Abolitionism and Incremental Reforms

By John Tallent

Image courtesy of The Abolitionist Vegan Society

Abolitionists are not opposed to incremental reforms; we are of the belief that they will automatically happen as a result of vegan education's effect on the demand for animal products.

The difference between abolitionists and nonabolitionists, in terms of these incremental reforms, is that abolitionists aren't out there promoting the "humane" exploitation of nonhuman animals. We believe that the incremental "reforms" that happen from advocacy for them results in people believing that they justify the use of nonhuman animals. Ask any nonvegan about using nonhuman animals - they will tell you that it is justifiable "if done humanely."

These kinds of incremental reforms only work to legitimize the property paradigm of nonhuman animals - not to overturn it. Bigger cages means more efficiency and happier consumers.

Animal welfare reform is for speciesists; vegan education is for those that wish to see the end of nonhuman animal use.

A Vegan Abolitionist Discussion in Australia

By Stevie Lynne

Not Safe for Work: Contains some good natured cursing.

Do we need people like Rupert Murdoch on our side? White men say, "Yes!"

Went to a vegan abolitionist discussion group last night. It solidified a few things to me that I already knew:

1. Francione's style of abolitionism is dripping in privilege as evidenced by the total lack of awareness about how a small group of white men insisted on dominating the conversation.

2. Men literally have no clue as to why "welcoming everyone into veganism" is problematic and threatening as f*ck. One dude insisted we needed people like Rupert Murdoch on side. Called him on it and said that welcoming everyone was a direct threat to my safety and the safety of others. His eyes glazed over and uncomfortable silence followed. Yes, a woman just challenged you on your privilege. Get the f*ck over it.

3. Many in our movement are just freaking unaware about the harmful language that they use. 

4. There are other abolitionist thought leaders out there besides some white dude and who actually rock an intersectional praxis. I managed to drop a couple of names at the end of the discussion - like Corey Wrenn and Sarah K Woodcock (much to the organiser's chagrin)

5. Francionists are happy when police can enforce certain laws. You can't be all like "abolish hierarchy and domination over nonhuman animals" in one breath and supporting the police in the next.

6. Francionists are happy to talk about human slavery in the past tense, even though they know human slavery is bigger now than ever. That's just downright deceptive shit that makes white people feel good about slavery being "in the past".

7. Francionists don't like to admit that food privilege is like a thing and should be a part of the conversation about veganism. I brought it up. It got swept away asap.

Screw Francione's abolitionism. Give me intersectional veganism any day.

An Update on Non-Profit Bias and the "Downright Stupid" Vegan Position

Last week I published a brief critique of the Humane Research Council's new study on vegan recidivism, which I suggested was conducted to legitimate compromised welfarist tactics. I argued this because 1. there is considerable preexisting research on this very topic that comes to much different conclusions and is conducted by academics who are not on the non-profit payroll, and 2. the study was conducted by a non-profit, with the help of other non-profits, and was funded by non-profits. That is, this was conducted by movement elites who specialize in grant-writing, not the scientific method.

Indeed, I have become increasingly concerned at the misappropriation of science to support some very unscientific claims. "Science" and "evidence" works to legitimize the welfarist position. I worry that few actually question who is conducting this research and how affiliation and funding sources may seriously bias the procedure and interpretation of results.

The Animal Charity Evaluators sprouted up over a year ago to offer assistance to those who want to help animals (ie. potential donors) by identifying, through "science" and "research," which non-profits are most effective. The group explicitly rejects veganism in their mission statement, so we should be immediately suspicious that donating money is considered more effective than eschewing the consumption of other animals. Also concerning is that several of the organizations that are voted most effective are also those that collaborate with ACE. Furthermore, these organizations are deemed "effective" in the sense that they "effectively" raise money and "effectively" spend the small percentage of money not funneled back into fundraising on reform (not veganism).

The Humane Research Council contacted me after publishing my essay, claiming that my critique was ill-conceived and their work is impervious to bias, but I implore that the connections couldn't be clearer (and no research is ever bias-free, but the academic community does see funding and non-profit affiliation as introduction of considerable bias). Just today, I received a newsletter update from VegFund, one of the non-profits that funded the HRC study. The main story featured was that of Vegan Outreach's founder Matt Ball pressing hard for end-of-the-year donations in his "A Radical Pragmatist's Guide to Animal Liberation." Hardly radical at all, the essay repeats the same non-profit rhetoric we have come to expect: veganism is too "puritanical," "egotistical," and "superior" (even "downright stupid"), but we are winning (?), give us more money.  On liberation, Ball writes:

Of course part of me wants everyone to hold all my views. But this will never happen. And if I insist “veganism” must encompass all my views, I make it significantly harder, if not impossible, for others to even consider the animals’ plight. 

