Nevermind that I've been 'acting directly' since I was 14 when I got involved protesting apartheid in South Africa, that I had already been vegan for several years, that I've written and designed somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2-3 dozen pamphlets and posters, given speeches, presentations and personal talks over the last 20 years of my political work. Forget that I have actually been a member of and worked for years in a properly militant organization based on socially revolutionary ideology where strategy, training, discipline and organized tactics were taken more seriously than how well you could pose, rather than just 'cheering without thinking' from the sidelines. Regardless of how many stamps I have licked, questions I've answered or blogs, emails, papers or tweets I've written, it never occurred to me that all of that was less direct than a lot of doctrinaire posing, sloganeering, amateur press releases and petty vandalism for nonhuman animals.
How wrong I was!
So, I decided to change all of that. I wanted, no, I needed, to see change for nonhuman animals right then, that day. I couldn't help myself. Don't get me wrong. Creative nonviolent vegan education is still very, very cool. It speaks to the rights of animals not to be used as property, calls on people to adopt the easiest and most effective changes they can make by going vegan, speaks to human rights, speaks to the environment, speaks to the well-being of nonhuman animals, proposes world-historical change on a scale unmatched in human history, calls on us to end the last great legal slavery and to be ardent in the fight of the irrational prejudice that sustains it and speaks to the power of the individual to change the world while seeking his or her own redemption. Yeah, that's still amazingly cool. I just have a short attention span, am overprivileged and bored, and found that it just wasn't giving me enough of an adrenaline rush. It wasn't getting me enough of the attention I craved; I needed up to up my political prozac.
So, I went out and got my black balaclava to save the animals. Check. I went and got some spray paint to paint slogans to save the animals. Check. I went and got some glue to glue the locks of restaurants to save the animals. Check. I went out and got some breath mints for all of the slogan shouting I was going to do to save the animals. I practiced my self-congratulatory high-fives. I couldn't bring myself to head down to the local fast food meat-o-rama and but their veganish menu offering the way some self-identified vegans have suggested I should in order to save the animals, though. I thought about it, but then my very, very little voice of reason piped up and said: �Really?" But I did go out and buy some bricks for all the windows I might break to save the animals, but I decided that the last was probably too much effort and the bricks were heavy: I'd just smash the windows with my head. I wasn't planning on using it for anything else that day!
So, I practiced my Jesus Christ and Che Guevara poses in front of a full-length mirror. No offense to either thinker, but I was unable to match their looks of quiet resolve, humility and determination. I'm still not sure what I was doing wrong. I looked scornfully at my deodorant, but I didn't put it on. I practiced my clich�s: �OMG, ANIMALS ARE DYING!� and �UNTIL EVERY CAGE IS EMPTY!� and �OUR BRAVE WARRIORS WILL NEVER REST!� I flexed my biceps, and then rewarded each of them for their hard work and their great victory with little kisses. I got some sunglasses and a bandana, and then I put them on!. I practiced the Figure Four Leg Lock, the Claw, and all the other moves I had learned growing up watching pro-wrestling. Last, but not least, I read Mein Kampf so that I would a clear idea of how reimagine all the suffering that I and others like me had caused to be something that others had done, and not just done, but done to me.
I suited up, drank some energy drinks, ate some health food power bars. I practiced my not caring, so that I would care more and more deeply than anyone else in the history of the earth. Perhaps the universe! When I was all tweaked up on candy and sugar, I ran to the bathroom mirror and pounded my breasts (in the interests of full disclosure, it hurt a little). I growled at the mirror and snapped at it with my teeth, and then breathed heavily for about 10 minutes. I reminded myself that, whatever I might achieve today, what animals really needed was a lot of posing and histrionic posts on Internet message boards and Facebook to try to stifle creative and thoughtful discussion about what we might do to help animals most.
At last, I was ready. I put the New Kids on the Block playlist on my iPod on repeat. I was going to head down to my local animal rescue center. By God and John Brown, I was going to rescue a nonhuman animal and I didn't care how many people I had to supplex to do it. I had already looked through their online listing, and I had already decided who I was going to set free. It was this handsome son right here. His name would be Julius.
After I had filled out all the paper work (which took about 10 minutes), I suffered a serious sugar crash for all the energy drinks and bars. He picked up in his big strong paws, slung me over my back and carried me home. Please note, some parts of this story were exaggerated for comedic effect, but as I said, they come from a true place. I didn't rescue him to smite the oppressor, cause economic damage, train and motivate other activists, to provide an example to others or to ease my conscience. I adopted him because it was what the right thing to do: he had a right not to be used as property, and I could restore his personhood in my own home. His life is incalculably valuable. And when he goes, they'll have to pull his adopted father off the coffin. A million abacuses could never describe his inherent moral worth.
Those of us who take nonhuman animals seriously as persons all want to help them to get free. Adoption of and care for nonhuman animals is an immeasurably serious and pressing matter. What is unquestionably true is that left between adopting him or letting him be euthanized or wasting my time lobbying to get him an extra 1/4� of cage space or engaging in petty vandalism, there was only one meaningful choice for me as an animal rights advocate. By calling me to take his rights and what I owed him in light of those rights seriously, I had to reimagine myself as his advocate, disciplined, organized, and committed to more than just my own self-aggrandizement.
Today, theory guides and organizes my solidarity work with nonhuman animals, but it is love for him and other nonhumans that motivates it, gives it urgency and reminds me that every day offers an opportunity to keep the system on the run. Millions of nonhuman animals need a loving home. They're persons, just like you and me. Individuals. As a society, we bear some collective responsibility for their being in the world. When one of them starves to death, freezes to death or is unnecessarily euthanized, we bear some responsibility. There's no need for balaclavas or energy bars, glued locks or spray-painted slogans. Every new abolitionist vegan and every adopted nonhuman animal is a victory for nonhuman animals.
As Gary Francione has argued, veganism is the moral baseline for taking the rights of nonhuman animals not to be used as property seriously, but beyond that baseline, one of the most important things any of us can do is work to save the lives of domesticated nonhuman animals and restore their personhood with care. You don't need an organization; you can be your own Underground Railroad. If you're not vegan, go vegan today. If you you can adopt, do so. If you can't adopt, then volunteer or donate to an animal sanctuary if you can. To learn more about what you can do to help, visit Peaceful Prairie Animal Sanctuary, Windy City Animal Rescue or another local shelter.
No comments:
Post a Comment