Last September I had the privilege to visit Montreal’s first Vegan festival. It wasn’t only a first opportunity to visit the festival, but also a first opportunity to visit Montreal. Indeed, when we (Ori Shavit, Israeli media person and one of the leading figures in Israel, regarding Vegan lifestlye and animal rights/liberation and myself) got to Montreal, we spent most of the days we had in our disposal touring the city and it’s surrounding. We came upon ‘Marie Reine Du Monde’, a big, impressive church that stood out fearlessly in the middle of construction sites, shopping sprees and office buildings, and we went inside as both of us, secular and detached from religion, are very interested in the architecture and the art of churches. Inside we found paintings that were not the paintings we were expecting. The series of paintings told the story of the conquest of the northern land, rather than holy stories we all know so well. One of them showed Colonel Athanase de Charette charging into war while stepping over a dead horse. The others showed a clear distinction between the white, enlightened Christians who arrived to this land, and the dark skinned ‘barbaric’ indigenous people, ever so amazed by the arrival of the newcomers, only to learn and follow their culture ways and of course, wage war in later paintings. To make a long story short, what we’ve seen is the story of conquest and culture destruction. It happened before and it’s still happening all over the world, if not in the name of religion or nationality then in the name of capitalist progress. Does that sad story about conquest and culture destruction have anything to do with the vegan festival in Montreal? Of course not. More often than not, animal rights/liberation activists can do very little with what countries and cultures are doing to other human beings.