The Vegan Outreach (and perhaps Vegfund by association) "guide to animal liberation" rejects veganism and advocates instead for making oppression "less cruel." In other words, they advocate for reform, although there is considerable evidence that reform further institutionalizes oppression by maintaining animals as objects of resources and by making industry more profitable and resistant.

The movement's "pragmatic" approach does not lead people to anti-speciesism, it feeds false post-speciesist ideology

In effect, what we have is the creation or promotion of seemingly unbiased funding or evaluation groups to produce "evidence" that non-profits work.  This "evidence" is extremely important to grant applications for demonstrating that the non-profit is using funding effectively and is worthy of receiving more. Leaders of non-profits like Vegan Outreach work closely with middle-man funding non-profits like ACE, HRC, and VegFund to create an image of efficacy and normalize their approach as "pragmatic" (with radical positions framed as "stupid"). This strategy is actually quite similar to that of American "meat" and "dairy" industries. They expend considerable effort painting veganism as dangerous or "stupid" (even bad for the animals), while creating "impartial" boards to make "impartial" statements and policy recommendations on their products and funneling millions of dollars into biased research that supports and legitimizes the "science" of their position.  In both cases, for non-profits and for speciesist industry, the goal is the same: maximize financial returns. Indeed, a link prominently displayed beside Ball's essay in the Vegfund newsletter reads: "One Quick Click for Animal Liberation." It leads to their donation page.

At the end of the day, the true nature of non-profits is to grow and protect resources. Veganism interferes with profits. Almost all funding comes from conservative elites who use foundations as a tax evasion technique. Instead of using the money they have amassed by exploiting vulnerable groups to help those vulnerable groups through the redistribution process of taxation, they hide it in foundations where they have full control over disbursement. Groups that demand radical structural change and could impede on the exploitative privileges of the elite will not be funded. This is why Ball, VegFund, ACE, HRC and others advocate for more "practical" efforts; these positions do not scare off funders. Constructing research that supports this compromised approach and featuring essays by prominent non-profit leaders in "impartial" evaluation groups keeps the movement satiated. Anti-vegan reformism becomes "common sense." Unfortunately, the Nonhuman Animal rights movement begins mirror its industry-led, state supported countermovement as a result.

Intersectionality is a Foundational Principle in Abolitionism

I have written many times on the importance of intersectionality in abolitionist advocacy as both a matter of ethics and efficacy. For succinctness, I will not repeat the arguments in this essay, but readers can access these articles by utilizing the search function in this blog. As racial violence and discrimination against people of color continues to dominate headlines and advocacy spaces, many in the vegan community are made uncomfortable by these discussions and have been publishing some unsavory and insensitive comments and essays. I believe the following status update by a self-identified abolitionist group on Facebook sums up this reaction well. 

Because white privilege has created a social environment where the white experience is misconstrued as the universal experience, because whites see themselves as individuals and not part of a racial group ("Not all whites!"; "But I'm not racist!), and because whites enjoy the privilege of being spared uncomfortable exposure to the consequences of racial inequality, whites generally lack the tools to constructively handle race issues. Robin DiAngelo refers to this phenomenon as "white fragility": 

White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress be-comes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves. These moves include the outward display of emotions such as anger, fear, and guilt, and behaviors such as argumentation, silence, and leaving the stress-inducing situation. These behaviors, in turn, function to reinstate white racial equilibrium. 

Writing for Salon, Cera Byer makes a very powerful assessment: 

Being able to turn a blind eye [sic] to things that don’t happen to you is the essence of privilege. It’s also an abuse of power. 

The following interaction was pulled from the comments section of the above status message:

Ignoring or downplaying the crisis in human suffering from the white perspective is problematic, but it is also an act of violence to shame those who are struggling to be free from violence, suffering, and death. Insinuating that people of color and women are acting selfishly also draws on prescribed race and gender roles that pressure people of color and women to put the interests of their oppressors first. In a white supremacist, neo-colonial environment, the problems facing people of color are trivialized and they are made to serve others. In a patriarchal environment, women, too, are socialized to serve others, ignore their own interests, and remain contentedly powerless and last in line.  When privileged vegan advocates draw on these race and gender roles, they pull on powerful social scripts to instill silence and obedience. These are scripts that have been in place for centuries, and persons with privilege are well socialized in their effective operation.

