8 minute read
Animal Alliance Asia
Elly Nakajima - Asia born and raised in Japan - is the co-founder of Animals Alliance Asia. Elly is dedicated to building a more inclusive and culturally relevant animal justice movement in Asia, and we’re grateful that she has taken the time to speak to us at Força Vegan to tell us - and you - a bit more about the work of Animals Alliance Asia.
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Hi Elly - so, tell us about the founding of Animals Alliance Asia, and the structure
We are a movement building organisation dedicated to animal advocates in Asia.
I co-founded Animal Alliance Asia in 2019 together with an animal advocate from Hong Kong. We witnessed that a lot of the interventions, campaigns and slogans used in Asia were direct imports from the movements in the West, which didn’t always work very well. We saw the gap in culturally relevant resources, training and strategies in the animal justice movement in Asia. We wanted to create a safer and welcoming environment where animal advocates across Asia can share ideas.
The team has been growing organically and we now have country representatives from 12 countries across Asia.
What would you say is at the heart of AAA, what holds it together?
We take our core values seriously and I believe that the culture we’ve created based on our values has helped us foster a safer and more welcoming space for diverse voices to be heard and implemented - both internally on AAA operation level and from external networks of advocates. The struggles that advocates face in Asia are hugely intersectional, influenced by rich and complex history and culture.
Striving to practise consistent anti-oppression keeps us in check with how our views, our opinions, and how our current movement are influenced by different power dynamics. We are working to create a space that recognises and addresses all forms of oppressions and injustice and not only speciesism. This is because we need more people to fight for non-human animals, and to achieve that, we need a hugely more inclusive movement, allied with other social justice movements.
There must be a big variation in plant based options across Asia - where’s the best? And the most challenging?
You are right! Plant-based dishes have been traditionally available in many parts of Asia.
As you know, Asian food is extremely diverse and of course, super tasty - so just talking about what everyone’s favourite food is at AAA makes us all hungry!
When we talk about challenges in Asia, it’s important to understand and unpack the complex layers and factors behind resistance to the concept of veganism, which vary from region to region, community to community.
The history of colonialism and Westernisation of the food system have changed the way people eat across Asia. So decolonisation of our relationships with animals and food empowerment are extremely important. It requires a lot of unlearning and empowering ourselves with our own, more sustainable, healthy and compassionate food systems that we have long had across Asia.
From the perspective of being in the UK, one of the most vegan friendly countries in the world, it might be easy to think that it’d be easy for anyone to ‘go vegan’. However there are so many cultural and economic layers that make this extremely difficult.
Food injustice is a huge issue. For example, in certain countries, many people don’t have access to any kitchen or cooking facilities and rely heavily on street food vendors. Also, it’s more costly to buy vegetables than animal products in many regions.
Religious beliefs also add another layer of complexity to our advocacy - from animal sacrifice tradition to the caste system that grants certain people access to certain animals.
Of course, political unrest in many parts of Asia is another huge aspect we cannot ignore. Basic human rights are at stake for many communities as a result of oppressive history. A single-issue approach can cause further resistance to our cause in such contexts.
Pictured: Vegan Pho (a northern Vietnamese dish)
We’ve seen the Himalayan Vegan Festival taking place in September – are there any other big vegan events taking place of note?
Yes, we are so excited to announce that we will be giving movement building workshops at the Himalayan Vegan Festival!
How can people in the West, or in the UK for example, get involved with AAA? Are there ways people can help?
Thank you so much for asking this question. One way could be to think about minoritised groups of people who are currently underrepresented in our movement in the UK and consider why that could be and how we could see more diverse leaders in our movement.
Another way could be to support businesses and initiatives owned or started by people of global majority, whenever you have an option to do so.
And of course, if you would like to support what we do at AAA, we would love it if you could support us by donating. We are currently running a matching challenge so your donation will be doubled.
What would speed up the process for the spread of plant-based diets across Asia. What’s needed most?
There are so many inspiring people running initiatives all across Asia working tirelessly to achieve this goal. We believe that multiple approaches working in synergy will ultimately bring social change, making changes from personal level to institutional.
So it’s truly encouraging to see many local initiatives from vegan challenges, outreach, corporate engagement, alt-protein market research, policy reform to farm transformation and sanctuaries.
We are now conducting a scoping study to understand deeper what interventions are working and making progress, and what the gaps are.
Above all, we are working to cultivate local leadership in every corner of society across Asia, with more representation of marginalised communities. We believe that this is the key to a more equitable, stronger and more sustainable movement.
Is there an understanding of Animal Rights emerging would you say? As in a recognition that animals are rights bearers and are not ours to use as property?
Broadly speaking, this recognition has long existed in many cultures across Asia - not necessarily the same way ‘animal rights’ derived from the concept of human rights in the West, but more from philosophical and religious perspectives.
However, with the imposition of Westernised animal agriculture systems with factory farming based practices, welfare legislation is often in need of changes. So again, decolonising food systems and unlearning exploitative frameworks are important issues we want to focus on.
What’s in the pipeline for 2022 and into 2023 for AAA?
Since 2020 we’ve held our annual Animal Advocacy Conference Asia. We’ve had over 1500 participants (cumulative) from over 50 countries, over 40 workshops given in 7 different languages so far. It is happening again this year in November too! Please sign up to our mailing list to be in the know about amazing speakers from across Asia on diverse topics.
This July, we are launching our first online Academy.. Our Academy is first of its kind - a training course dedicated to animal advocates in Asia, developed by advocates in Asia. It will be delivered in 5 languages, and each will be tailored to the context of a specific country.
We have country specific forums happening in August and September, getting leaders and advocates in each country to discuss challenges and successes.
As mentioned earlier, we are also working on a research project too, to improve our operation and programmes.
What gives you the most hope for the future moving forward?
Through AAA I’ve had the honour of meeting and working with revolutionary advocates, leaders and thinkers across Asia, and it’s their collaborative vision and passion that inspires and gives me hope.
And finally – congratulations on winning the VegfestUK 2021 Award in the ‘Favourite Global Vegan Project’ category!
Thank you so much! We are truly honoured to have been nominated and to have won the category. We cannot be more grateful for all your support. We celebrated this with AAA members across 12 countries!!
To find out more about Animals Alliance Asia, visit their website & social media pages here:
www.animalallianceasia.org
