rise -  a new breed of activism that is effectively shaping key influencers' narrative, the feminisation of society, and a growing number of individuals holding an unrealistic view of the world, including a romanticised view of animals. I will also show a link between the veganism trend and environmental activism such as Extinction Rebellion and Animal Rebellion. 

The internet has drastically increased people's awareness of factory farming horrors. Millions worldwide were profoundly affected by animal liberation activist Gary Yourofsky's lectures, including The Most Important Speech You Will Ever Hear which marked a moral turning point for many. Vegans' hero Yourofsky appealed for people's compassion, raised intriguing ethical questions concerning humans' relationship with animals, and made people realise the almost incomprehensible scale of intensive animal farming, which processes 50-70 billion animals a year. 

The Michigan native travelled the world lecturing on the evils of intensive animal farming and even went to prison after famously releasing captive minks into the wild. 

Though Yourofsky’s actions marked a moral game-changer for countless individuals worldwide, his kind of activism is considered by many as the way of the past. There is a new kind of activism at play - immaculately presented and well-articulated, it goes straight to the corridors of power, raising awareness on a global scale. These politically savvy, culturally aware activists don't block roads or break into slaughterhouses. Instead, they educate and inspire key influencers, prime ministers and even presidents, with their highly convincing narrative.

A leading exponent of the new activism is historian and best selling author Yuval Harari, whose compassion-centred narrative has been read by tens of millions worldwide. More importantly, his veganism-advocating titles have famously impacted the likes of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Bill Gates and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has introduced Harari's title Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, to his 38-million-strong online book club, while then-president Barak Obama, warmly recommended the best seller during a live TV interview. I argue that Harari's effect on these global influencers has consequently helped place animals' plight at the heart of the cultural agenda.

Former Israeli prime minister Netanyahu has mentioned the profound impact recent readings have had on his view of the animal world. My enquiries have revealed that it was in fact Harari's Sapiens, that made Netanyahu understand that "animals are more conscious than we thought," and that they have "awareness of fellow animals' suffering." Israel's longest-reigning PM and his family have significantly cut down on their meat consumption but most importantly, Netanyahu made history by appointing vegan activist Tal Gilboa as his animal welfare advisor. He went on to endorse the nationwide Meat Free Monday initiative and support leading research into lab-cultured meat and yeast-derived dairy.

Echoing Yourofsky's message, Harari laments over the billions of domesticated animals that are treated by the meat, dairy and egg industries "not as living beings" capable of feeling pain and distress, "but as machines." 

Science tells us that cows and chickens have a complex world of emotions and sensations, explained Harari, "they can feel pain, fear and anxiety and also joy, curiosity and love, yet many industries completely disregard the feelings and suffering of animals."

Much like Yourofsky, he reflects on how the dairy industry is founded on breaking the bond of love between mother and offspring. "A cow never produces milk unless it becomes pregnant and gives birth to a calf," he said, "the cow produces milk in order to feed her calf, but then humans take away the calf to be slaughtered for meat, and milk the cow themselves. This affects hundreds of millions of cows and calves each year - judged by the sheer amount of misery it causes, modern animal farming is probably one of the worst crimes in history."

The separation of the mother from her offspring is understandably one of veganism's most potent arguments. Another is the devastating effect that meat production is having on the environment. 

Lab-cultured meat and yeast-derived dairy products are widely seen as the way to halt the destructive effect. Harari and his team have according to the author's spokesperson, "recently visited Future Meat and Bio-Milk, to take a close look at cultured food laboratories and developments." 

Netanyahu too, accompanied by his advisor Gilboa, has recently visited an Israeli cultured-meat lab where he spoke to the present press about meat as a "great contributor to pollution the world over" and highlighted the vast resources needed to produce a single piece of meat - "lab-cultured meat is different," explained the former PM, because it produces meat without inflicting a colossal punishment on the environment.

The PM's sentiments echoed Harari who said that the production of meat, milk and eggs, demands considerably more resources, and creates significantly more pollution than producing an equivalent amount of plant food - "to give just one example," he explained, "it takes about 15,000 litres of fresh water to produce one kilogram of beef compared to 287 litres needed to produce one kilogram of potatoes."

It is interesting to note that Harari defines himself not as a vegan but as "veganish." This is because he considers it unfeasible "to cut all ties to the harmful industries - the chains of cause-and-effect in the modern world are just too complex."  

There is no doubt that Harari's narrative is striking a chord with mainstream media and entering the heart of contemporary culture - the Hebrew University Professor gave talks at Google, Instagram, and even Davos, where he conveyed his message to the world from the same stage as political leaders Macron and Merkel. 

It is impossible to measure or quantify the effect Harari's narrative has had on leaders' policy and key influencers' thinking, but there is no doubting the profound change in their convictions with regards to animal welfare. I argue that any deep change in outlook, would consequently affect policy to some degree, and animal rights are no exception.

The feminisation of society and 'Sleeping Beauty'

Harari's message is no doubt amplified by social media but a more significant magnifier is the feminisation of society - this, in my mind, is one of the biggest contributors to veganism's rise. 

