Vegans, Gay Rights, and Riots.

small vegan cafe and lisi which is in
Georgia former Soviet Union was attacked by a group of fascist sympathizers who are wearing necklaces made of meat and throwing and throwing pieces of meat at the patrons of this vegan cafe no me laddies mom [ __ ] retro black [ __ ] on train no many transitions they started making threats of physical violence and when they went outside when these people like pulled them into the street they wanted to start a street fight they had neighbors holding knives saying that they wanted to participate their neighbors were actually saying yes we're going to join in with you fascist neo-nazis and beat up these cafe owners which is disturbing and i think the entire incident and the seriousness of the incident really underlines the fact that veganism is not the same everywhere when you are on YouTube and especially when you come from a country like Canada where I am or the United States you forget that in a lot of places being vegan is not acceptable Georgia is not just a country that seems to be rather unfriendly towards vegans and vegetarians they also have a long history of being homophobic and in 2012 the people of Tbilisi organized their first-ever march against homophobia and transphobia and they held this one in 2012 faced a lot of difficulties in 2013 unfortunately a counter protesters were ready for them beat up some pho that the members very badly and the police really did nothing to help them in the last few years there haven't been any major expressions of support for the LGBT community in Georgia and instead the Orthodox Church there has used the parade against homophobia and transphobia as the day to celebrate Family Day and traditional values and basically it's a giant march against gay rights and it's just it's disturbing that that's still going on in this day an age it's sad to see a country become I think even more closed off to gay rights than it already is and I think that this incidents at the vegan cafe and one of the things that the neighbors were saying is that people there were a little weird they listen to different music they didn't eat meat and criticize them for having Western ideals which I thought was a bit strange but the idea is gay rights and things like that are in the former Soviet Union they're seen as Western ideals and so they're very much against this and a lot of the neighbors and everything around this cafe simply allowed these people to be attacked so yo shout out to mod vegan obviously I've got a link below this video obviously one reason for my making this video now is to support her direct more viewers towards her channel I always like to shout out other vegans who are keeping it real who are talking about political issues than veganism vegans who are not trying to sell you a diet book not trying to sell you a cookbook not trying to sell you a dream mod vegan is one of the good ones I hope she continues to ask difficult questions to ask meaningful questions about politics and veganism 21st century I'm going to start off this comment with what seems like a non sequitur but you'll see how it relates to this in just a minute in both Cambodia and France two very different cultures two very different context very different settings I encountered people who simply could not admit that vegans exist were they were in denial about the idea that it was possible to go for even one meal without eating meat I know that sounds absurd but I actually met and saw people with that attitude in both France and Cambodia now I mean the most extreme example I can think of that you know there was an ex vegan called Li air Keith who published a book and it's of interviews and made a brief media sensation of herself and she claimed that likewise she claimed that there are no vegans the people who say they're vegan actually our secret leading meat and this sort of thing uh now as bizarre as it seems alongside the numerous other forms of active and hateful homophobia of anti-gay rhetoric anti-gay attitudes there are also people who really don't believe that homosexuals exist may sound absurd but as life goes on you will meet those people now whether that's because they think that gays are merely bisexuals like that there are people who choose to do this and then it's not an inherent part of their character our identity or what have you or I mean I remember there was a stand-up comedian in Canada who talked a lot she was uh she was a lesbian and she talked a lot about her sexual identity and sexual politics and when she was a child her parents did not believe homosexuals existed she thought this they'll you know her parents just thought this was non said this was something the media was you know picking up out of thin air and then as she got older and she had to articulate to her parents know they exist we exist you know she had to come out of the closet and explain her situation life thrown parents then her parents switched to believing that this was something that only existed in decadent Western countries and that didn't exist in Hungary they were there were hungarian immigrants from hungary to canada that you know didn't exist in the old country and didn't exist in other places and then that also for the daughter was a process of trying to drag her parents through recognizing the reality the world we live in um you know the the change that happened in Western society apart from gay rights existing on paper as legislation was a change in in gays as individuals going from being in the closet to being public and vocal and identified as such and in many cities around the world gays having a permanent presence in a neighborhood of some kind in a district you know it could just be a couple of nightclubs or a couple of restaurants in some cases it's really a big neighborhood of a town and the implicit message of all that is that gays exist um may sound ridiculous but it's not that really is a struggle unto itself is for the gay community to be able to say we're not going to disappear we're not a fad we're not a mental illness we're a part of the society where a meaning full and significant and substantive part of the society even if we're not your friends or neighbors even if you don't know any of us you know we're here we're not going to disappear and I mean the struggles to do that I've also heard about some struggles to try to have gay neighborhoods and gay nightclubs and gay gay establishments within Israel where it's the religious conservatives within Judaism that are fighting against that in some of those some of those their Eastern European also because there are immigrants from these same parts of Eastern Europe who happen to be Jewish should go to Israel and then lead these lead these campaigns against over homosexuals now of course there are limits to this comparison the problem for veganism is not that we're in the closet by and large you can you can meet some vegans who are in the closet but in two very different cultures in Cambodia and in France I met and spoke with people who really believe that vegans did not exist that who really believed that was impossible and I met people who really thought it was impossible to go for a single meal without eating me who could not sit at a restaurant and either themselves alone eat a single meal as a vegetarian and i remember in france the null were describing all the details but i was at a vegan restaurant there was a french man who went came into this vegan restaurant with his with his family with his wife and kids and he was openly offended and horrified at the idea of eating one meal with his family that didn't include me and he was saying openly cuz he was kind of giving an explanation to the waiter before he stormed out of the restaurant he said yes he believed in eating a lot of fruit and vegetables you know in addition to meet but that it was totally unacceptable them and totally unthinkable to him that he would go for a single meal without eating meat he thought that was impossible he wasn't an old man either me was whatever he was probably probably younger than I am whatever he was in his 30s so I know it sounds absurd but part of the power of having a restaurant of having a district of having a visible permanent presence in a city is just getting across we exist were not a fad or a part of the society we're not going to go I say no gay rights is a struggle on many different levels and many different things gay rights is also course a struggle against organized religion in many ways you know there are many ways in which these things are not directly comparable but in that sense of having that permanent presence and I got I got a turnaround for you guys because I know some of you oppose me you know my video on community that's now been translated into several languages it's going to be translated into more it's going to be uploaded in several more languages a lot of you oppose my ID on this when you talk about any of these big cities dougald San Francisco you've got to also ask why not why shouldn't San Francisco have a gay district just why not you know even if it doesn't interest you or what have you I've just given all these meaningful reasons for why it should but you can also just ask why shouldn't it why not why shouldn't San Francisco have a vegan district why not I okay i don't care if it's you know one corner of the city utiful couple of we have one small street just why not I've given the positive arguments and I do think long term culturally one aspect of the struggle wearing is just to declare we exist we're part of the society we want a part of the future here um and you know we can do it we should do it I do think that owning and operating a restaurant is itself a meaningful form of activism can have a big impact you have a big impact on other activists but overcoming hatred and hostility towards you is one thing establishing we exist we are a community we're a significant part of the society and even if you hate us we're not going to disappear that is another