Two Forces

1061:

Ed: CJ

In advocating for Animal Rights, there are two things going on.  Firstly, we are trying to advocate for the animals, but we are also trying to come across as acceptable human beings.  People worth listening to. People perceived to be making some sense.  On one level we try to appear like everyone else.  On another level we draw a contrast to the 'generally accepted view' and yet seek to be taken seriously.

         

Can they be combined?  An impossible dream, given the subject?  Animal Rights is unpopular because doing without animal-based products (for some people) makes daily life very difficult.  So if the subject makes us unpopular, we just have to face that.  The main thing is to inform people of each of the stages products go through, from the living animal to the end product on the shelf.  The consumer may not want to know, and certainly isn’t meant to know, what happens to animals before their bodies are used as commodities. The consumer is usually only interested in the item’s price and its worth and essentialness to his/her life.

Let’s take shoes for example.  Almost everyone wears leather shoes and has several pairs at home.  Leather is fashionable, long-lasting, the fabric is flexible, hard wearing, waterproof and very available.  It’s sometimes expensive, but that only reinforces the impression of 'quality' and 'having the very best'.  Many leather goods, shoes, sofas and jackets are made with leather that comes from India where the leather is soft, the quality high and the price low. (This is the country, incidentally, where the cow is supposedly 'sacred').  In India, most cows are killed for their leather not their meat.  Killed without any pre-stunning and killed in close proximity and in sight of other cows being slaughtered.

I wish I could post a photograph I have (courtesy of PeTA), which shows more precisely what I’m describing. On the other side, right next to the about-to-be-slaughtered cow, is a huge hanging side of butchered carcass about to be processed.

Now this picture-of-horror should be witnessed.   If we as advocates point out what should be made known, it might alarm people enough to be concerned for the animal's welfare.  Perhaps it will make them feel guilty for supporting stores which still sell leather goods coming from India.  And that might lead them to boycott those stores.  However, they can be lulled into a false sense of security when told that leather from 'humanely-killed' cows is OK and that stores which only sell leather from countries with 'humane-slaughter practices' are worth supporting.  Just as Indian leather is involved with unspeakable animal cruelty, so too is the Australian leather industry connected to great cruelty.  In fact, all co-products and by-products from whatever animals are connected with cruelty.  However nicely we put it, we can’t get past this plain fact. Eventually, all animal advocates must emphasise the need to avoid ALL animal-based products, because every single one of them involves exploitation and a terrifying execution.  There is no such thing as humane animal farming or humane killing.   

         

Vegans have two choices - Point out the very worst of animal treatment (factory farming, inhumane slaughter procedures, vivisection, etc.) and win over a large number of supporters at the expense of being ineffective for the greater cause of Animal Rights - OR - Promote the total avoidance of ALL animal-based products. Welfare groups improve the prison conditions of the most intensively-reared animals.  They do good work here, but they give a very mixed message. Vegans, on the other hand, give a much clearer message, but with the concomitant difficulty of being less acceptable. Some vegans find the public’s dismissal of animal cruelty infuriating.  They fall into the trap of saying "To hell with social acceptance.  Better to be disliked than ignored".  

But once one is disliked (no matter how sensible one’s arguments) too much traction can be lost.  If we stand up for what we believe, that’s fine.  But if we shout about it too loudly, we risk alienating the very support we almost had.  We have to decide carefully how hard or how soft we are with others.  It’s very much a matter of personal approach.

         

We always come back to the same question, which must be answered if we are to change omnivore mentality.  How do we make these people start to think like us?  Perhaps we can’t and we’ll only waste a lot of emotional energy trying. Perhaps though, we’ve got to get people to like us enough to want to listen to us. Once we are engaging others, so much more is possible. Like opening up the nasal passages to breathe better or open up the chakras to experience things better. Once all the ego stuff and point-winning nonsense is laid aside, then we may be able to speak outrageously and courageously.  If we take a risk or two, it’s likely we can win respect, just for that.

However we decide to make our case, the vast majority of people are still secure in the knowledge that their own animal-abusing habits are shared by most other people. However carefully we deal with people on this subject, we might only be able to make slow progress.  We’re talking about a massive shift of consciousness.  From the shifting of ingrained habits of individuals to eventually shifting the collective consciousness.  Animal Rights activists have to come to terms with one fact. We have to be prepared to be in this for the long haul.

(Ed: CJ)