Historic Vegan Society at risk of being washed away by allegations of racism, ...

Big ructions have been rocking the heart of The Vegan Society, that 80-year-old bastion of kindness, compassion and gentleness — to animals, that is.

And no, we’re not talking a quick spat over the spelling of hummus. Or the ins and (often dramatic) outs of a spot of fermented cabbage on one’s gut health. 

Or even a spirited discussion about the carbon footprints of tofu and dhal, relative to couscous.

Because just as veganism has finally become cool, popular, right-on and brilliantly mainstream, the institution behind it all seems in danger of being washed away by bitter allegations about, well, pretty much everything you can think of.

Racism, intolerance, white supremacy, transphobia, misgendering, ableism (discrimination in favour of able-bodied people, for those not up to date on their ‘isms’) and lack of diversity — the list goes on, and on.

Last year, the society even commissioned a special report by barrister Ijeoma Omambala QC to investigate claims that vice chair Eshe Kiama Zuri, 25 — who prefers to be referred to as ‘they’ or ‘their’, and describes themselves as ‘black, queer, disabled, working class and non-gendered’ — had posted racist, discriminatory and offensive comments online.

It does seem a bit bizarre. After all, you’d think this super-woke organisation would be all peace, love, lentils and inclusivity.

But clearly not.

And more recently, everything erupted again over whether veganism — a word invented back in the 1940s by the society’s founder, Donald Watson (often referred to as ‘the world’s most gentle man’) and his wife Dot — was in fact cultural appropriation of food, recipes and traditions from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

It was an article by Zuri — who joined the Society’s council in 2019 — that really stirred things up. 

In it, they alleged that ‘a white man coined the term veganism’ but that ‘hippy vegetarian food’ was built on the culinary traditions of black, indigenous and non-Western ancestral traditions, including dhal from Pakistan, tofu and wheat from China, hummus from the Middle East, and so on and so forth.

To add to the drama, Zuri claimed they had been misgendered in meetings (referred to by a sex they do not identify as), and five trustees — including Zuri and chair Robb Masters — resigned. 

Apparently, they had all become increasingly worked up about the so-called ‘stranglehold’ heterosexual white men had on the movement.

All of which must surely have seen poor old Donald Watson spinning in his grave. 

Partly at such bitter and generally unedifying behaviour — this is, after all, a society that cites compassion as its raison d’être, and was founded by a man who never, ever quarrelled.

‘Early in life I became adept at raising my eyebrows instead of the strange behaviour of so many,’ Watson once said. 

‘The fact that they are still in place says a lot for the reflex action of the muscles on my forehead!’

But also because the term ‘cultural appropriation’ hadn’t been invented when he and Dot founded the society in 1944 at their kitchen table in Leicestershire with the support of 23 other likeminded, animal-loving friends.

Nor, for that matter, had the words ‘misgendering’, ‘ableism’ or ‘transphobia’. 

This pair just wanted to prevent cruelty to animals in a peaceful, kind and thoughtful way.

It all started for Donald when he was growing up in the mining community of Mexborough, South Yorkshire. 

The son of a headmaster, he was physically weak and deeply sensitive, but also determined.

So when, in 1924 and aged 14, he witnessed the slaughter of a screaming, terrified pig on his uncle’s farm, he decided that ‘farms — and uncles — had to be reassessed’ and stopped eating meat on the spot, contrary to all the received culture and wisdom.

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