Sometimes it feels challenging enough helping animals in the US. But how would things differ if we were based elsewhere in the world? What obstacles face animals and the people who help them in the Islamic culture of the United Arab Emirates and the post-Apartheid society of South Africa? We follow the travels and adventures of “The World Peace Diet” author Dr. Will Tuttle and his partner Madeleine in the Sustainable Activism blog below.

If one thing has stuck with me from my travels, it is the significant effect that small groups of dedicated activists can have on the larger society. Local advocates sharing the vegan message all over the world continue to prove that inspiring progress can happen in spite of the often severe resistance offered by prevailing cultural attitudes.

Dubai

We stayed in Dubai for ten days with a local vegan advocate, and it was clear to see the budding vegan movement is gathering momentum rapidly in spite of the impediments inherent in the underlying culture. Dubai is the largest city in the United Arab Emirates, and has virtually exploded in just the past twenty years as the most ultra-modern city in the world, and is city of superlatives, with the world’s highest building, largest shopping mall, and grandest indoor ski “mountain” with chairlift. About ninety percent of the people living in Dubai are expatriates, drawn there by the economic opportunities, primarily from the surrounding Islamic countries, but also from India and to a lesser extent Europe and North America.

Dubai is a swirl of cultural currents that provides liberating opportunities for many of the residents, and we found a young and vibrant vegan community there, with a large and well-stocked organic food store, a high-quality organic vegan restaurant, and three major vegan meet-up groups. While most of the people who attended our lectures and gatherings were not traditional Muslims, some of them were, and there seems to be a genuine interest building among these people, for the health benefits of plant-based eating, as well as the increasingly recognized environmental benefits, especially for a city plunked in the midst of desolate desert. Compassion for animals is increasingly being recognized as a motivating factor.

I spoke at length with a non-vegetarian Muslim who informed me that it is considered a duty, especially for men, to sacrifice with their own hands a goat or sheep at least once a year as part of their faith, and that while it might be possible for Muslims to be vegan, they are like people who call themselves Catholics but don’t attend mass. A vegetarian woman told me how she had been, at one point earlier in her life, completely doused by her brother with kerosene to be burned alive for breaking one of the Islamic laws, and had thankfully escaped. We were glad to see her and other people in Dubai questioning violence toward animals and making the connection between oppression of people and of animals.

One beautiful day we spent in the U.A.E. was with a South African airline pilot who is a pillar of the vegan community. He brought us on a snorkeling and dolphin-watching cruise to the fabled Straits of Hormuz in the neighboring Sultanate of Oman where we saw many young men heading out to risk their lives in small boats, smuggling goods under cover of darkness across the gulf to Iran.

Like the next country we would be visiting, South Africa, U.A.E. has exceptionally high rates of heart disease, diabetes, and the other illnesses of high-volume animal food consumption, and there is a refreshing wave of progressive advocacy there that is working to raise consciousness. Given the cultural milieu, though, vegan advocates emphasized to us that they have to be always mindful in their efforts and tread lightly and carefully in the way they bring the vegan message to larger society. The U.A.E., like other Islamic countries, is emphatically not a democracy, but like in any society, real positive change happens at the grass roots level, beginning, as Gandhi emphasized, with committed individuals and their efforts to educate, understand, and share their insights.

Greyton, South Africa

From living on the 31st floor of an urban high-rise in Dubai, it was wholesale change to be hosted by Greyton Farm Animal Sanctuary, along with rescued pigs and geese, nestled in the spectacular mountains and valleys northeast of Cape Town.

Inspiring vegan activists abound in Greyton, one of whom, Rohan Millson, had taken our World Peace Diet Facilitator Training five years earlier in Cincinnati, and has just published an encyclopedic book on the health benefits of veganism, Why Animals Aren’t Food. His book is the result of five years of dedicated research and writing and is a definitive and thorough response to the many arguments we vegans hear that promote low-carb diets and eating animal foods.

Besides supporting a small vegan restaurant and the vegan animal sanctuary, the town of Greyton is also the only town in Africa that is officially recognized as a Transition Town by the Transition Town Movement, which is a global movement encouraging towns and cities to be more sustainable and self-sufficient regarding food, water, and energy. As part of their ongoing work to develop their Transition Town status, the residents of Greyton, led by Nicola Vernon, the proprietor of the sanctuary and the restaurant, have received a grant from Humane Society International to teach vegan nutrition, gardening, and foraging in the local schools. The main teacher of these skills is a young local man named Marshall. Hearing about the inspiring success of his work with local children and their creation of school gardens to provide the community with organic foods was one of the highlights of our time in South Africa.

What is disturbing to witness in South Africa is the extreme disparity between the moneyed class, primarily white, and the vast shantytowns where tens of thousands of South Africans live in extreme poverty, over-crowdedness, and crime. Finding ways of bringing the vegan message not just to the wealthier segments of South Africa, but also to impoverished people is an important challenge, and Marshall’s successful work in this area was for us a shining example of seeds of a more positive future for South Africa being planted with love and awareness.

Besides giving a public lecture in Greyton, we also facilitated a two-day World Peace Diet training workshop there where we were able to learn and share more deeply with local vegan advocates, all of whom shone with impressive openness and commitment to facilitating positive change. One vegan veterinarian from the town of Prince Albert, shared his commitment to creating a vegan education center. It was refreshing both to spend time with these activists and to experience the beauty of rural South Africa, with breaks to swim and hike in the canyons surrounding Greyton.

