Meet Seb Alex of the Middle East Vegan Society
Speciesism, Islam and Animal Rights
Last month I was excited to attend Australia’s first ever Vegan Camp Out, a new and fun extension of the UK’s Vegan Campout which has been going since 2016. You can read about my experience in the Newcastle Herald, and hear some snippets of the speakers on my Instagram.
Of all the interesting speakers I heard (and there were many) Seb Alex really stood out to me. After I heard him speak about one of my favorite short stories by Ursula K. Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, I knew I had to interview him.
Seb was born and raised in Lebanon; he is Armenian Lebanese. He moved to Europe to get a master's degree in sustainable architecture and then went on to work in the field. Six years ago he quit his job to dedicate all his time to animal rights. Now, he lives in Indonesia and gives lectures in universities and schools. He runs the Middle East Vegan Society, an organization raising awareness about plant-based eating and animal rights in the Middle East through education and corporate outreach.
”The reason I give most of my time to animal rights, although I do speak on human rights as well as every now and then, it's because the number of people speaking about human rights is so much bigger, of course, than the number of people speaking about animals. But at the same time, the number of animals that are suffering is ridiculously higher than a number of humans suffering,” he says.
Psychologists sometimes talk about how speciesism might be the first type of discrimination that humans are taught. Seb defines speciesism as, the arbitrary discrimination of other animals based on the species that they belong to.
”You know, we're here trying to stop sexism, racism, homophobia, like all these different types of isms that are representatives of oppression and discrimination. Why don't we attack the root cause? Which is speciesism. When you're a child, they're like, ‘no, you gotta play with the dog and eat the cow. Play with the cat and eat the chicken,’” Seb says.
Years ago he was introduced to a vegan who made him think about the diet, and then he watched the Documentary Earthlings. He wanted to find a good excuse to keep eating meat, but he still can’t find one 16 years in.
He spoke to me in detail about the Middle East Vegan Society.
”Throughout my nine years of activism, I have experienced talking to a lot of Muslims who tell me ‘well, in our religion, God made it permissible (of eating meat.) So I don't know why I should stop. It's permissible anyway.’ And I've also had a lot of activists ask me ‘how do you deal with this situation?’” Seb says.
When he started the Middle East Vegan Society he knew one of the biggest obstacles was religion, specifically in the Middle East where the majority of the population is Muslim. He is not religious, but he has many friends who are ethical vegans and animal rights activists. He has some friends who are vegan, because they're Muslim.
”They got to veganism through the scripture,” he explains.
He decided to do a project. He and his colleagues took months to prepare detailed research which they shared between other Muslim activists in the Middle East. They’re finalizing it now and will soon publish it in English and Arabic.
Seb generously gave me a few key points about the research!
He told me the strongest argument that is given against animal rights by a Muslim is that “it's permissible,” which is the word used for “Halal,” including Halal meats. Halal means something is permitted to do. And the word “Haram” means non permissible, wrong.
”In Islam, there's a very strong point, which is, you cannot make something haram if Allah made it halal for us, because then you're saying that you have a better judgment than God. Right? So if you're talking to a Muslim, you don't claim that eating animals is haram, when the religion itself says that God said it's fine. In discussion we don't have that power. But you look at the Scripture, right?” he says.
He said an important pillar in Islam is the principle of harm reduction; when you have the option, you should not cause any harm. Eating meat was made halal back in those days because people did not have the abundance of food that they have now, especially given the area of the world in which they lived. Therefore it was made permissible, halal, to eat animals.
”But we don't need that anymore. In Islam, it doesn't say ‘running is permissible,’ because there's nothing wrong with running. But eating meat was made permissible because there was something wrong about it. Otherwise, why would you say this is permissible? Of course, once it was made permissible, they introduced other rules like it's permissible, but the animal should not see any other animal getting killed. The knife should be sharpened to make sure that there's the least amount of harm caused to the animal,” Seb says.
He said that despite the rules of halal, these days everything has been reduced. Seb has been in certified Halal slaughter houses where all the chickens are hung upside down and killed in front of each other.
Eating meat was one of the few things that the Prophet also introduced rules around, for example, hunting for fun is forbidden. Branding an animal in the face was forbidden. Using a wild animal, forbidden. It's a long list.
”So there are a lot of arguments. Yes, it remains permissible. But Islam also gives you the responsibility to adapt to the day and time we live in. And to take care of your body and to take care of nature, meaning you should not be destroying nature. Animal agriculture is one of the leading causes of destruction of nature. Put all of these things together. Yes, it remains in the religion permissible, but it makes no sense to continue to do so in this day and age,” Seb says.
Like so many others at Vegan Camp Out, his compassion for animals was clear, as was his enthusiasm for this fascinating research he is doing. My chat with him that afternoon was by far the most interesting of the day. After I turned off the recorder, we got into even more interesting topics including anti-natalism!
Make sure to follow Seb on Instagram and Facebook. I can’t wait to read the new research!
Before I sign off, as I do every week, here are a few things I’m learning about lately:
A fascinating critique on urban greening that forced me to do some soul examining as a big urban nature fan.
American treasure Willie Nelson on his cure for writers block.
Two highly different opinion pieces on Israel/Palestine, published in Al Jazeera. Really cool that Al Jazeera publishes such broad opinions.
1. https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/12/2/it-is-hypocritical-to-protest-israel-but-be-silent-on-syria-and-yemen/
2.https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/12/13/palestines-and-turtle-islands-liberation-are-entwined
Thought provoking Alex!