Anti-Semitism in the Animal Liberation movement cloaked as pacifism

Anti-Semitism in the Animal Liberation movement cloaked as pacifism

An article on the website Resistance Ecology: Animal Liberation Against Israeli Occupation, We Stand With Palestine (08/13/2014) asks us to assume that all Israeli animal advocacy is in reality Israeli propaganda, and that only Israel (and the US) are culprits to blame for speciesism and ecocide. Really? For the sake of peace we are gonna buy that, the same old scapegoating that all evil is to blame on a (quote): “Zionist program”?

Someone quoted that article on a ethical vegan anti-racist facebook group – that’s how I came across it:

“Although there is a growing movement for animals in Israel, it is important to recognize that this cannot be separated from the colonial policies of the occupation. The dominant narrative is that the Palestinian people are unwilling or incapable of animal advocacy, that they are “primitive” and “barbaric” and thus deserving of occupation by the “green”, “humane”, and “progressive” Israeli state. The reality is that Israel is overwhelmingly destructive to animals, the land, and the people, and has displaced traditional systems and indigenous land to pave way for urban expansion, polluting industries, animal agriculture, road development, water scarcity, and the brutal oppression of the Palestinian people.”

You would think there would be critique of this kind of rhetoric, yet there wasn’t. So I really wonder why anti-semitism, when it’s in the context with the Gaza conflict, goes unnoticed even on anti-racist forums?

I wonder what people really think …

a.) What do they think about what led to the founding of Israel?

b.) Would someone really be willing to assume that all Israeli vegan AR activists are basically doing propaganda and not wonder him-/herself if she/he might hold a rather extreme prejudices against others?

c.) What about other wars now and in history, why are people making wars at all?

d.) This is a difficult question but: Why are we more critical when anything has something to do with the newer ethics of veganism and AR? Why do we tend to undermine such newer efforts when there is no predefined ethical space for them in society yet and additional conflicts occur?

Finally: Do we discuss other forms of atrocities and propaganda going on in the same finger-pointing fashion these days?

There is so much anti-semitism going on. I am really irritated about finding such a direction within the Animal Liberation movement. The mistakes of Israeli politics and the role of religious conflicts given in this context are one thing, but now saying that all vegans and AR people in Israel are having a fake agenda and would be only doing colonialist and settler politics, ignores historical backgrounds and, along with that, evokes bigotry.

Palestinian and Israeli activists have been working together in veg/AR. Look at how these new plants are being crushed amongst the big conflicts. To incite such a witch hunt on fellow AR activists, from anywhere, is unpacifist.

The Israeli group 269 posted on their FB page:

Today,the 27th of June 2014, 269Life Israel joined their Arab brothers and sisters in the Arab village of Shefa-‘Amr (شفاعمرو), to protest for animal liberation.

Many of the passersby were very supportive and took brochures to read further on the issues and hopefully it will bring about more change in the region.

Politics and nationalism means nothing, as long as the animals are suffering and dying by the billions, all over the world. We fight as one, unified and in coexistence.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=661177933976915

 

 

Vegan Türkiye about intersectional vegan outreach and Nonhuman Animal Rights

Four Questions … we asked Vegan Türkiye about intersectional vegan outreach and Nonhuman Animal Rights within the struggle for a redefinition of what an ‘all-encompassing’ political freedom would ideally mean

A compact interview N. Eyck (NiceSwine.Info) led with the progressive Turkish vegan activist group Vegan Türkiye, with some pressing questions about a country’s movement that is bringing impulses for redefining veganism from an activist level as an ethical / political tool.

This text as a PDF (link opens in a new window)

Visit Vegan Türkiye’s blog on: http://veganturkiye.blogspot.de/, join them on Twitter: @veganturkiye.

N Eyck: Do you think that the vegan Animal Rights / Animal Liberation movement in Turkey is in a sense “forced” to be intersectional, i.e. are human rights and environmental justice issues inevitably a core part of the vegan AR/AL movement in circumstances of political oppression on a scale such as you currently face them within Turkey?

Vegan Türkiye: First of all, we can say that people in Turkey are under political pressure about what they eat, what they wear, with whom they make love and even how many children they should have. Today inTurkey human rights can be discussed frankly especially after the coups done. However, many people think that the struggle for animal rights should not be started before the end of human rights violations. That is, it should be known that there are human rights instead of ”earthlings rights”. By referring to Tom Regan we tell them that if we wait for the developments of human rights, time for animal rights will never come.

