THE YOUTH ARE GETTING RESTLESS AGAIN

The idea of not eating meat has not exactly been embraced with open arms by the Swedish people. I think that’s partly due to our geographical location but also to traditions going way back in our history. We’ve had no other options for so long since we can’t grow food in the winter so most people see meat-eating as something natural and necessary. Of course, most people haven’t considered the alternatives. Why should they? Their parents ate meat and so did their grandparents before them. Who needs progress? The womans place is in the kitchen where she’s supposed to cook meat for her husband who’s returning from work, right? I don’t even wanna get into that, that’s not what this is about. This is about me trying to make some sense out of a situation me and my friends were put in when an idea we had was distorted by the media and we ended up talking alot of shit that shouldn’t have been aimed at us in the first place.

As I said, people were having a hard time accepting the idea of vegetarianism, but the youth of Sweden were starting to catch on. Alot of information was being spread and compassion was flowing throughout the land. It was a hot issue in several newspapers and talkshows, showing healthy youngsters speaking out on the horrors of the meat-industry. Everything was looking great when, all of a sudden, in the midst of this ongoing awareness-raising debate, someone started blowing up meat-trucks, meat-company offices and, believe it or not, hot-dog stands!! It started low-scale, furshop windows smashed, locks glued, bombthreats and culminated one September evening with 3 meat-trucks being blown tom smithereens on the meat-factorys parking lot just outside of Umeå. All members of Refused were called in for questioning by the cops although we were on tour in Germany at the time of the incident. And it was downhill from there… 
The newspapers loved the situation and had no problem raping our culture with their cheap ink. Since they had no faces to attach to these actions all eyes were pointed at us. Words were turned against us and others were put in our mouths. When we refused to comment they just pulled something out of the archives, like a live shot or something, and there we were again, the dangerous vegan punks corrupting the youth. It was never said out loud, of course, but with captions about meat-trucks being blown to pieces next to pictures of us there was no doubt in anyones mind what they were playing at. All things considered, I think we made it out with selfrespect intact, but for all the shit I had to take, I’d like to settle the score.