By Konrad Suder Chatterjee
‘Israel does what?!?’ - this is a typical question of curiosity and disbelief
that I usually receive from participants of vegan festivals while I am
representing the work of the Vegans For BDS based in Ramallah, West Bank. ‘That is how Israel can
currently get away with murder’ - I add.
The term veganwashing, as much as greenwashing, pinkwashing, whitewashing, etc, is a fairly new expression based
on the term, ‘brainwashing’ (term used in English language since the 1950s). The chief idea behind brainwashing is to inculcate thoughts and beliefs in people’s minds that have a potential to lead to certain actions or lack thereof which are
wanted or unwanted by the brainwashing powers. In simple terms, veganwashing is
the abuse of Vegan narrative in order to conceal violence or otherwise come
across as compassionate and peace loving due to the immediate association of
Veganism with compassion and its emphasis on nonviolence. Those fabricated
associations with and thus appropriations of progressive social movements, that
is, LGBTQIA+, Veganism and environmentalism can successfully redress the
unfavourable perception of human rights violations, animal rights abuse,
dispossessions, indiginenous land invasion, settler expansion, and environmental
pollution associated with settler colonialism processes, respectively. All of
them are necessary for the ethno-state project such as Israel. The term
Veganwashing refers to Israel in particular and to both its agenda and
subsequent activities of the Brand Israel (2006) and later Vibe Israel (2011).
Brand Israel is a PR firm and a propaganda initiative which the Israeli Foreign
Ministry launched in 2006 in order to create a shift in the international public
consciousness and alter the image of Israel to ‘disconnect it from their
occupation of Palestine’, to suppress or, at least, counterbalance coverage of
daily human rights violations and re-focus on ‘Israel’s scientific, sport and
cultural achievements’. Vibe Israel is a Zionist tourism nonprofit aiming at
changing ways in which Israel is perceived globally. Both, Brand Israel and Vibe
Israel, heavily rely on the newly contrived online personality of Israel and,
consequently, its global consumption. They effectively create a nation avatar,
an appearance, a brand new manipulated entity for further digital diplomacy.
These two marketing enterprises have been facilitated via an extensive use of
the power of social media, nation branding strategies and microtargeting. Vibe
Israel, in particular, recruits social media influences, especially those with
huge online audiences, and, for instance, organises all expenses paid tours, a
type of Birthright tours for non-Jews. Since the conception, the initiatives
have received significant funds from the Israeli governments to achieve its
goals and strategically attempted to facilitate advertisement campaigns in key
cities around the world and highlight certain aspects of a landscape and a
society that would aid at promoting the Zionist Israeli state as a desirable
destination. One of those areas of focus selected to be embraced by both Brand
and Vibe Israel is non human animal rights which is the central interest of
Vegan movement. One of the instances of the use of Vegan narrative is Israeli
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and their official YouTube Channel through which
they labelled the capital of Israel as ‘World’s Vegan food capital’. The Israeli
Army, the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces), present themselves the most vegan army
in the world and thus inclusive and moral as they have recently begun to provide
their recruits with faux leather boots and Vegan meals. This veganwashes not
only the international audience but also targets the internal discontent with
and acts of protests against the oppressive colonising policies and forced
conscription in Israel. One of Vibe Israel types of tour are Vegan tours to
which only those influencers who enjoy massive online audiences receive
invitations. These influencers, as a result, not only give voice to human-right
violators but also capitalise on the occupation despite public petitions and
pleas to maintain critical and intersectional rational which lies at the core of
Veganism. Those manipulations conducted amongst the Vegan and animal liberation
communities bear divisive implications on them. The unique dynamics and
dimensions of Vegan movements and animal liberation organisations on both stolen
and occupied lands have exposed the lack of unity amongst the Vegan movement.
Although some of the Vegan activists, with Vegan ‘guru’ Gary Yourofsky,
prioritise animal rights over human rights (‘I don't care about Jews or
Palestinians, or their stupid, childish battle over a piece of Godforsaken land
in the desert,’ Yourofsky told +972 Magazine. ‘I care about animals.’), it is
difficult to disagree with the following statement: ‘It is appalling that some
people demand a faux leather seat with which to pass apartheid legislation, or a
wool-free beret to wear while they’re shooting and killing people.’
Exposing the contradiction.
Israel, the alleged Vegan Capital of the World, has recently been ranked the
fourth out of the top ten consumers of meat in the world and is the top consumer
of poultry in the world (OECD 2017). Another colonial settler, USA, is the
second world largest meat consumers. In the light of land accumulation by
dispossession, farming and animal agriculture as main colonialising instruments,
animal consumption seems structurally oppressive and oriented towards the aim of
further legitimising the coloniser. Apart from the animal consumption, Israel
has also reported large rise in numbers of animals used in research 2018. The
contested Vegan and animal abolition movements are currently explored and
addressed by intersectionality and interconnected of oppression research and by
relevant institutions with Vegans for BDS and Vegans against the Occupation
among others.
Comments
Post a Comment