The Liberation Pledge

By Wayne Hsiung

The historical campaign against foot binding in China struggled for 1000 years. Education, lobbying, and countless other methods made no traction in stopping what was (like eating animals today) considered a “traditional” practice.

But in 1890 campaigners found the magic bullet. They created a public pledge where families could group together and promise to never bind their daughters’ feet; and refuse to allow their sons to marry women with bound feet.

These pledges, while initially difficult, grew like wildfire and, after 1000 years of suffering, completely ended the practice of foot binding.

We can do the same for animals by refusing to participate in violent practices, but also refusing to accept violent practices in our community.

Often when dining with others, we are forced to confront a disturbing reality: the corpse of a victim of violence on the dinner table. But, we’re banding together to push back against a violent tradition with the Liberation Pledge: a pledge to live vegan and refuse to sit where animals’ bodies are being eaten.

Many taking the Liberation Pledge also make and wear a fork bracelet — a bracelet made from a fork bent to fit around a wrist.

Why the fork? By bending a fork into a symbol of nonviolence — we reclaim a tool that is indirectly, the single tool most responsible for the immense suffering and unimaginable deaths animals endure. Effectively, we aim to “beat swords into plowshares”.

Animal rights groups have investigated some of the most celebrated farms in the world, certified humane suppliers of animals’ bodies, and found unimaginable cruelty. While animal agriculture has attempted to justify using animals as humane, we know the truth: using animals is inherently violent.

To show this truth to the world, however, we have to make a public stand and create social norms around the idea that animals are not ours to use. Refusing to sit where the bodies of victims lie, and publicly displaying your commitment with a fork bracelet, is a powerful way to do this.

The pledge is simple: one, publicly refuse to eat animals — live vegan; two, publicly refuse to sit where animals are being eaten; three, encourage others to take the pledge.

Pledge to show respect for victims of violence, to demonstrate opposition to a brutal system, and to push all those around us to build a more peaceful world by refusing to eat animals — or sit at a table where a victim’s body is being eaten. Be proud of this conviction — be open, honest and outright. Wear a fork bracelet as a symbol of this pledge, and to show support for others who have taken it as well.

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