The Vegan movement in Turkey refuses species and class discrimination, it defends LGBTI rights, opposes each kind of urban renewal done for the purpose of annuity and each kind of ecological destruction. On the other hand, working class and traditional reflexes of the left focusing on labor struggle open their doors to this Vegan movement. Collective consciousness occurred with Occupy Gezi (Gezi Park Resistance) shows itself also in the vegan movement. For instance, in occupiedGeziParkthere was a vegan cuisine, which became both a meeting point of Vegans and a place where some met with veganism for the first time.

Some infirmaries, vets those were open and free for 24 hours were set for the animals affected by tear gas used during the occupation, and also announcements to take the animals in safer places were done during the day. One other bad memory from those days was that, the people supporting the animal rights were taken into custody from the commemoration done for all living beings killed / died during occupation.

Streets, squares, academies are not the places where people talk what kind of groups are marginalized, anymore. Vegans naturally reflect their political ideas to every area of life; but, the matter is actually being able to reach the main idea and giving animals right to be free. Furthermore, it is important to be able to make people believe that it is not only activists’ business; it is also each person’s business to deal with animal rights invasions.

N. Eyck: Blogging and social networking plays an essential role in the vegan AR/AL outreach work and info exchange and distribution inTurkey. On a parallel level, could a closer international reciprocal exchange (of ideas and about problems faced), create a new momentum and open up new possibilities for our movement’s progress everywhere? In other words: is there a need for a “round table” in the global vegan AR / AL community to learn from each others experiences, etc.?

Vegan Türkiye: As you said before Internet is a vital tool to make the animal rights movement known all over the country and to share materials related to the movement.  By using the Internet animal rights supporters make brainstorming and inform others as an individual, as a group and even as a civil defense organization. Although each of us has different ethics – it is obvious that we have different action and discourse types. There are sometimes misunderstandings and fierce quarrels, but we haven’t experienced that those quarrels have turned into scandal, yet. We all follow us as online, and support one another. Animal liberty movement is being continued by ceaseless information shared via Internet. In this context, we will not be wrong if we say that the animal liberation movement is fed by social media and blogs.

Globally, more crowded, radical or creative communities are already being followed. A big form of an entity in which different experiences from different countries are shared can be installed instead of a ‘global online’ as a single entity; because, animal rights supporters sometimes ignore the local socio-economic and cultural differences, that is, the kind of struggle for animal rights in a place can be harmful in another place, that is why, everybody should be careful about the movement. Besides having connection via internet, animal rights supporters can also keep in touch face to face even a few times in a year in order to share their knowledge, experiences and problems that they have faced.

N Eyck: Is Animal Rights theorizing and having ones own outspoken (or thought) standpoint about Animal Rights popular within the vegan community inTurkey?

Vegan Türkiye: Animal rights movement is so new in terms of organization. Even if some animal liberation activists are in the movement for so long time it can be said that we are now in trial and error period. Some approaches and works done in abroad lead us in this movement. InTurkey we have failed to have a common main discourse and the reason is actually not to be able to create a cultural base. Meanwhile, the first Turkish work written on veganism was published last year. The book written by Zülal Kalkandelen and Can Başkent was made with readers as online. It’s not a theoretical book, but it’s important for the readers to shed light on animal rights.

N. Eyck: Do you think that a practical and basically political vegan approach can establish a form of veganism that is less convenience foods and less consumerism-orientated? And can veganism become what it wishes to be: a cornerstone for food justice for our entire planet?

Vegan Türkiye: Of course, after a while what I wear, what I eat questions bring other questions, such as how much and from where I consume. You start to question the system established on exploitation. There is a growing bazaar for Vegans and corpus is taking advantage of it. As everybody’s consumption habits and cultures are not the same, we are offering alternatives for vegans.

Some people think that they can share the movement without giving up their comforts. This side of the movement is definitely open to be questioned but we warn them to use the ecological products. We also remind people that they themselves can minimize the ecological damage of the products that they buy. According to the system that we are in, we have some problematic issues. At that point brainstorming should be done with other political and ethical vegans.

People love statistics. It would be tangible if you talk to people about what percentage of agricultural land planted to feed farm and diary animals or what percent of animal testing worked for humans in fact. It is effective to say that a century ago some rights which were deemed impossible, we have today, and that it is possible to turn into a vegan world, perhaps inevitably.

N. Eyck: Thank you so much for this interview!

Fragment on the importance of a council system approach in AR

Untapped Animal Rights expertise and Animal Rights as an immediate concern to human individuals

A fragment by Palang L. Arani-May. Download as a PDF.

We want and we need to empower people in terms of thinking and speaking about their positive relations to the ‘nonhuman animal world’, and our broad goal is to include a rights language for nonhumans into our democratic political systems and into legislation.

I think we are moving too far in two different opposing extremes as what regards the message that we are bringing out to our newfound allies in AR, and that is also the message that will form a basis for Animal Rights politics in the future.

