Non-violence

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Vegan diets are about not-eating products extracted from animals, so just by observing vegan principles we can’t help practising non-violence too. It carries through to other parts of our lives. We have less reckless thoughts. We have consideration for the animal before buying clothes and shoes. We think more about empathy for others, and empathy for non-humans too. Taken to its logical conclusion this ‘consideration’ sees no difference between sentient and non-sentient, and our ‘consideration’ will likely edge towards more generous and gentler attitudes, including the way we drive a car, recycle waste, deal with the kids or respect cows.

Sometimes non-violence is horrible. It looks like passivity. At worst it’s cowardice, used as the excuse for deferring decision-making or avoiding facing the music. But non-violence isn’t non-doing, and there again it isn’t doing either. When you hit me in the face for no good reason, ‘turning the other cheek’ may not work. Maybe it would if were just about ME. But what if it’s not? Like when I’m trying to protect someone else. Most of us are proud to be able to Attack Back, but that’s the central question, and for me it remains open. I love non-violence but not the mushy side of it.

Now here’s an interesting development which might illustrate the point I’m trying to make.

The other day I heard of Animal Liberation’s plan to fly drones across private farming land, to photograph examples of animal cruelty. Animals on private land are usually well hidden from the public eye, so evidence, film evidence, has always been hard to come by. Getting it has often been dangerous too, for the brave activists illegally trespassing with their cameras; evidence of routine cruelty has always been a bit thin on the ground. People only believe what they see, not what you tell them, so if you can show them they’ll find it harder to ignore or forget.  Of course, from the Animal Industries’ point of view, this is the LAST thing they need, for us to be offering the media visual documentary proof of animal cruelty. Understandably, to those with vested interests in the Industry, a drone would be seen as a very big threat.

From the farmer’s point of view, knowing as they do about cruelty-to-animals better than any of us, it just seems like city-slicker interference. Cruelty? The farmer is a pragmatist. The stockman doesn’t perceive his cattle the way we might. In one way the animals are units of production. In another way there can be a connection between farmer and individual animal. But at a certain level, the farmers’ relationship (with them) is not what I would call relating; it isn’t something you can do in half measures. Just as the quality of mercy is not strained, so too the relationship between us and them; since there is this possibility to empathically relate to them, that surely makes it unthinkable that anyone would be able to hurt them.

But coming back to the drones, there’s something rather threatening about having a CCTV camera in the sky spying on people. Perhaps farmers might be tempted to shoot them out of the sky, even though it’s quite legal to fly cameras ten meters above private property. Is this a case of using rather aggressive technology to achieve safety for exploited animals? Is this a completely non-violent means to an end? As this project develops, we’ll be able to see what violence, if any, is stirred by the drones.

I suspect that if it goes ahead and succeeds in its purpose, the public will be presented with video evidence of exploitation too shocking to ignore. And that will make it all the harder for the media to avoid. The media is the great wall of resistance here. At its thickest point it’s a wall of silence; barely a word is printed on this subject, but no surprises there! The media fear losing both advertisers and readers. These days it’s all about not giving offence. Everyone seems to be burying their heads in the sand over animal cruelty, believing that if you ignore it long enough it will go away.

From an Animal Liberation point of view it’s simply about getting issues DISCUSSED, for heaven’s sake!