A NEW WAY OF LIFE

[Guest guest]

A NEW WAY OF LIFE Ronny Wytek

 

The following information was prepared for the

magazine of the Vegan-Organic Trust, a UK charity

providing networking, education and research about

animal free food production. See the website

 

www.veganorganic.net

 

The author of the article below, Ronny Wytek is the

founder and present organiser of VOT’s Austrian

counterpart 'BioVegaN', as well as being an activist

in the vegan and non-violent movements. He is

presently living in Vienna, but is planning with other

people in the near future to found, and live in, an

eco-village. This article is taken from the Austrian

newspaper 'Die Furche' (translated from the German by

Dave, Darlington, Co. Durham).

 

After my media appearances under the headings " the

most frugal Austrian " and " living out of the rubbish

bin " I am often asked what brought me to this radical

lifestyle. (I am always glad that the questioners use

the word 'radical', because it comes from the Latin

'radix' meaning root, which is just where the problems

have to be solved.) Actually, the answer is quite

simple - for me getting the food I need out of the

rubbish bins of supermarkets and greengrocers is

currently the most ethically justifiable way to live.

The first few times I did it, it took a great effort

to rummage through the sometimes evil smelling bins

for food and household goods. But that soon changed

and now it is just part of my everyday life. On the

other hand, I now feel ill in supermarkets. Friends of

mine who have also chosen this way of life have had a

similar experience. They have helped me to find

rubbish skips, from the contents of which we have been

able to feed not only ourselves but also many other

people.

 

Why do I live like this? Although I gave up my well

paid job in air-traffic control four years ago, I

still had enough money to live quite ‘normally’, but

that kind of life does not interest me. It is

important for me to move step by step in the direction

of sustainability and non-violence. That means that I

should not live at the expense of my human and natural

environment or of its future. At the very least I

would like to cause those creatures on this planet

that are susceptible to pain as little pain as

possible.

 

By putting my hand in the rubbish bin instead of in my

pocket I use resources that would otherwise be wasted.

It always shocks me that every day we throw away tons

and tons of unspoilt food and, especially around

Christmas time, household goods too. An enormous

amount of energy was invested in the process of

producing and transporting these products - what a

waste! But what is most important to me is that,

living like this, I need only about fifty pence a day

for food and so can minimise my financial input into

(and my responsibility for) this throw-away society

that we live in.

 

It also means that I am not subject to any pressure to

chase a high salary. I earn the little money I need to

live on from my work for a charitable organisation. It

makes no sense to me to shift the blame for the

condition of our planet and our economy onto

politicians and bankers, when I realise that I am an

active cog in this system. Now I am setting to work

with the nearest and most effective lever - my own

lifestyle. As long as I was working in air-traffic

control, I had to accept joint responsibility for the

pollution caused by aircraft. As long as I had a bank

account, I was helping to finance the armament, gene

technology and nuclear industries, because the capital

in bank accounts flows wherever the profit is largest.

And generally, when I consume goods or services, I am

also buying the huge social and ecological baggage

that comes with them and which we are often unwilling

to acknowledge.

 

I would like to quote St. Francis of Assisi, who said,

" You should not criticise and argue with people but

create something new and put it up next to the old. "

As a postscript to that I would add that only in that

way can other people judge which of the ways seems

right for them. For me the new is not so much about

the rubbish bins as about living as part of a new

society, the structure of which might resemble that of

a village of a hundred years ago, in which the basic

elements were communal work, celebration and culture,

as well as mutual help and self-sufficiency. In a

place like this people could live and die in a humane

way. There would be no wage-slaves or people living in

involuntary loneliness. Unhealthy material pressures

could be rejected. Already there are communes and

eco-villages all over the world, where people have

discovered these values for themselves. In-Austria too

people are planning an eco-village.

 

Even though the realisation of these ideas involves

many difficulties, it represents for me the only

practicable way out of being jointly responsible for

the destruction of our mother earth.

 

Ronny calls his philosophy ‘Freeganism’, and

emphasises:

 

Veganism means, in principle, only the reduction in

animal suffering through not using animal products

like meat, eggs, milk, leather etc. Do vegans then

automatically live lives of non-violence?

 

The consumption of food of animal origins is not by a

long way the only source of suffering that we cause.

If we consider our monetary transactions, we see that

we are participants in, even initiators of,

destruction......

 

......through freeganism you cause less suffering, but

dependence on the ‘system’ remains, as long as the

food does not come from your own garden

 

(for more, see http://scavengeuk.mine.nu/)

 

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‘We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our

children’. Antoine de St. Exupery

 

 

 

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