Anti-human/anti-intersectionality ideologies have plagued the movement in general, but their encroachment into so-called abolitionist spaces is especially disheartening. Fortunately, many are working to protect the principles of vegan abolitionism (1. veganism, 2. non-violence, 3. intersectionality) and aren't buying it. Michele Spino Martindill, for instance, shared the following commentary. It is in response to the anti-intersectionality controversy in general, but it specifically relates to the recent remarks made by Grumpy Old Vegan.

[...] the time has come to speak out against his continued defensive posturing and his complete inability to understand why intersectionality matters in the animal rights (AR) movement. GOV claims that he understands that oppressions against women and other "disadvantaged" groups are "cut from the same moral cloth" as oppressions against other animals, BUT--and there's always a BUT with GOV and his followers--he adds that oppressed humans can speak for themselves, so they don't need the support of vegans in the way that other animals need our help. I take issue with that kind of reasoning. How can children being sold into slavery speak for themselves? Are nursing home residents able to speak for themselves and assert their rights? Are rape victims given a voice when members of the AR movement compare their experiences to that of dairy cows? Were the voices of Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown heard by the oppressors? It is apparent that a divide is emerging between those who define anti-speciesism as only animals other than humans needing the help of humans, and those who see anti-speciesism as the need to oppose all oppression simultaneously because all oppression stems from the same source and if marginalized groups unite they have the power to end oppression. 

If anyone dares to mention intersectionality within the AR movement, it is treated like the ultimate dirty word, like a strike against the AR membership. We get comments along the lines of, "You're a speciesist because you care more about the exploitation of humans than other animals. We're not supposed to value humans over other animals." How is it valuing humans over other animals or species to define anti-speciesism as the need to end social hierarchies that elevate the wealthy elite at the expense of those who are defenseless? Are some AR members unable to extend their compassion to more than what they term nonhuman animals? That is an incredibly narrow view of compassion and veganism. It also shows a desire to be picky about who deserves the efforts of AR members to end violence. Clearly, human animals are not deserving in their book. Their claim that anti-speciesism will ultimately end all oppression is an empty claim if they refuse to fight and speak out against all oppression now, today and forever. 

The comments of GOV's followers are equally troubling in that they now indicate a trend to divide AR members between left and right political wings. One follower specifically praised GOV by complaining that some members of the abolitionist society were demanding that followers adhere to the "Holy Grail of Liberal Dogma" and went on to add that such "sanctimonious" beliefs are simply "trendy." These followers dismiss the efforts of feminists, the Civil Rights Movement and other efforts as if there is no need for them or they are nothing more than petty issues that will be cleared up once people accept veganism. If only it could be that simple! It's not. Veganism and anti-speciesism look elitist to those who have real and immediate needs, e.g. paying the electric bill, finding coats for everyone in the family or trying to get affordable health care. AR members have a tough choice ahead. They can resist intersectionality and working for social justice across the board, or they can accept that what benefits one will benefit all, that compassion is truly limitless and can be extended to every living being.

Let us now briefly explore those selfish folks worrying about themselves with their mixed up priorities. Trigger warning: Some of the following are disturbing images that depict systemic discrimination against vulnerable humans.

Racial profiling, violence against people of color, police violence

Rape and rape culture

Homophobia and heterosexism

Prostitution/Sex slavery

Homelessness and hunger

Pornography and sexual objectification

Environmental injustice, child poverty, food insecurity

Child labor and exploitation of the Third World

Transgender homelessness, unemployment, and murder

Violence against women

Ebola, TB, AIDS, and other diseases related to systemic oppression

Labor exploitation, colonial violence, "illegal" status

State apathy and inaction

Please, let us not tread on their toes. Please, let us give equal importance to violated, beaten, raped, starving, freezing, enslaved, sickened, suffering, dying, and murdered humans. Please, let us work for everyone's liberation. This is not a zero sum game. The same ideologies and systems of inequality oppress humans and nonhumans alike. Abolitionism as it was first conceived was built and mobilized to free oppressed humans who continue to be oppressed. For vegan advocates to completely appropriate the language and ideas of this movement and then forsake suffering humans, abandon them in their time of need, aggravate their hurting, benefit from their hurting, and then accuse victims and survivors of selfishness is deplorable. Without a doubt, this approach will only further alienate anti-speciesist efforts, tarnishing it as yet another a space of violence, oppression, and white male Western privilege.