We express specific alert and we give answers:

  1. On one hand we hand out leaflets and make demos confronting people about issues in the way of showing our protest and raising awareness to those who are no yet much familiar with AR issues and concerns.
  2. On the other hand we lead (or some lead) a relatively detached expert-based approach to thinking about and discussing Animal Rights related issues.

Where does that leave the thinking individual who is starting to make AR a top subject for themselves?

We could say that’s their problem, they can either join a group to demo, donate, sign important petitions or become an expert and hold a talk / write a paper, or do both, or … ?

Inasmuch able to reflect on the rights of your nonhuman “next”, as about your own rights …

What I would hope to see is that we encourage others to understand that they are already able enough to phrase their own positive theses and opinions about AR. We all have a lifetime experience that we can draw upon, we can think, we can speak. We can transport our knowledge and thoughts about AR related issues to other people as a form of activism.

If we want to break the speciesist divides, we must overcome separating immediate human rights concerns from an immediate relation and understanding that anybody is inasmuch able to have about the rights of his – nonhuman – next.

To defend rights we have to postulate them. But we can only postulate and claim due rights (to live, to be free, to not be labelled as property, etc.), if we learn to stand for Animal Rights just like we stand for our own Human Rights.

People do have reasonable and common sense answers and solution for problems such as: whose life is “more important” in a specific situation where you have to decide about life and death (i.e. both lives are as important), or is something morally wrong or right, or how can we change difficult societal constellations, or how can we find new approaches to deep-rooted problems, etc, etc, etc.

I believe we need to create rather a councilsystem that enables and empowers, to increase the potentiality in society to thus create a healthy revolution with the goal of embedding Animal Rights and extending and readjusting our “own” ethics.

Image: Oil on canvas painting by Farangis Yegane.

Anastasia Yarbrough: White Supremacy and Patriarchy Hurt Animals

White Supremacy and Patriarchy Hurt Animals

Anastasia Yarbrough

This text as a PDF (Link opens in a new window)

This talk is about the stories we tell about animal oppression. We as animal rights activists have an opportunity to tell deeper stories that don’t rely so much on tokenizing the struggles of people of color and women. Nor do they have to rely on tokenizing animals as romantic symbols of human identity. Instead, we can talk about animals’ struggles and lives, to the best of our knowledge, and reveal how they’re interconnected with different human groups’ struggles by telling the stories of the forces (and the identity groups behind the forces) that bind them all.

I. Who am I?

My name is Anastasia Yarbrough. I am facilitator consultant, musician, and community educator. I have been doing animal advocacy work for over 15 years, and most recently, in the last 5 years, I have been vocally and logistically active in the animal liberation movement. I used to serve on the board of Institute for Critical Animal Studies, and I currently am on the advisory board for Food Empowerment Project.
Acknowledgments
Breeze Harper for hosting this online conference. Adam Weitzenfeld and pattrice jones for being wonderful, inspiring scholar-activists who have also been attentive listeners with these issues I’ve been grappling with. And to all the activists out there who work for total liberation, even amidst the tremendous challenges.

II. Why talk about white supremacy and patriarchy specifically?

• These pervasive, intertwined forces serve as a major backbone to the Animal Rights Movement. The AR movement is concentrated in Eurocentric countries, and within these countries, the majority of the members are white, and the bulk of the leadership comprise of white men. As a result, the ideological basis for human-animal relations tends to be very Eurocentric and it’s not uncommon to see animal advocacy and vegan campaigns that promote a European ideal (i.e. campaigns against dog-eating in China). The eurocentrism makes it difficult for people who aren’t white to feel like they have a place in the movement, especially when they’re animal ethics don’t necessarily reflect the “mainstream.” And the influence of patriarchy becomes very obvious when the majority of the movement comprises of female activists but over 50% of the leadership in major, active animal advocacy nonprofits is male. When major events in the movement like the national conference don’t allow these issues to truly be addressed and are treated as trivial, not central to the strengthening of the movement, we have a problem.

• Great majority of AR organizations and leaders compare the modern AR movement to and use examples from anti-racist, anti-sexist movements of US history without an understanding of how racism and sexism operate in America, but rather just assuming they know because they’re activists for a similarly oppressed group (the diverse array of beings called “animals”).

o At the AR National Conference 2013 in Washington DC, Norm Phelps told participants in the opening plenary that AR activists are the Frederick Douglas and Harriet Tubman of our time. Nathan Runkle, at the same plenary, also said that the AR movement is the next evolutionary progression in the advancement for social justice; animal rights is the new major social justice movement.