A feminised society places compassion and empathy at the heart of its culture. This means that there is greater empathy towards the tortured and abused in general, and the systematic separation of mothers from their newborns in particular. This is not to say that compassion and empathy are a female reserve, nothing could be further from the truth - but rather that a feminized society is more receptive to a compassion-centred narrative, and is more likely to act upon it. 

An intriguing point raised by Jordan Peterson helps shed light on the reasons for veganism' ascent. In his book Beyond Order, Peterson speaks of a growing number of individuals growing up “detached from reality.” Overprotected by parents and society, they are particularly naive and hold an unrealistic, “Disney-like” view of animals. Peterson gives the example of his fragile female client, a vegan he describes as a "real-life version of Sleeping Beauty." The profoundly unhappy woman was never exposed to the nastier aspects of life, and so ended up unable to tolerate "the cruelty she saw everywhere around her." 

Peterson's treatment of the severely depressed woman entailed sobering visits to the local butcher as well as an animal farm where her romanticised myth of animals was rudely dispelled.

This is not to say that Peterson considers veganism itself as a condition requiring treatment, but rather that there are many people out there who share “Sleeping Beauty's” unrealistic view of animals. We are looking at an overly sentimental generation whose knowledge of life is largely formed by mass media, rather than real-life interactions - it is for that reason that the clinical psychologist chose physical visits in order to expose the troubled woman to real animals. 

Pointing to "excess sentimentality" as a developmental failure, Peterson concludes that animals are sentient creatures and we should do everything in our power to reduce their suffering, but stresses that they "are not human beings, they are certainly not children." This point is not to be taken lightly - many vegans indeed consider animals to be equal to humans. As such, they view humans as the enslaving oppressors, and animals and the oppressed victims - this is the heart of ‘speciesism’, defined by PETA as "a misguided belief that one species is more important than another."

The political/ideological arena

Veganism is part and parcel of the leftist domain - with a few exceptions, animal rights activism in general, and veganism in particular, are clearly leftist. It is also over three-quarters female.

According to a 2018 Gallup poll, liberals are 2.5 times more likely than conservatives to be vegan. The poll also showed that 11 percent of liberals are vegetarian, compared to only 2 percent of conservatives. It is not surprising to learn that in the US, the top 10 biggest vegan states are of largely Democrat voters, while the 10 lowest vegan states are largely Republican.  

"There seems to be a weird series of unspoken overlaps going on here," one UK-based education professional has told me, "an overlap between certain wings of the progressive lobby, the green lobby, wokerati and the LGBTQ - veganism is part of it somehow, it’s somehow so much more than a dietary choice. James Dellingpole had a term relating to some of the green stuff, he called it watermelon politics - green on the outside, red on the inside."

In his book Watermelons: The Green Movement's True Colours, Delingpole argues that at its very roots, climate change is an ideological battle, not a scientific one - "green on the outside, red on the inside, the liberty-loathing, humanity-hating 'watermelons' of the modern environmental movement do not want to save the world. They want to rule it."

This view is shared by economist Sarah Pope who links the drive for a plant-based diet with globalism, and researcher and YouTuber Christian Westbrook (“Ice Age Farmer”), who points to an "unholy marriage between the totalitarian climate agenda and in this push for control over the food supply" giving birth to "their disgusting love child Animal Rebellion."

Westbrook describes the organization as "funded by Soros.." and quotes Extinction Rebellion's own words describing itself as "a mass volunteer movement demanding that governments of the world end animal farming and fishing industries and transition to a plant-based food system because that's the only one that can minimize the risk of climate breakdown." 

There certainly is a consensus within the left with regards to the urgent need to address the danger of climate change, and the view of meat consumption as evil - Greenpeace is urging us to eat less meat and dairy, while a UN climate report has stated that "everyone has a role to play" in transforming humankind's relationship with the natural world - includes voting, minimizing waste, and moving away from high-impact animal products such as meat and dairy."

Is what we are seeing a case of extreme environmentalists using climate change as "socialism masquerading as environmentalism?" asks Sky News AU's Peta Credlin - is the Marxist left pushing its ideology "via the trojan horse of environmentalism?” Many consider this a plausible contention when you think about the above-mentioned consensus and the likes of PETA choosing Marxist Angela Davis as its poster girl - a vegan activist who is the recipient of the Lenin Peace Prize, praiser of Colin Kaepernick protesting the U.S. national anthem, supporter of a host of causes from the Palestinians to Black Lives Matter.

Last word

To most adopters, veganism is a purely ethical issue - a choice made first and foremost to ease the suffering of animals. These individuals are triggered by compassion and the urge to end the cruelty inflicted on the animals. That said, the ideological aspect of the trend cannot be ignored. 

Veganism comes with a heightened awareness to animals' suffering but also to environmental issues. This is not to say that vegans are politically active or that they will break into farms or even join a protest march - in fact, many will keep their dietary choice to themselves and will not disclose it to others. It is important to remember that and not automatically associate all vegans with radical activism.

Hannah is a London based journalist covering culture and current affairs. She writes about photography, film and TV for outlets in the UK and US, and covers current affairs with particular interest in the Jewish world. She is also an award-winning filmmaker and photographer. Her films were screened in festivals worldwide and parts of her documentary about Holocaust survivor Leon Greenman were screened on the BBC.