Acknowledgements
Thank you to Pax Ahimsa for the two sources on white privilege that were discussed in this essay.

Cork Vegans, Misogyny in Ireland

TRIGGER WARNING: Contains rape meme and dismissive comments about violence against women.

I have been in Cork, Ireland for the winter, and, since my arrival, I have been absorbing the state of speciesism outside the U.S. and have been checking out the vegan scene as well. Unfortunately, I can't say I'm all that impressed in either regard. The vegan food is awesome, but post-speciesist ideology is probably more intense here in an economically-struggling, romanticized Ireland, and the vegan movement appears to be extremely misogynistic. Specifically, violence against women is taken for granted as acceptable and standard advocacy. Vegan Information Project in Dublin utilized this tactic not long ago, and, subsequently, on my birthday trip to Dublin, we did not feel comfortable making a detour to check out their stall. Here in Cork, the situation is much more dire. Sexist tactics are not only rampant, but the local vegans cling to them unapologetically. My partner and I are both vegan and we have intentionally stayed clear of our local group, Cork Vegans, because of their outright hostility to women and their unapologetic stance on violence against women.

On World Vegan Day, Cork Vegans announced they would use the holiday to promote LUSH by leafleting outside the Cork store, encouraging people to buy their products (sort of like Avon representatives, they would receive a portion of the proceeds). But, LUSH is a non-vegan company that routinely (and intentionally) uses images of violence against women to shame or scare them into buying their expensive soaps and bath bombs. When I raised some concerns with the group's decision to squander a day of peace and non-violence on a non-vegan company that causes violence to both women and other animals, the group administrator responded that it was "women's choice" to participate in sexist demonstrations and that LUSH is worth supporting because they are "kind and generous" (to whom exactly?) and "their products are not animal tested." On World Vegan Day, the last thing I want to do is promote a non-vegan company that hurts women, so we stayed in and I began compiling my social psychology series on vegan outreach. Unfortunately, these essays are probably not of much help to vegan groups that focus their energy on capitalist consumption.

This morning, Cork Vegans posted a crude Vegan Sidekick rape meme that uses violence against women as a metaphor for violence against other animals. Vegan Sidekick is notorious for exploiting the imagery and language of violence against women to discuss Nonhuman Animal rights, completely disregarding the fact that we live in a rape culture and violence against women is a real and lived experience for half the human population. Perhaps this is intentional. Activists and organizations realize that women are considered subhuman--there is no concern in upsetting or triggering them, because women's feelings and experiences simply don't matter under the patriarchy. When the movement endangers women and dismisses women's concerns, but then uses women's experiences to promote their cause, this is known as tokenizing. For more information on the problematic nature of trans-species analogies that tokenize and exploit, what Kim Socha calls "fast food activism," please read my earlier essays, "Rape as an Anti-Speciesism Tactic and the Vegan Male Discourse" and "The Misogyny of Animal Rape Imagery."

Cork Vegans: "I'm not going to apologise for sharing this. If you don't like the posts on this page just 'unlike' the page or remove it from your newsfeed."

Cork Vegans' response?

I'm not going to apologise for sharing this. If you don't like the posts on this page just 'unlike' the page or remove it from your newsfeed.

Let me be clear, when women are told, "If you don't like it, keep it to yourself/don't look/go elsewhere/unlike," the message is clear: your victimization does not matter. When activists say, "I'm not going to apologise" for hurting vulnerable people (rape victims in this case), what they are also saying is: we intend to protect our oppressive structures and don't care who it hurts. Telling survivors to "unlike" violent material in their own community is dismissive. It is also complacent and oppressive.  

It's also a form of victim-blaming. It is though it is women's fault for being exposed to the movement's misogyny. It's women's fault for participating in the movement. It's women's fault for existing. What an unwelcoming position to take. Society already maintains intensely powerful systems of victim-blaming that successfully silence most rape victims. Silencing survivors in our movement as well is nothing short of repulsive. Why would anyone want to join a movement that behaves in such a way to vulnerable people? 