Cape Town

From Greyton we left for Cape Town, the epicenter of vegan living in South Africa. we were swept up in a whirlwind of media interviews and meetings with passionate vegan activists. Our first stop was Plant, a relatively new and highly popular vegan restaurant offering world-class food.

In Cape Town we were blessed to participate in a heart-touching tree-planting ceremony with Anglican Bishop Geoff Davies, known as the “Green Bishop of Cape Town” for his outspoken writings on behalf of protecting ecosystems. The following evening we journeyed to the countryside north of Cape Town to stay with the founder of Plant restaurant, an energetic tri-athlete, and then returned the next day to Cape Town to climb Lions’ Head and enjoy the spectacular views, and visit the famous Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens where many of the unique indigenous trees, plants, and flowers of South Africa are on show. That evening I presented a lecture at the Ubuntu Wellness Centre, a local holistic center promoting vegan living, which was packed to standing room only. Over just two days, I gave two newspaper interviews and one national TV interview, helping to get the vegan word out to the South African community.

For the next two days, we held the second World Peace Diet training at the Ubuntu Centre in Cape Town, and it was inspiring getting to know the local activists. Ian and Dawn MacFarland, the founders of Ubuntu, were unstinting in their efforts to arrange and promote the events in the Cape Town area, and are local leaders in the vegan movement, helping to introduce the multiple benefits of vegan living to the local population through their holistic health center, as well as through public education events such as the ones we put on together. We also appreciated spending time with Andi Brand and Sven Fautley, two well-known local activists who have started the “VeloVegans” which is their name for their vegan outreach that features them bicycling throughout Africa with brightly colored costumes on, and sharing the vegan message as they go. They have also gone through the World Peace Diet training and are pioneers in the vegan movement in South Africa.

Durban and Timbavati

André Rutishauser is another inspiring vegan activist of South Africa who created the vegan restaurant in Durban, Conscious Café, where we met to have lunch. André is also the captain of one of the Sea Shepherd ships, which is now on a campaign to protect fisheries off the coast of Nigeria. That evening, I presented a well-attended lecture in Durban sponsored by the Vegan Society of South Africa and coordinated by its president Anna Jordan and the next morning flew to the tiny town of Hoedspruitt near Kruger National Park for a three-day stay at the famous White Lion Protection Trust in Timbavati.

Founded by Linda Tucker, the author of “Saving the White Lions” and several other books about the mysterious white lions of South Africa, this wildlife preserve of 4,400 acres is home to the endangered white lions as well as many other animals such as wildebeests, elands, kudus, oryx, springboks, waterbucks, impalas, hippos, warthogs, caracals, and many spectacular birds. Three glorious days were spent seeing all these animals in the wild, and getting to know the other vegans who gathered to be with us at this wildlife sanctuary, Dawn and Ian Macfarlane from the Ubuntu center in Cape Town, and Miki Haimovich and Adit Romano, well-known vegan advocates from Tel Aviv, Israel. We were also joined by Andrea Contri and Wynter Worsthorne, respected animal communicators from Italy and Johannesburg, respectively.

This beautiful interlude provided time to relax in the South African wilderness and see and hear the animals all around, instilling a deeper appreciation for the plight of wildlife in Africa. We were surrounded, in the bigger picture, by farms, ranches, and canned-hunting preserves, all of which are decimating the populations of wild animals in Africa. The most severe devastation is wrought by the spread of animal agriculture because as more people eat meat and dairy, more land is cleared for livestock feed and grazing, and the free-living animals, including elephants, lions, giraffes, zebras, leopards, and others, are ruthlessly killed as pests, and are disappearing as their habitat shrinks dramatically.

Johannesburg

From the beautiful wild, we took a shuttle to Johannesburg and prepared for a final lecture event in South Africa hosted by the hard-working and enthusiastic members of the Johannesburg Vegan Society. Society president, Paul Palmer, did an exemplary job organizing the event with lots of help from local activists, and with the full-capacity attendance, abundant vegan refreshments, and hospitable accommodations with local Johannesburg vegan advocates, it was a memorable finale to this enlightening and inspiring sojourn in South Africa. Click here to view an interview from our time there.

The budding and blossoming vegan movement in South Africa, as in Dubai, is crucial for the future of both humans and animals, as well as ecosystems and future generations, not just in these two countries, but on our planet. Everything is interconnected. Madeleine and I are grateful to the many people who are working hard to raise awareness and exemplify the vegan teachings of caring and respect for all creation.

Though there is enormous inertia to overcome, and the devastating effects of animal agriculture and of our herding culture are painful to witness, the enthusiasm and creativity of our fellow advocates in Dubai and in South Africa—and throughout the world—give us renewed encouragement to continue living, sharing, and celebrating the vegan message of justice and respect for all life.

Dr. Will Tuttle, author of the acclaimed bestseller, “The World Peace Diet,” is a recipient of the Courage of Conscience Award. He is the creator of several wellness and advocacy training programs, and co-founder of Veganpalooza, the largest online vegan event in history. A vegan since 1980 and former Zen monk, he has created eight CD albums of uplifting original piano music. The co-founder of Circle of Compassion, he is a frequent radio, television, and online presenter and writer. With his spouse, Madeleine, a Swiss visionary artist, he presents over 100 lectures, workshops, and concerts annually throughout North America and Europe. Dr. Will Tuttle can be reached through his website at http://worldpeacediet.com.