In an interview with Prof. Dr. İoanna Kuçuradi, published in our newspaper last Friday, Figen Atalay highlighted many important lessons for humanity. One particular statement stood out to me:

"A significant issue I see in education is its focus on developing cognitive abilities while neglecting or inadequately addressing ethical skills, often relegating them to religious and moral education.

Effective education should be grounded in ethical, value-based knowledge. We often overlook the critical distinction between ethical values and value judgments, a realization essential for leading a life befitting humanity."

Reevaluating values to question

As a writer advocating for veganism, the philosophy of animal liberation, these words resonated with me, especially regarding the relationship between humans and non-human animals.

Having long questioned the exploitation of non-human animals under human imperialism, I've been trying to convey that the vegan revolution is an ethical revolution for humanity.

The following excerpt from my book "The Vegan Revolution and Animal Liberation," newly published this month under Cumhuriyet Books, elaborates on this:

"If the entire planet is a massive slaughterhouse and prison for animals, how can humans hope to live in peace? It's time for humanity to confront this reality. Those who do undergo an internal revolution, leading them to veganism. Reevaluating accepted ethics involves an individual's logic, reason, and conscience. In a non-vegan world, becoming vegan requires one to challenge the societal norms and create an alternative to the value system ingrained since birth."

Veganism represents an ethical revolution, where individuals challenge the value system presented to them through family, school, religion, culture, and peer groups. It involves saying "no" to things that contradict reason and conscience and refusing to be a cog in the wheel of exploitation.

The only body you have a right to claim is your own

Ending the perception of non-human animals as commodities, food, objects, slaves, entertainment, experimental subjects, or transportation; advocating that the right to life belongs not only to humans but also to conscious, sentient non-human animals can only be achieved by recognizing the difference between ethical values and value judgments Kuçuradi mentioned.

Realizing that the only body you have the right to claim is your own...

To stop making excuses for living in the 12th century mindset when it comes to non-human animals in the 21st century, and to challenge speciesism, is possible only through an ethical revolution...

While on one hand, humans are killing their own kind in wars in Palestine and other parts of the world, what I write may seem utopian to some, but the truth is that the savagery in this world will not end until the systematic oppression of those at the bottom of the exploitation chain ceases.

Here is the key question for the ethical revolution behind veganism:

Are you against exploitation, whether it's directed at humans or non-human animals?

Note: Today at 16:00, I will be speaking at the "Secularism and Women's Rights in the 100th Year of the Republic" event organized by the Divriği Cultural Association at Suriye Pasajı in Beyoğlu. I look forward to seeing my readers who can make it.