Promoting and abetting violence against women "for the animals" is grossly unethical, dangerous, and it absolutely does not work. If misogyny as a tactic doesn't work, then why engage it? I believe it is because this is behavior that works in tangent with patriarchy. People hate and hurt women because that is what they've been socialized to do; this goes for men and women. Even activists in the service of peace will prey on the vulnerable, because it is a script that we are all taught from infancy. 

Cork Vegan's actions have been extremely triggering for me. As a result, I want nothing to do with the group. I would never feel comfortable being around them, much less supporting them. My experiences with Cork Vegans and other sexist groups in the movement have got me thinking: if I can barely put up with it, how could (and why would) anyone else put up with it? Because my career involves studying and researching in the Nonhuman Animal rights movement, I cannot disengage, but I can only imagine how many thousands of people the movement turns away with its callous, violent behavior. 

The dismissal of human suffering is a political problem for our movement. It aggravates oppression, and paradoxically so since we claim our goal is to end oppression. It doesn't make sense, and it doesn't work. When groups like Cork Vegan engage this violence and then respond to criticism with "don't look" or "go somewhere else," that is exactly what most people will do.


Update 12/4/2014:  Cork Vegans responded several times to inform me that my colleagues and I are "a bunch of IDIOTS," "CRACKPOTS, and "off our heads." This response indicates that they are unable or unwilling to reflect on the misogyny they facilitate, are intent on aggravating misogyny with more hostility and victim-blaming, and that they are also extremely disableist. I would advise women and other vulnerable groups be wary of this organization and others like it, they can be quite volatile. 

Post-Speciesism and the Commodification of Animal Rights: Aldi's "Love Ireland" Campaign

I'm living in Cork, Ireland for the semester and have been exploring new stores, new vegan food, and new ways of advertising food products. Something I quickly noticed was the "Produced in Ireland" labeling scheme. The "Love Ireland" campaign seeks to challenge globalized food production, an environmentally taxing process that outsources agricultural work, threatens the state in creating a dependency on outsiders, and strains the local economy with job loss and import costs. Localizing food is an important form of resistance to this process. Local produce may cost more, though, in a globalized world. To counter this, advertising campaigns seek to reframe local food as patriotic, moral and familial, and ethical.  

At Aldi, I came across a full color booklet provided to customers that pulls on Irish nationalism and nostalgia for the past to push Irish-made food.  Certain themes repeat to frame "Love Ireland" products as an ethical choice and a political action: green pastures, families, and happy animals. Unfortunately, in a speciesist world where Nonhuman Animals and their products are still considered "food," Nonhuman Animal rights has become a commodity. 

If we conduct an informal content analysis of the Aldi brochure, we can see how animal welfare is carefully constructed to encourage purchasing and to increase production.  This is an important counter to the belief that working to improve welfare will move society towards the abolition of speciesism. Nonhuman Animal rights groups promote reforms as easy victories, but in doing so, they create problematic alliances with industry to reach "compromises" that are often framed as economic incentives. Commodifying animal rights works to entrench speciesism by facilitating a "post-specisism" ideology. The public is made to believe that animal rights have been achieved through careful media campaigns that create a false challenge to systemic discrimination against other animals. In a "post-speciesist" world, few would openly admit to wanting animals to suffer and most believe themselves to be "animal lovers." This false ideology obscures structural oppression, thus protecting and perpetuating it.

Starting with the cover, we see a dairy cow identified as "Daisy the dairy cow," though it is clear that her real "name" is 0722. Naming her on the brochure implies that she is individualized and treated as a person with interests, though she was pulled from her mother at a young age, repeatedly raped, had her own babies taken from her, and will end up as hamburger before she reaches adulthood. Indeed, she was probably dead before her picture hit Aldi stores.

Meet the Loughnanes, who produce Irish "pork" in a fashion that has been "handed down through four generations of Loughnane family butchers," with all of their "ingredients" sourced in Ireland. Rhetoric of family, tradition, and heritage implies that buying pig flesh under the "Love Ireland" label is an ethical action. This framework obscures systemic violence, but also increases it.  Brendan O'Reilly's "100% Irish" "free range eggs" come from birds who are "free to roam" and are "happier hens because of it." Aldi's program has helped him to "reach a much bigger market."

Callan Bacon Ltd., a family using "traditional" curing methods on their "humble premises," have been butchers for four generations as well. Aldi's program has increased their staff to almost 200 in the past five years.

The Town of Monaghan's "small indigenous fresh dairy produce manufacturer" "depends on the support of retailers" to get their products to consumers, and Aldi's support has helped them to establish their presence in the marketplace.

