Getting through to people

The eternal question for animal rights activists is the problem of touching people’s hearts. It sometimes seems impossible to find a way to make an impression, and as each of our attempts fail we can become more desperate. Scarcely able to conceal our rage the protests we organise can come across as aggressive and even violent, often seeming to have a why-can’t-you-fuckin-well-listen approach. It’s not a good look. People close off to this. What ever goodwill they might have had disappears when they see how ugly we look, shaking our fists and waiving our angry placards. For our part, we feel justified in making strong statements. But in the end it all comes down to perception. Their perception comes from what they see on the surface - the impression of angry people shouting about something. That’s all they see. They don’t get as far as finding out what the activists are protesting about.
Our in-yer-face approach plays right into the hands of our detractors. The authorities are pleased to label us agitators or even, when there’s violence, terrorists. However justified we may feel at the outrageous cruelty perpetrated on animals, if we want to be given the chance to speak the aggressive approach is probably a big mistake. We might mean well by trying to ignite a sense of guilt in people, to stimulate a sense of responsibility and get them to agree with us, but it probably doesn’t work that way, for the majority. We need to be more subtle, less crude, more persuasive and less unattractive. Because we are so few in number we have to find more inspired ways of getting through to people.