[jimbo2012]

October 9, 2013 at the House of Commons in London, where she was presented with the Institute of Jainology’s prestigious Ahimsa Award for her international work on nonviolence. Dr. Joy is the eighth recipient of the award. Former recipients include the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela.

I want to first thank the Institute of Jainology for honoring me, and the cause for which I work, with this award. And I would also like to thank them for their efforts to help create a world in which one day ahimsa will no longer be worthy of such recognition, because nonviolence will simply be the norm.

This award is a step in that direction. For it is often those with the greatest vulnerability to violence who are the most exploited and the least protected, and whose victimization remains invisible. Recognizing my efforts to illuminate the violence inherent in animal agriculture, and the violence in the consciousness that enables this practice, is a powerful statement legitimizing farmed animals as vulnerable others, as victims who are therefore deserving of protection from harm.

I am deeply honored and profoundly grateful to be receiving the Ahimsa Award, but this award does not belong to me alone. The platform on which I stand has been constructed by the tireless animal advocates and activists, the unsung heroes, whose courage and commitment to speak the truth in the face of overwhelming social denial – to demand compassion and justice for all beings – is perhaps the greatest example of ahimsa I know. And in particular I stand here because of the efforts of my team at Carnism Awareness and Action Network, all volunteers whose dedication frankly humbles me. So I accept this award on behalf of those whose work has made mine possible. And I accept this award on behalf of the pigs and chickens and cows and fish and sheep and rabbits and ducks and everyone else who has been or will be an invisible victim of agricultural violence.

Thank you.

And now I’d like to share with you how I came to be here today, the story of how my search for truth and my discovery of love helped teach me the meaning of ahimsa.