The Grady family dairy employs 140 people in their cow exploitation farms: "Aldi's support has contributed to our ability to maintain our long tradition [,,,]"

Killower Farm claims: "Happier cows. Tastier yogurt." People pay for "tastier yogurt," but they are also paying for the fantasy of "happy cows":  "Their cows enjoy a lifestyle that involves clean air, lots of fresh grass and a gentle routine. [...]  The cows enjoy their routine and will even appear at the gate to be milked if the Farm Manager, Sean, is running late!" One is left to wonder if they line up to be raped and slaughtered as well.  Sadly, this false claimsmaking works: "As a result of working with Aldi we have been able to employ extra people on our farm in Enniscorthy."

At this "free range" family chicken farm, producers report: "Demand from Aldi for our products has helped secure our family farm income and also provides employment to several local poultry industry services in Limerick." 

Irish Country Meats, a "lamb supplier," ensures readers that Aldi's lambs are, "predominantly reared outdoors, grazing freely on Irish pastures. These are the ideal conditions for raising lamb and result in fresh meat that is not only lean and nutritious, but totally natural too."

ABP "beef suppliers" have also reported remarkable growth since working with Aldi. They now work with a network of over 35,000 farmers, spending over 450 million euros each year in the "acquisition of cattle" and staff employment.

Welfare "reform" and local food initiatives are not moving us towards abolition; they are facilitating a false ideology of post-speciesism and make the industry more viable. It paints an inherently violent industry as a patriotic, family-centered, traditional, and ethical industry. 

Racism and Mixed Messages: What's Wrong with Australia's Animal Rights Movement?

By Anna Adey

Trigger Warning: Features messages of racial violence

Violence to animals is considered cruel until it is carried out by white people in white establishments, then it is considered humane.

Firstly, the ideas expressed here are based on what I have observed in the animal rights movement while living in Australia. There are more distinguished speakers who can express these subjects and problems more effectively than I can who I will list at the end of this piece.

Secondly, it isn’t my intention to offend anyone here. I have friends that both support and take part in the organisations I talk about here. I admire their actions; I know their hearts are in the right place. I support them fully, even if I don’t support everything their groups do, or the messages they promote.

When I first got involved in animal rights activism, I sent off for some materials from various animal rights groups. Animals Australia is the main one here. I received their pack, which contained a bunch of leaflets and stickers on individual uses of animals- fur, leather, meat, the environment. I thought, Why can’t we tackle it all under one umbrella? Surely it’s a waste of time to spend our efforts tackling individual issues? I dug some more and found some grassroots groups across the world that gave an unequivocal message.

There are tonnes of opinion pieces and analyses of the regressive and unethical tactics of large animal welfare organisations. Less popular is the issue of racism within the movement. If PeTa exploit women on the basis that sex sells, then what sells best in Australia is xenophobia. In the country with bumper stickers that say ‘fuck off, we’re full’ and headlines demonising refugees despite being a land of plenty, it is of little surprise that racism is inherent in many of Australia’s most prominent animal campaigns.

Australia is not unique in this attitude to other cultures. In my home country, the UK, we demonise the Spanish and the French for bullfighting and consuming frogs and snails respectively while conveniently ignoring our own abuse of other sentient animals.

Even though I had decided to spend my time as an activist promoting abolitionism, I was still undecided on issues such as Stop Live Export, wondering if the ban succeeded that it might trigger talks of veganism and total animal liberation. On the fence, I joined other activists at the 2013 Human Chain. Everyone had to wear a placard stating ‘I am a......... Still Opposed to Live Export’. Hundreds of people turned up to support the ban. Many placards stated they were meat eaters, farmers. Should that surprise anyone? Of course not. The issue is what other countries do with “our” animals, not that they are being killed for pleasure or profit. Standing on the bridge I felt the similar confusion and frustration, why can’t we put this energy towards trying to achieve full animal liberation?

