Why don't we have an effective animal rights movement?

bhushraislam145

It is striking that after so many years insisting on the same issues, the achievements are few and we have to retrace our steps to always ask for the same thing. A possible explanation is that in our country there is still no political interest in supporting animal rights, but I think a good exercise would be to look within the movement and ask ourselves what we are doing wrong.

This reflection is not intended to qualify or disqualify the work of some over others, but rather to take an honest review of why we are externally perceived as a divided, conflictive, angry and intransigent movement. What truth is there in this perception?

Even those of us who are part of it can notice how many disputes, divisions and aggressions permeate our way of working. The animal rights movement is relatively new: less than 40 years. It is only a little older than the gay movement and, unlike ours, it has gone further. “Of course, it's about humans,” you could say, and these will always have more attention than issues of nature and its other inhabitants. However, if we should learn anything from the latter, it is the positive, colorful and optimistic approach they present. Hence, he turns out to be an attractive sympathizer.

In his text Being Peace, Thich Nhat Hanh, practicing Zen Buddhist monk, poet and pacifist, says that there is a lot of anger, frustration and misunderstanding in the pacifist movement. “Activists can write very good protest letters, but they are not capable of writing a love letter.” We must say things as we would like them to be said to us.

Difficult at times, but something worth keeping in mind. We claim to be an anti-violence movement but we tend to be very violent among ourselves. We fight to have different strategies and we envy each other's achievements Europe Cell Phone Number List instead of celebrating them. There are many things we don't know and we are innovating. In a high percentage, we try to discover the sources that drive change, that produce concrete achievements for animals. We make mistakes and start again; but it is not necessary to invent the black thread. There are many proven strategies in communication and marketing theories and it is our duty to use them in favor of animals.

Activists can write very good protest letters, but they are not capable of writing a love letter.”



When I read scathing and hateful reviews I feel deeply disappointed and sorry that time - which is so valuable - and energy is wasted destroying others instead of creating something that saves the lives of millions of animals. In the last barrage of tweets towards Lucero for having gone hunting, something similar happened. Animal defenders exploded with comments full of hate that had little to do with the initial event. It was as if they were looking for an excuse or a target to vent their anger. We cannot be an anti-violence movement if we are still violent among ourselves and towards others.

I understand that the animal rights movement is full of anger and frustration: we see terrifying news every day, there are more and more refined forms of abuse, the number of non-human victims exceeds any holocaust. But we need to resize the way we do activism and to do so we have to introspect and change within ourselves what hurts us and harms others. We can be very good to animals but sometimes we forget how to be good to ourselves and our human neighbors. I keep this in mind even though sometimes I can't put it into practice. Finally, I believe it is an exercise in trial and error to modify our attitudes. Just as we took our first steps towards veganism and sometimes we found it difficult and gave up, this is the training to be better activists, better people.