Another article African veganism

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VEGETARIANISM IN AFRICA


First, I want to briefly review the history of European vegetarianism and prove the fact that the formation of the first European vegetarian  movement was inspired by Africa. The Greek philosopher Pythagoras who established the first European Vegetarian movement in Croton Italy, was a student and initiate of mystery schools in Egypt where he spent more than 21 years learning natural and cosmic laws and their application under the grand mastership of Pharoah Aknaton . Pythagoras wasn’t a vegetarian before he traveled to Egypt but became not only a vegetarian when he came back but also an advocate of vegetarian lifestyle through the religious and philosophical school he founded and whose entire membership were mandated to be strict vegetarians. This goes strongly to suggest that he learnt all these through the wise men of Egypt and that he was charged and inspired by the same Egyptian wise men with the responsibility to go back to Europe and help share this knowledge in order to liberate his fellow Europeans. But today, Africa has lost that ancient wisdom. The effects of wars, colonization and the introduction of foreign religion has led to gradual disappearance of our much sought and revered ancient  tradition.

Today, Africa is threatened as never before with global warming, severe food and water shortages, rapid species extinction, destruction of tropical rain forests and dreadful and incurable diseases. All these are the causes of animal based agriculture and consumption.

Africa is a continent clouded by poverty, wars and diseases but at the same time richly blessed with abundant natural resources. The paradox is that we suffer here in Africa in the midst of plenty. We suffer because we still carry the mindset of the Stone Age. Many of our corrupt traditions need to be reformed to accommodate new discoveries and the new age. Especially, the tradition that has to do with Animal sacrifice and unregulated hunting.  We need basic solutions to solve our basic problems. The basic solution is the total movement toward a vegetarian lifestyle.

Developed and industrialized countries have at least devised means to curtail or postpone the impending catastrophes that will result as a karmic debt for the ill treatment of animals and our environment. But here in Africa we are deep in this trouble and show no sign of getting ready to finding the solutions. The quantity of grain the wealthy nations use in feeding their livestock put together is more than that consume directly by poor and third world countries. Statistics have shown that if meat eaters in United States simply ate 50 percent less flesh, the resources saved would be enough to feed almost 300 million starving people in Africa.

 Meat and fish are very expensive in Africa. Many families can not afford to buy enough given their low income levels. Vegetables are cheaper than Flesh diets in Africa. We have  conducive climate to produce vegetables and grains cheaper than meat and fish. In this sense, vegetarianism can serve as a solution to food shortages and hunger in Africa if the enormous financial investment in Animal agriculture is channeled to the production  of vegetable based diet. The huge negative impacts resulting from animal agriculture on our water, land, energy and other resources are too large to be presented in details here. Vegetarianism will play a big role in ensuring clean water, enough agricultural land mass and energy resources in Africa.   

Most Africans rely heavily on subsistence farming for their food and other economic obligations. Global warming has caused extreme temperatures in many countries in Africa and this has affected the agricultural production of many African countries. If the leaders of Africa can have the political will to start the process of eliminating investments and incentives to flesh based food and convert those investment to vegetable based diet, our food situation, our clean water crisis, our degraded environment, our energy crisis will be solved in no distant time We are talking about the adoption of Kyoto agreement by major industrialized countries but we seem to neglect the pollutions that take place in Africa. The efforts being made to cut down carbon emission in order to solve the global warming problem should be  directed mostly to Africa because the effects are more disastrous in Africa than in the developed countries. There should be a well coordinated global campaign on the imperative need to adopt a vegetarian lifestyle in order to be able to protect African environment from further degradation, prevent diseases and create love and harmony within Africans.

Animal based agriculture contributes significantly to emissions of carbon dioxide  and other greenhouse gases. Africa being a very poor continent has very poor medical facilities and can never cope with death threatening diseases like cancer, heart diseases and stroke caused by the consumption of animal flesh. We in the vegetarian movements here have continuously campaigned that the best way to save money, save Africa from health and environmental disasters is to embrace vegetarian lifestyle. Having traveled to many countries in Africa and  participated in many humanitarian, vegetarian and ecosystem events, I have noted many peculiar points with vegetarianism in Africa which makes it different from what is obtainable in other continents. The awareness for the need to transform from animal based diet to vegetarianism is more in other continents than in Africa.

 Africa is still tied to false traditional beliefs and rites. Slaughtering of animals for sacrifice is still dominant in African traditional religion. In almost every traditional rite performed in Africa, animal slaughtering must be part of it. Many Africans take traditional chieftaincy titles based on how many cows, goats, chicken and sheep they have slaughtered for their communities. Attaching slaughtering of animal to a religious belief is a very difficult attitude to change because the ignorant ones would always accuse you of being against their religion. We have written many articles in respect of this and not much response have been received. I personally have researched to find out why we must kill life in order to appease God in Africa. I found out personally that the ancient Africans attached a lot of importance to the colour Red in their traditional occult rituals and blood is the closest symbol to the red colour. We have met many traditional rulers at local levels about this and I have personally suggested the use of red candle to substitute for animal blood in order to spare the lives of animals. Many community Chiefs are looking into my suggestion to see whether their Gods to whom they sacrifice those animal blood will equally be appeased with  red candle.

Today every nation in Africa is been encourage to adopt democracy and rule of law. But democracy and rule of law can not work well in the midst of poverty and hunger. Vegetarian movements in Africa has proffered vegetarian solution to our poverty and hunger problems. We have clearly stated it and proved that it can work. Should our governments adopt our proposals, we are sure that poverty and hunger in Africa will be a history and the people should have enough to eat, extra money to pay for their children education, excellent health and development of human resources.