• This heavy reliance on lessons from anti-racist and anti-sexist human rights struggles of the past is not a problem in and of itself. They are part of our heritage, and we can’t help but continue in their shadows. And the leaders from those movements are, after all, our ancestors and influential pioneers for social justice and environmental movements worldwide. But when leaders in the AR movement use lazy analyses to use them as leverage to further legitimize animal rights as a movement, it does not serve our movement and it misses the point. There’s a reason why the struggles of people of color, women, and animals look similar enough for comparison. That’s because they’re connected by systemic forces that fuel and maintain their oppression. Another speaker could do this analysis from any angle in the matrix. Today, I’m focusing on white supremacy and patriarchy.

III. How do white supremacy and patriarchy directly impact animals?

• Same forces, different groups

o White supremacy and patriarchy (what I will from now on refer to as “white patriarchy”) have been analyzed by critical race theorists and feminist theorists respectively for several decades in the United States. People of color have had to study whiteness and women have had to study patriarchy in order to survive. Whiteness and patriarchy are collectively understood to be social identity constructs reinforced structurally over time. That means, their initial creation were intentional and the people assumed the identities by choice. In the Anarchist Federation’s Women Caucus most recent anarchist analysis of privilege theory, they emphasized that identity groups like men and white people can’t actually give up their privilege no matter how much individuals from those groups want to. They’re born into those identities, raised in those identity groups, and are immersed in a system they cannot opt out of or choose to stop benefiting from. “You are not responsible for the system that gives you your privilege, only for how you respond to it.” Bell Hooks has often associated white patriarchy with acts of terrorism (i.e. slavery, rape, torture, and murder) against black people and black women, specifically. These acts of terrorism—slavery, rape, torture, and murder—are what we’re trying to abolish in the AR movement. It’s no surprise that they arise from the same system. How do we manage to live in society with all of this happening and be okay with it? Well, for one thing, white patriarchy doesn’t make itself visible. Like any social identity construct that maintains a social-economic system on the basis of exploiting more vulnerable individuals and communities, marginalizing those who interfere with the “mainstream” status quo, committing systematic violence for the benefit of privileged groups, and dominating the minds and bodies and space and reproduction of other groups, white patriarchy is an institution that manages to sustain all of this invisibly. We have to make a conscientious effort to make it visible. In the AR movement, when we talk about humans oppressing animals, we have opportunities to make visible the white supremacy and patriarchy behind the exploitation, the domination, the reproductive control, the marginalization, and the systematic killing. We can name the tokenizing of animals as mascots for their own exploitation and murder. We can call out shelter animal and feral animal killings as blaming the victim. We can talk about how wild animals are marginalized by habitat loss due to agriculture and urban development and “invasive/injurious” species become a convenient target for blame even though they’re not the primary cause. We can make visible the reproductive control, forced breeding, genetic manipulation, and rape that make institutions like laboratory research on animals, animal agriculture, pet-keeping, zoos and aquaria, hunting ranches, aquaculture, and animal entertainment industries go round. Tokenizing, blaming the victim, marginalization, and reproductive control are key tenets of white patriarchy. Under white supremacy in America, the mainstream tends to identify with animals and people of color once they’re dead or reduced into obscurity. This gives the illusion that we’re actually respecting these groups by romanticizing them and reshaping who they are in our imaginations for our own identities, now that our ancestors and contemporaries have removed them as a threat. But a major tenet of white patriarchy is the issue of citizenship. The only legitimate voices are those who are “true citizens” of the group. And in the AR movement, that is a huge obstacle in getting animals’ interests taken seriously.

• White patriarchy driving animal advocacy campaigns

o PETA campaigns are infamous for their racist and sexist campaigns. For that reason, I won’t go into too much detail with them here as another speaker in this conference will be offering an analysis of PETA. PETA, though, is an obvious example of white patriarchy driving its goals and strategies. Not just in the organization’s publicity stunts but also in their policies and practices involving animals directly. PETA has a track-record of killing more rescued dogs and cats than they place into homes. Nathan Winograd has been challenging PETA for years over their animal sheltering policies and practices. PETA sympathizers have retorted that what’s not mentioned in Winograd’s arguments are the animals who are adopted out and the dangers of overcrowding in shelters, that it’s better for animals to die a “merciful” death than to live a life in a shelter or worse, homeless. However, what this says to me is that for PETA the best kind of ethical relationship we can hope for with animals under PETA policy are with those who are dead because there isn’t enough capacity to hold them all under complete institutional control and it’s more efficient to kill them and congratulate ourselves on doing the right thing because we know what’s best. This is white patriarchy.

o Undercover investigations have been the primary tactic for exposing some of the worst offenses against animals. What often is not emphasized in undercover investigations of factory farm abuses or campaigns against dog-fighting or cock-fighting or exposés of illegal wildlife trafficking are the racialized components of these atrocities. The vast majority of the people who are doing the dirty work that gets plastered all over the news and bears the brunt of scorn and outrage from activists are people of color.

