Direct action

Having a soft voice, making suggestions, what is this? Softly spoken doesn’t get heard. Maybe we want a more macho approach, perhaps something more confronting. It is, after all, animal torture we’re talking about here, not some inconsequential matter. This is serious stuff. But is there another side to all this?.
Personally, I may need to prove I’m a serious animal activist. And maybe I’m hardwired to act bravely and that means being confrontational and virtually forcing animal rights onto people. It’s like shaking someone awake in a flame filled room. In the natural course of events humans get involved in one another’s lives. We fight for right, or rights. Ever since we won the right to free speech we’ve enjoyed confrontation and then, putting our money where our mouth, we act. We might engage in direct action. It works most effectively in groups, so a group raid on a local battery hen farm is daring and exciting and rescues animals (from their hell-prison). That sort of activity really feels like serious activism. The direct action of The Animal Liberation Front is well known. Activists are aligned by common purpose (they aren’t connected to a central group but work in local cells). They’re willing to break into and if necessary destroy property to save animals from intensive farming or research operations. They risk liberty to make their point. They save animals and document the conditions they find them in. They promise to ‘act directly’, without causing anyone any injury. But who can say what happens next, after everything has been planned? What happens in the heat of the raid? The danger here is not being caught or being punished but for one person to do something that can be made to look bad by the media. This is the main danger in direct action, where no one can guarantee how another activist will react in a group. If direct action was simply about being brave. But it isn’t, because everything we do, representing the interests of peaceful creatures, needs to be underlines by a strong commitment to non-violence. If we insist of playing the ‘confrontation card’ we could have a public relations nightmare on our hands. After the media have manipulated the story to meet their own needs the activist can be shown as a criminal or even a ‘terrorist’.
Direct activists risk heavy terms of imprisonment to rescue animals. They perform a great service to those animals they rescue. I respect their guts. I know I’m not brave enough to join them (and me, assuming the grand role of writing about all this instead!!!). Direct Activists act directly because that’s their way of communicating how they feel - that all animals have a right to a life. Surely at the cost of a few broken doors and locks it’s a small price to pay for the exposure of something so profoundly wrong in our society?. Isn’t it just a demonstration of truth? Surely in these cases, some collateral property damage is justified, especially since there’s no physical harm to anyone*?. But that’s the danger. It’s precisely because this can’t be guaranteed that we need to rethink the ‘confrontational approach’. How neat life would be if we could be sure all direct action was guaranteed to be non-violent and all rescued animals given sanctuary. Then, surely, no harm is done except to the profits of an egregious industry?