Africa is still a virgin continent. There are not much of industrial activities going on here because we were left behind during the industrial revolution. Nature is still intact in many parts of Africa. We have preached that Vegetarian lifestyle here in Africa can help us conserve our environment and make it more attractive to western tourist to visit, thereby creating jobs and money in the whole continent. The imminent danger and threat we are foreseeing today is unregulated hunting and the growth in appetite for “bush meat” in Africa. Unregulated hunting has led to the disappearance of many animal species.  We in the vegetarian movements here understand that we need government intervention in form of policies and implementations to stop hunting and protect our animals species from death and extinction. We have had contacts with powerful regional politicians in various countries and have presented our case to save animal lives and species. The governments are very much interested in this because they are direct stake holders in environmental protection. Governments also know the economic implication of destroying our tourist attractions. Various parliaments in many countries will soon come up with more severe penalties for hunting specified animals. We have organized seminars in conjunction with wild life conservation agencies and NGOs in this matter and we are making great progress in this direction.

Almost all the countries in Africa are heavily indebted and poor with widespread of cases of malnutrition. The number one health problem in Africa today is chronic malnutrition. Half of African population suffer from malnutrition. The fact is that many can not afford the so called “animal based balanced diets”. Many can not afford money to buy enough meat, chicken and fish for their protein needs and have as well neglected the truth about vegetable protein as perfect, far cheaper and healthier substitute to Animal protein. The meat and fish industries have so much manipulated our minds to believe that it is only flesh which can give us the perfect amount of protein we need in our bodies and African people aspires to this. Eating food with a lot of fish and meat could mean a sign of wealth and affluence and many ignorant Africans aspire to that. We have capitalized heavily on this by preaching the use of Soya beans and Soya products and other grains as perfect substitutes for animal based protein diets by citing example with the Chinese and Japanese. Ministries of health and nutrition have backed this campaign and the promotion is being done in almost all the hospitals and major town markets. There are also many companies that have taken advantage of this new surge in demand for soy products and have invested a lot of money into it. This is a fast growing business here but currently it is being threatened by current scientific discovery of negative effects of Soya on women.

Regardless of social system or ideology, any country that emphasizes meat production is going to make its food situation worse. In Niger republic and Ethiopia, we have two cases of very poor countries which have relied heavily on livestock agriculture with tragic results. In both countries, thousands have died and tens of thousands more in danger of dying. In both countries for example, live stock Agriculture has played a key role in crippling the ability of the food system to produce enough food and the resultant effects have been famine.

The way and the manner in which these animals are farmed and processed in Africa is another matter of concern. We do not have well equipped laboratories here to test these animals of diseases before slaughtering them for human consumption. There are a lot of mysterious animal based diseases which have been killing Africans here. Without well equipped laboratories we can not know of this. The “mad cow” disease became known in Britain and the whole world because Great Britain has got the facilities to identify it and have got the media to create awareness for her citizens and the world. People here may have superstitiously linked the mad cow disease to ancestral punishment visited on the current generation in order to pay for the sins of the past. Because of this many western Tourist become temporal vegetarians when they are on tour to Africa.

Traditionally, Africa is a carnivorous society. It is only intensive and widespread campaign over a long period of time that can change this lifestyle. Vegetarian movements and some NGOs in Africa are already doing their best in this regard. We are still faced with huge problems of: 1.illiteracy – many people are not educated enough to read         and understand our mass advertisement.
2.Many of the poor and hungry people do not have any opportunity of changing their food choices. They normally eat anything that comes their way and will never heed to our campaigns.
3. False traditional belief in slaughtering of animal for ritual purposes is an ancient custom which is very difficult to eradicate in a short time.
4.Wholesale adoption of western agricultural system which is dominated by livestock agriculture.
5.Lack of interest on the part of private sector to invest in vegetarian products or sponsor vegetarian events and movements.
6.Lack of political will on the part of African government in formulating and implementing polices that favour vegetarian lifestyle and campaign.
Vegetarian movements in Africa have got an uphill task before them but lack the necessary supports and fund to confront these tasks. We need a financial lifeline to intensify our campaigns and I therefore call on western vegetarian movements to partner with sister movements in Africa and help them in the promotion of vegetarianism in Africa.

I think that it is very important to recognize the contributions of religious and philosophical bodies in promoting vegetarianism in Africa. The back to Africa movement led by Marcus Garve in the early 20th century has led Rastafarians from Jamaica and other parts of the world to move down to Africa. Vegetarian lifestyle is highly recommended in Rastafarian religion. So most of them established vegetarian restaurants and projects that have promoted vegetarianism very well in Africa. The recent influx of yoga societies into Africa has helped also. Hare Krishna movement, The Theosophical Society and Rosicrucian fellowship etc, are movements in Africa with large vegetarian membership. The contributions of vegetarians in these groups have been tremendous.

The task ahead for vegetarian movements in Africa is huge. We need a lot of help from sister movements in the western world in all our efforts in advocating for a vegetarian Africa. Our progress has been relatively slow and we need now more than ever to consider new strategies to promote vegetarianism more effectively in Africa.   

The journey of one thousand kilometers begins with a step. Our Goal of achieving a full vegetarian continent in Africa is an uphill task which looks impossible but our tireless efforts and your supports will make it possible. We are planting the seeds today and we know that future African vegetarians who will come after us will have a foundation or a platform to continue from where we stopped. Gradually we will get there.

Thank you very much

ISAAC OBIORA DIKEOCHA
PRESIDENT, VEGAN SOCIETY OF GHANA