 Migrant workers from countries like Mexico and Guatemala comprise 1/5th of the agricultural workforce industry. They typically don’t have a high school diploma, so their options for work are slim, and they usually have very little say in the operations of these farms. They are just hands—often bloody hands—working 10-12 hour shifts. US imperialism and racism push them into jobs like this where options for livelihood are very few. They are more likely to be punished for animal cruelty than the operators of the farm who make the real profit. And animal advocacy organizations know this when they press charges; they’re just trying to take whatever “victory” they can get. In the end, this doesn’t help present or future animals because it allows corporations and their shareholders to avoid responsibility, it allows business owners to scapegoat impoverished and illiterate migrant workers who have very little legal protection, and it sends a misleading message to the public that the “bad guys” have been dealt with when in actuality they’ll just be replaced by another immigrant of similar standing who eventually loses his mind with the violence he must perform daily for several hours.

 Dogfighting is as old as civilization itself. And cockfighting started to appear in Europe around the 1400s. Both of these blood sports were primarily the activity of wealthy landowners, merchants, and aristocrats—in other words, people with money. Nowadays, these blood sports are associated with poor people of color. So campaigns against these vicious customs tend to look like white people chastising people of color, now that middle/upper-class white people are culturally “removed” from such barbarism.

 Illegal wildlife trafficking is an issue pervasive not just in animal advocacy but in environmental conservation as well. Campaigns and reports emphasize the illegal portion of wildlife trafficking so that they can invoke CITES and have some legal, policy weight, but that hasn’t made a big difference so far in the number of animals, alive and dead, being trafficked out of their native lands and waters. The regions where the bulk of this activity happens are southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. News media, documentaries, and campaigns tend to focus heavily on the “poaching” side of wildlife trafficking, which is exclusively poor people of color these regions. Though the business of wildlife trafficking will be part of a big crime syndicate, the people who are splattered in imagery and news articles are those with fewer resources and less leverage in the overall syndicate—people who are easy to replace, easy to scapegoat. It’s harder to make the wealthy consumers of wildlife products visible, it’s harder to challenge the rich, privately owned hunting ranches that profit in the business of “exotic” animal trafficking, it’s harder to target American and European private investors of militias and crime syndicates in these regions—so nobody really does. Because it’s easier to target poor people of color committing the actual violence and the actual crimes, they are the poster criminals, and white supremacy and colonialism can continue to go unchecked, unnoticed in its maintenance of this system.

o Racism, classism, and colonialism drive people of color to overly depend on the exploitation of animals, and because they don’t have the protection of wealth and whiteness, these people bear the brunt of the consequences, while the heavy enablers can continue business as usual.

IV. Racism & Speciesism: Are they interchangeable?

• Race and species are arbitrary distinctions that arose around the same time in European thought. They are both driven by phenotypic differences but carry the weight and legitimacy as though they are biologically rooted, and biological is often associated with “fixed.” In biology, the biological species definition is considered the ultimate species definition. If groups are shown to have individuals producing reproductively viable offspring, then they are truly a species. More often than not, this primary definition is too difficult to test in the field or in the lab, so other definitions based on morphological and phylogenetic differences between groups are considered an acceptable substitution. But what the morphological and phylogenetic species definitions do is make the labeling of species just as arbitrary as race theory. For both, it basically comes down to: if you look a little different, do things a little differently, vary somewhat genetically, and even live in a different region from the basis of comparison, that’s good enough to label your group a distinct species (and historically, race and species have been used interchangeably) until some other “expert” comes along and says otherwise.

• In my experience, what we as AR activists often label as speciesism tends to be racism, sexism, and ableism against animals. Animal agriculture, aquaculture, laboratory research on animals, pet-keeping, and even commercial and recreational hunting rely on the oppression of specific species for the benefit of certain human groups. But the arguments used to keep them in oppression are not so much speciesist as they are racist, sexist, and/or ableist. While dogs are targeted as a species of commercial breeding, it’s the races of dogs (otherwise called “breeds”) that are used as justification and incentive to continue selective breeding and reproductive control of dogs. And it’s the races that rig a dog slated for execution in certain counties just by being born to that race. Ecofeminist animal rights activists have pointed out for years that sexism is a major force driving the oppression of animals in agricultural industries, particularly dairy and egg where they would not exist without exploiting female labor. And even animal rights activists play into the traps of ableism, emphasizing the social-cognitive abilities of animals in a desperate attempt to get people to care about animals. Abilities of animal individuals and species may perhaps be the ground for which we justify how we treat animals. Once we activists are able to recognize them when they appear, it becomes easier to see what we’re really working with.

