Direct Animal Activists - Are They Wrong?

1154: Posted Chichester, Sussex, Friday 12^th August 2014

Edited by CJ Tointon

Some direct animal activists are willing to destroy property to save animals who're imprisoned in disgusting conditions on farms, laboratories and abattoirs everywhere.  They risk being fined or even losing their own liberty, to save tortured animals.  But let it be said - They avoid causing injury to any personnel (human or animal) and let it be added -  They do it for love.

It takes guts to be a direct-action activist and I think they deserve our respect.  As do those who have set up sanctuaries where rescued animals can live out the rest of their lives in peace and safety.  But so few animals are rescued and so few sanctuaries exist. 

If we really want to scratch the surface, to bring about massive changes in consciousness, to make meat-eating 'unfashionable', then maybe less-direct methods should be considered as well as direct-action.  It might be more effective with our carnivorous friends.  Public perception is very important in the shifting of fashion!  Direct-activists have earned a dodgy reputation within the Animal Rights Movement.  A lot of this comes from carnivores'  convenient "hating-the-enemy" perceptions, but some is justified.  We have to be careful with perception.  

The public needs to be swung over, without their having to deal with a lot of perception baggage.   Becoming animal-conscious and therefore becoming a plant eating vegan is a tricky matter, especially when one can't identify with other vegans.  They can seem out of reach, hostile, righteous and pushy.  And why not when so many of our friends are living under concentration camp conditions??  But by breaking into these nasty torture chambers, we get a reputation for being terrorists or eco-terrorists, especially since some of our activities (like direct action) can whip up lots of hostility from a highly propaganda-ized public. 

What’s wrong with direct action?  Nothing - as long as the non-violence aspect of it is rigorously emphasised.  I’d say we are fighting a perception war here.  I think it all starts out with very good intentions, providing data and video footage

to show people and inform them.  There is a potential for mass distribution of video evidence of animal cruelty.  But we can easily stray into something we find more difficult to justify.  Mainly, it puts paid to the excuse many people still trot out, that "we didn’t know".   Eventually the embarrassment of pretending "not to know" (when there’s so much evidence available) will jolt people into "thinking again".  Eventually it will become obvious who our non-friends are; the people who poison us and profit from us and try to pacify us. 

I believe there's nothing wrong with direct action when ultimately it's directed at setting up refuges for the animals who are saved.   But it’s before this that the trouble may occur.  The 'breaking-in' of the various Auschwitzes.  Access to these jails is of course essential and, in truth, the only real damage done is to Animal Industry property.  Surely, for the cost of a few broken doors and locks, it’s a small price to pay to educate people about what’s going on.  Of course the Animal Industries don't agree!

But my question is:  "Do these rescue missions impact on the general public in the intended way?"  I doubt they impact on the 'egg-and-bacon-for-breakfast' mentality.  As long as people still want the animal foods they are so accustomed to eating, they'll be reluctant to change.   If they do change their diets, the process of change will probably be seen as a duty.   We want it to be more than that.  When a person's weight falls off and the vegan diet has been seen to work, something else should be kicking in about perception-of-animal-slavery - unjustifiability. To get people to that level, a lot of smoothing over is needed.   Direct actions can sometimes cause the activist/advocate's reputation to suffer unnecessarily.

The Animal Rights movement with all its good arguments, might not yet be big enough or respected enough to persuade people to listen.  We need to be super-intelligent in how we approach people who are, to all intents and purposes, still virgins.