Comments on Animals Australia's Facebook page regarding their investigations of Australian animals exported to Indonesia

“There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.”― Audre Lorde

The 2014 Human Chain rolls round again tomorrow. But this time I won’t be joining. Being an activist, I see a constant stream of single issue causes and cases of animal abuse in my newsfeed. These days, I am more selective about what I put my name to, preferring to take an intersectional approach to justice. I understand why many people feel compelled to sign every petition. You want to do everything you can, anything, to help get these poor souls out of these horrendous conditions. Just the other day, one particular campaign jumped out at me that I couldn’t shake off.  It was about the dog meat trade in Indonesia. The image was of four dogs tied in bags on the back of a motorbike, their heads poking out with their mouths bound. One of the pups stared at the camera, his eyes full of extreme terror. He looked just like my dog, Nero. Immediately my knee-jerk reaction was to sign it, do anything to make it stop. But even if we do convince Indonesia or China or another country to stop eating dogs, without an anti-speciesist message, they will simply replace the dogs with pigs, or chickens.

Chinese people are often the target of racist attacks when it comes to animal rights

I think many people are forgetting, or perhaps they don’t know, who is driving the demand for meat in Indonesia. I’ve been to Indonesia four times. On my most recent trip I spent a month in Bali and Lombok, and ventured out past the tourist areas, spending time in an orphanage, and a dog rescue centre. What shouldn’t have been surprising is that past the areas populated by Western tourists, there are very little animal products. In Ubud, for example, I was paying $1 for tempeh dishes from local warungs. Yes, dog meat is eaten, but to say that is worse than eating cows, pigs or chickens is speciesist.

I don’t hear many complaining when countries such as Indonesia continually expand their McDonalds and KFC restaurants, demanding more animals to be killed. Pointing the finger at Halal methods of slaughter is missing the point. We should know better than to keep entrenching the false idea that “humane slaughter” was brought in for anything other than efficiency. Animals are property. Property only has rights insofar as it is useful to the property (slave) owner. The idea that laws will give animals any sort of protection that would not benefit the owner is ludicrous and something we should be constantly smashing, not perpetuating.

Am I the only one who thinks this is extremely sad? A country crippled with poverty under the crushing weight of global capitalism imports animals to appeal to western tastes, and is then accused of cruelty by those same people it is feeding? But we have a long history of pointing the finger at Asia and villainising them as cruel and heartless when it comes to animals. Even when they eat a tiny fraction of the animals that we do, kill far less animals than we do, have more vegans and vegetarians, and more animal rights activists. We use far more animals in far more ways for the most frivolous purposes yet have the *gall* to say we are fair and humane. This whole phenomenon reeks of white privilege and Western superiority.

But let’s say that the live exports from Australia to Indonesia do stop. What then? Wouldn’t that be a landmark victory? Let’s take a look. If Indonesia doesn’t get its animals from Australia, it will get them from China or Brazil. Or begin breeding its own. None of these are exactly causes for celebration. Let’s also not forget that there are Halal and Kosher slaughterhouses in Australia (but nobody complains about Kosher methods of slaughter, because it’s much more popular to hate Muslims rather than Jews these days). In slaughterhouses that do stun, we also know that at least 10% of the time it does not work and animals are killed fully conscious. To also pretend that animals are not subjected to absolute torture in Australian slaughterhouses is racist. And if they are not put onto boats, they will still be put onto trucks around Australia in extreme weather conditions. Again, nothing to pop corks about. It’s simply replacing one atrocity with another. The same number of animals will be exploited and killed. The only thing that will change is the way the supply is delivered.

And on top of that, nonvegans who supported the ban will go home more confident than ever that they are humane animal users. And so it continues. And the message that we can be ethical consumers of animals goes deeper into our consciousness. The regulationists get to call their efforts a success.  Animals Australia gets heralded a champion of animal rights despite the fact that they publicly denounce that they are a vegan organisation and don’t oppose the rearing and killing of animals. They expand their reach and their membership base, solidifying their stance as the ‘voice for animals’, all the while continuing to confuse the public about what Animal Rights really means.

Animals Australia do not feel it's appropriate to tell people what to do in regards to consuming animals. I wonder if organisations aimed at helping abused children do not feel it is appropriate to tell adults to not abuse children

When Animals Australia says there is evidence of “abuse” in Indonesian slaughterhouses, how does that not reinforce the idea that everything else- the enslavement, the mutilations, the killings- is not abuse? They congratulate supermarkets and McDonalds for planning to phase out caged eggs, thanking them for making “compassionate choices”, as if putting them in a bigger cage frees them from a life of misery. They are equally, if not more so, responsible for perpetuating the humane myth as the exploitation industries themselves. Bans will come and go while animals are property. Until we make serious attempts to dismantle speciesism, banned uses of animals in one part of the world will simply be taken up in another while demand remains the same.