V. Conclusion

• Making white supremacy and patriarchy visible is very important to making animal oppression visible. They are often behind the atrocities against animals we’re struggling against.

• White supremacy and patriarchy affect the goals of the movement and the strategies employed. We can evaluate how our goals and strategies are carried along and By practicing an intention to make these forces visible, recognize what’s actually happening acknowledge our role in them all, we can take responsibility for the direction of .

• As other activists incorporate analyses of ablism, heterosexism, cissexism, and queerness, we have an opportunity for animal rights to become a genuine frontier intersectional movement. Are we up for the challenge?

More examples of white patriarchy:

• “I just installed a nose plate…so that he wouldn’t be nursing on his mom. He doesn’t need to anymore…He’ll get used to it. We’ve done it to other calves. And there’s little spikes on that plate, and that’s to irritate the cows udder if he tries to nurse and she’ll kick him away…Anyway, another fun thing to do on the farm.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOMYfrFKHyE&feature=youtu.be

Holy on their AR veganism, on belief systems and intersectional approaches


Holy vegan hardcore from Milan

Stefano, singer of Holy told us about animal rights, veganism, belief systems and intersectional approaches:

The four of us approached veganism in very different ways and time, I think that mostly what we share is that we all became vegans because we have a critical view of the world around us.

The biggest strength of the meat industry is the “don’t question” approach, consuming animals or animal product is something that in most cases is done without consciousness, no one ever wonders about how cows turned into steak, it’s not something considered questionable at all. Just part of the everyday normal life.

It happened in a certain moment of our life that we started questioning it, of course punk has had a huge influence in the process of making this choice. It’s because of punk that we perceived veganism for the first time as a political choice, and not only as some kind of fashionable hippy diet. When we started this band, we’ve put our opinion about animal rights in the spotlight, so we knew that there could have been misunderstandings about our band name’s origin and meaning.

During these years, more than once we had to make ourselves clear about the fact that we are not a religious band, but we are 4 rationalists/atheists. The way we practice veganism, as I said, is as a conscious lifestyle, and I can’t imagine anything further from this than religion.
It is a CHOICE, not an act of faith, and we’re committed to this not to save our souls, or empower our karmic whatever. We are vegan because we care both for human and for non-human life; we don’t see humanity as the center of the universe, nor the top of food chain.

I grew up in Italy, which has still a Catholic culture. This made me think how deep the roots of speciesism are. If you try to think about the idea that men are created in the image and likeness of God, you realize that this people is basically telling you “you are not an animal.” You’re something above all life, and below God only, and this is not only because this is written in the Old Testament, this is because the Catholic Church is still against evolution theory, and still supporting and spreading this shitty idea of creationism. This is a hetero-normative patriarchal Church of a god that created man out of clay (but not women of course, who are just a product of an extra rib.)

You have to know that in Italy the relations between church and state are still regulated by a 1929 agreement Between Mussolini and Pope Pio IX. Catholicism is still considered the main religion, is still a class in primary school (although it is optional), and we still have crucifixes in our classrooms. This means that the Christian imprinting is pretty effective on children at first, and also on the whole population.

Some eastern religions are known for being more “animal friendly” or even for preaching explicitly not to eat meat. Through the years these religions fascinated western people because for some reason they’re perceived, as more “human” and peaceful compared to monotheist religions.

What really depress me is not religious people themselves (as an Atheist, I stand for the freedom of questioning), but the fact that most of the people (to be honest 100% of the ones I’ve met) who approached vegetarianism through religion, seem to be incapable of connecting it to other aspects of life and politics. I mean, I don’t care if the Bhagavad Gita tells you to eat cheese and yoghurt, but how can you consider yourself and intelligent person if you stop eating meat to spare animal lives on one side, and on the other you are still contributing to death, consuming dairy products, because your god told you so? An act of faith is weak by definition: an individual makes choices and reinforces those choices, themselves, even thou it’s oblivious that the choice could be wrong.

This is one of the many ways of how veganism is intersectional to me, it’s both the result of many choices that lead me to what I am today and one of the foundations of what I will be tomorrow. As a thinking person, not just as a vegan.

Asleep

Give us today / our poisoned bread / our daily piece of trash / our dose of forgiveness / altars for those who torture / gallows for those who care / how long will the lambs / be so bloodthirsty? / the sleep of consciousness / built cities and gold paved streets / monuments to its own failure / to praise / to bless / to sleep / forever.

Album: Self Titled 12″ released by Hell Yes! (2012 release)

FREE DOWNLOAD: www.mediafire.com?a5bt7rzkz7rhnae

Restless

I’ve been told a better place awaits
I’ve been told we’ll lay and rest in peace
I’ve been told love lasts forever
Over our dead bodies
I’ve been told no more suffering
I’ve been told no more pain
I’ve been told but if I ask now nobody answers
And my knuckles hurt, my nails are worn
There’s no gold at the end of the road
I’ve been told but if I ask now
Nobody answers
Is anybody out there?
It’s only gravity
Pushing us down so fucking down
Until the ground will swallow us

Album: The Age Of Collapse (2013 release)

Live at Aladdin Jr in Pomona CA (USA) June 2013

Connect via:

Bandcamp: http://holyvegan.bandcamp.com/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/holyvegan

Davey xSABOTEURx on vegan AR intersectionality!

xSABOTEURx at the Asylum 2 – Birmingham, 8.04.2013

We asked Davey, the bassist of the former UK vegan band xSABOTEURx, about his view on ethical veganism and animal rights intersectionality:

Basically for me veganism has always been for the animals and that’s how I would imagine it would stay. The band tackled issues of homophobia and sexism too with our vocalist at the time being gay.

We also come from a background where there’s a lot of privilege and consumerism in hardcore and honestly that’s just never been what it’s about for us.

Our politics have always been about liberation, both human and animal, and that’s something that should always continue on for us.

xSABOTEURx – Reaction

“In a world that’s fueled by the suffering of others,
ignorance is no longer an option. I would rather see
the world for what it really is than blind myself with
excuses. No longer will I stand by and watch as the
innocent fall victim to selfish desires. No more.”
Abstinence from a culture guilty of atrocity,
industries that profit off other beings misery,
mind altering substances that keep thought distracted,
pay heed to our crimes,
this is my reaction.
How many more have to suffer?
I can no longer stand by and do nothing,
as life is destroyed by human consumption,
slaves to convenience,
faith in a bottle,
this is my reaction in a world so hollow.
VEGAN STRAIGHT EDGE
Rape,
Vivisection,
Murder,
Exploitation,
Suffering,
Misery,
This is my reaction,
I won’t stand still.
Won’t stand still.
Won’t stand still.

xSABOTEURx – Unjustified

Compassion for those you once called friends,
lost among false notions of survival,
tradition is delusion in a modern age,
where substitute can take deaths place.
Slaughter, unjustified.
Slaughter, unjustified.
Animals aren’t commodity
or ours to control
industry to industry,
all will fall.
The hunters hunted,
the demons exposed,
no compromise for those who oppose.
Mass liberation from the hands of moral corruption,
those who’d brand a currency on sentient life.
Now is the time!
Mass liberation
from the hands of moral corruption.
Righteous vengeance on those who oppress.
It’s time for us to recognize,
retribution of nature’s calling.
Every second that’s spent waiting,
leads to another demise.

Both track are from xSABOTEURx – Demonstration, released in May 2013.

Via FB: https://www.facebook.com/saboteurxvx

Orel Ofoi, singer of Paris-based vegan band FTA, on animal ethics and veganism as global ethics

Orel Ofoi is the singer of the Paris-based vegan band FTA. We asked Orel about how she sees animal- and vegan ethics and their contexts:

My idea of the ethic regarding the respect of animals and animal protection is really a global ethic: The respect for animals will have an impact on environmental protection and on the respect for human beings themselves.

In the Judeo-Christian religion, for instance, the majority of people read the biblical text with the notion that humans stand at the centre of the world, and that they have to dominate the earth and the animals, thus dismissing the image of the human as a shepherd: who is a friend and protector face to face, on the same ground with the environment and other lives … .

I think that we should see the relationship between humans and animals as a relation of “co-creatures”, based on respect, love and protection of the others.

The Earth is our mother, and the human is the most dangerous animal for her and her environment.

An individual awareness all over the world would be necessary to see a real evolution; one, by fighting those who’ve become cancerous to the planet, who murder us physically and alienate us on a daily basis; I speak about Monsanto for example or also the lobbyists (pharmaceutical or agro food, etc.).

I believe that it is necessary to support ethical producers and to not hesitate with sharing the message, because we need to stick together and to be united to see a real revolution and a real ethical evolution.

Standing Point. Intersectional vegan hardcore from Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil!

Standing Point. Intersectional vegan hardcore from Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil!

Standing Points voice Alex Peguinelli tells us on the intersectionality of ethical veganism:

Well, we are a third world band, so we see veganism and animal rights in a particular way. We have so many problems here in America Latina, that people don’t even think about the non-human animals, so being a vegan, straight edge and anarchist band here is very necessary.