"We are vegans because it is an ecological crime to eat fish; we are vegans because we are marine conservationists and not because we are animal rights activists."- Captain Paul Watson, Sea Shepherd

Almost everyone I meet knows about Sea Shepherd. Most people, vegan or not, support them. They are seen as being at the forefront of animal rights, despite Watson’s comments that they are a conservation agency, and not an animal rights group. Many nonvegans I know have told me they want to get involved with them, and when I explain that the ships are vegan, the reactions usually go like this “Why can’t I eat steak while getting those f***ing  Japs?” The hypocrisy is hardly surprising. Watson himself has said that he believes it’s much crueller to kill a whale than a cow. I don’t believe we should be ranking suffering in the first place, but given the choice, I would much rather live in my own habitat until one unexpected day, than to be born in servitude, never experiencing my natural life, watching my loved ones die knowing that I am next.

Paul Watson on the Japanese

There is no moral difference between species. Sentience is all that should matter when we talk about animal rights. If you are sentient (you the ability to feel, perceive, or experience subjectively), you should have a right to your own life. Not to be someone’s property.  There are a few possible reasons why we try to protect certain marine animals and not “farm” animals: Going after people who kill dolphins and whales won’t affect our economy. We tend to fetishise dolphins and whales, we enjoy watching them on the discovery channel while we sticking our forks into pigs and cows. It’s convenient to protest things that our own neighbours aren’t complicit in. It’s easier to protest what another race and country are doing than trying to have a discussion with our friends and family about their behaviour.

Sea Shepherd asks for millions of dollars to support their sea adventures. They are not advancing the cause of animal rights. They are promoting speciesism, the very reason why we enslave, torture and kill animals in the first place. Speciesism should play no part in the solution.

All oppressions share the same roots. People of colour are often targets of campaigns and are often underrepresented in the animal rights movement. The most popular campaigns we see are against dog meat, dog fighting, cockfighting, bear baiting, bullfighting, whales and dolphin slaughter. Things Caucasians don’t usually engage in (and when they do, it is not met with as much vitriol as when people of colour are doing it).

From The Abolitionist Vegan Society

There is nothing wrong with highlighting the uses and abuses of animals, as long as the message is one of liberation and is anti-speciesist. Otherwise the use will just shift to another species or type of use. Some say that taking part in campaigns for single use bans is worth it because it inspires some people to give up all animal use. With a clear, abolitionist message these same people can be equally inspired, but to reject all animal exploitation rather than certain types. All it is doing is adding to the confusion about animal ethics and perpetuating the existing speciesist paradigm. The root issue is speciesism. Let’s address that, not only the symptoms of it that are convenient for us.

“My argument is not that we should condone what other cultures do; my argument is that creating single issue campaigns that sensationalize what people of color do is racist. It reflects white privilege and the ability to judge others as lesser and protect the in-group sense of superiority. It's offensive to marginalized groups and this is why our movement is overwhelmingly white and has historically had huge difficulties building links to other movements and attracting diverse populations.” – Corey Wrenn, The Academic Abolitionist Vegan

We have to take an intersectional approach to fighting injustice. Social problems, such as speciesism, sexism and racism are intertwined and must be fought together. We cannot dismantle oppression using the same tools we used to create its existence. We must not fight for the rights of one group while holding back another. Revolution does not happen in stages, nor is there a hierarchy of suffering. We must be willing to acknowledge our privileges and prejudices, to ensure we are not alienating anyone or acting with selective compassion. Let’s hack away at the root of oppression, increase awareness of institutionalised social problems, build coalitions, and work together towards social justice for all sentient beings.

Four Principles of Ethical Campaigns. (From Direct Action Everywhere).

For in-depth discussions on the issue of race and the animal rights movement:

The Color of a Movement

Animal Liberation, Tokenizing 'Intersectionality', and Resistance Ecology

Important articles on race and the movement:

Is there a place in animal rights for a kid from China?

The Sistah Vegan Project

On Moral Relativism, Post-Racism, and Animal Liberation

For more on intersectionality:

The Vegan Hip Hop Movement

Let’s Evolve

Vegans United Against All Oppression

For more on single issue campaigns and welfare reforms:

The Abolitionist Vegan Society

Picking the Low-Hanging Fruit

Gentle World- Making a Killing with Animal Welfare Reform

Anna Adey is affiliated with a small, grassroots abolitionist and intersectional group called Let's Evolve in Perth, Australia.