Beyond the band we are involved with vegan anti-consumerist collectives and the struggle for public transport. We think that talking about veganism is talking about anti-consumerist politics, anti-capitalist issues and a lot of other things that are directly connected with the human and non-human animal liberation.

Our Album ‘Work. Consume. Die.’ talks about the inability to live a free life in a world that offers you only prisons.

Standing Point – Loveless

“People who talk about revolution and class struggle without referring explicitly to everyday life, without understanding what is subversive about love and hate, live and DIE, and what is to refuse their limitations, these people speak with a corpse between their teeth.”

Loveless

I threw myself from the highest cliffs
from the most beautiful mountains
I threw myself from the largest buildings

Always knowing that the ground
would be the (final) destination
That the fall would be the path

And the wind would lead life
like carrying pieces of paper

What can we do with the crumbs of theories?

(Normality can properly
Teach people how to live
And how to die)

What can we do with the crumbs of theories?

I tried to hold the air
I tried to hold in the air
I tried to leave the flight
a rough landing
inevitable and painful

And then life became
a scenographic city
if you pull to strong
the walls fall down

Now I see through
these falling walls
That love is the only reason of life
Love for struggle
Love for resistence
Love for freedom

No Compromise
No Excuses

Freedom
By any means necessary

(We turn again to the streets
But we have changed
And the streets mean something different now
We walked and these moments changed us
We saw buildings burning
We were touched by death
We loved and we felt alive
We saw the moon rising behind the barricades
We heard the echo of our voice in the voices of others

We do not walk today
asking the power for grant
They had never legislated peace or freedom
Now their armies cannot occupy our dreams
And their prisons cannot contain our number

This is our world
And these streets belong to us

We are the other,
We are the unemployed,
We are the hungry,
We are the homeless,
We are the thieves,
We are the saboteurs,
We are taking the streets,
We are destroying corporations,
We are taking control of the factories,
We are walking through the night carrying a heart on fire.

all of us,
we are everyone,
we are one.)

Standing Point – The Real Change

Connect through

Bandcamp: http://standingpoint.bandcamp.com
FB: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Standing-Point/240527789340168

Not merely human attributes! Friendbeast’s Koala Largess on vegan intersectionality

We asked Friendbeast from Baltimore about vegan intersectionality

Koala the vocalist of Friendbeast told us:

As an anarchist, I look at the relationships of power. This doesn’t preclude the relationship that humans have to the world around them. If we want real anticapitalist structural change, we need to look at the most basic part of our lives, what we eat and how we relate to it – our food. Bodies, hearts, and minds are not merely a human attribute, and forcing deprivation, sexualization, and then death upon other creatures debases our humanity and throws us deeper into a capitalist web.

Friendbeast – Caged

I could sell her to a lab
Euthanize her tomorrow
Society says she’s property
All I want is an end to this.

CHORUS:
Bought
Sold
Kept in a cage

There is no freedom in the exploitation of another

Bought
Sold
Kept in a cage

There is no dignity in the ownership of another

Systems of power
Desire to control
Fuck your disregard
Fuck this domination
No one should have ownership over another
Animals shouldn’t be confined
Alone…
Cold…
Waiting for your curiosity

Connect through
Bandcamp: http://friendbeast.bandcamp.com/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Friendbeast/465040923548720

Spiknykter’s Simon on intersectional veganism

Swedish hardcore band Spiknykter’s Simon told us on intersectional veganism:

I have been vegan for many different reasons over the years, and I just keep getting more and more reasons why I should continue to be vegan.

Recently I learned that the abuse of animals and sexual violence are statistically connected. Apparently it’s common that the violent part does not start to exert violence on their partner, but starts practicing – so to speak – on a pet or other animals.

That, among other things, made it clear to me that empathy towards nonhuman animals is important, not only for its own sake, but also for being emphatic towards other people too.

Spiknykter – Arg som 17

jag brukade va ledsen, nu ä jag bara arg
på borgare, sexister och folk som skjuter varg
andra skaffar jobb och stil och ilskan klingar av
men jag blir bara mera arg, för varje jävla dag

10 år av aggression
spottar och fräser till pension

jag brukade va uppgiven nu är jag bara sur
på USA och Israel och deras jävla mur
andra går och gifter sig och slutar styra härj
snackar rött men röstar blått och hymlar med sin färg

gamla guben, arg som fan
grinig, sur och tvär vegan

kvar är agget fast jag tappat mitt hår
gnisslar tänder i sömnen och odlar mitt magsår
svär över diskbrock och högerpolitik
över kids som är nöjda och snutabyk

Connect via
FB: https://www.facebook.com/Spiknykter
Bandcamp: http://spiknykter.bandcamp.com/