April
2004
Thinking
Pluralistically: A Case for Direct Action
By Steve Best
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Photo courtesy of Steve Best |
A new civil war is unfolding—one between forces
hell-bent on exploiting animals and the earth for profit whatever the
toll, and activists steeled to resist this omnicide tooth and nail.
We are witnessing not only the long-standing corporate war against nature,
but also a new social war about nature.
“War” entails violence, hatred, bloodshed, and an escalation
of conflict when dialogue fails. In the battle over animal liberation,
significant gains are being made through education, legislation, and
dialogue, but there are also impasses where negotiations break down
or fail. Government and industry thugs unleash violence on activists,
while the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) employs sabotage, Stop Huntingdon
Animal Cruelty (SHAC) uses strong intimidation tactics, and groups such
as the Animal Rights Militia and the Revolutionary Cells openly advocate
violence against animal abusers.
Realizing that adopting a nonviolent approach to animal exploiters in
fact is a pro-violence stance that tolerates their blood-spilling without
taking adequate measures to stop it, a new breed of freedom fighters
has ditched Gandhi for Machiavelli and switched principled nonviolence
with the amoral (not to be confused with immoral) pragmatism that embraces
animal liberation “by any means necessary.”
Fallacies of the Mainstream
Many critics of the ALF, SHAC, and direct action tactics poorly understand
what makes social change movements possible and effective. They rely
on a naive model of political struggle and human nature that assumes
rational dialogue can solve all conflicts. They use facile generalizations
such as “violence is always wrong” and “ALF actions
always get bad publicity” that are flat out wrong. In addition,
they consistently misrepresent direct action advocates as naively believing
that sporadic acts of vandalism and intimidation alone can win animal
liberation.
Looking at modern social history, it is clear that civil disobedience,
property destruction, and violence have been important political tactics
for the American Revolution, the abolition of slavery, labor and national
independence movements, suffragette struggles, and the Civil Rights
movement. Similarly, the histories of the ALF and SHAC show that break-ins,
liberations, property destruction, arson, and intimidation tactics have
completely shut down some operations, weakened others, and provided
otherwise unobtainable documentation of animal exploitation in fur farms,
vivisection labs, and elsewhere. As evident in the 1980s era of ALF-PETA
press conferences, the exposés of Huntingdon Life Sciences (HLS),
and the summer 2003 actions against foie gras chefs and restaurants
in the Bay area, dramatic sabotage and direct action methods often get
positive press coverage that reform campaigns do not generate. This
valuable publicity exposes vicious industry practices and sparks important
public dialogue about animal wrongs and animal rights.
Whereas advocates of direct action such as Paul Watson, Rod Coronado,
and Kevin Jonas use inclusive approaches that acknowledge the validity
of different approaches in different situations, critics of direct action
wield exclusive approaches that deny the need for and validity of a
plurality of tactics—both legal and illegal, aboveground and underground—as
if they alone possess Truth and can infallibly predict which tactic
will work.
If it is to succeed, the animal advocacy movement—encompassing
diverse voices for welfare, rights, and liberation—must embrace
a multidimensional and contextualist model of change rooted in the basic
insight that different situations require different and perhaps multiple
types of tactics to be deployed simultaneously. Eschewing dogma and
pre-packaged answers, this approach asks: What tactic or combination
of tactics is appropriate to a specific situation?
It is obvious that not all violence is justified, but it is equally
obvious that not all violence is unjustified. Self-defense is one example
where it is acceptable and prudent to use force against another person
if necessary. Beginning in 1974, the ALF declared war against animal
oppressors and the state that defends them, but the ALF did not start
the conflict. It entered into a war that animal exploiters long ago
began. If one party succumbs to a war initiated by another party, it
employs violence in self-defense and so its actions are legitimate.
Acting as proxy agents for animals who cannot defend themselves, ALF
actions in principle are just.
The Just War Defense
“Just War” theory emerged as a response by Christian philosophers
to reconcile the nonviolent teachings of Christ with a social reality
rooted in warfare and violence. As developed by St. Augustine (354-430)
and St. Aquinas (1225-1274), and elaborated further by Francisco Vitoria
(1492-1546) and Francisco de Suarez (1548-1617) in the 16th and 17th
centuries, just war theory employs two criteria to evaluate a violent
conflict. The jus ad bellum (right to war) condition addresses the grounds
for entering a war and holds that if one party wages or enters into
war with another party, violence must be employed as a last resort after
efforts to resolve conflict through peaceful means have been exhausted.
The jus in bellum (right in war) condition involves the circumstances
of waging the battle once it begins and requires that violence be exercised
in proportion to what is needed to end a conflict and not be excessive.
In terms of conditions for entering a conflict, direct action groups
like the ALF and SHAC have strong reasons for resorting to illegal actions,
sabotage, and intimidation tactics. After all the welfare campaigns
of the last century, ever more animals are being killed in increasingly
horrific ways. Where laws protecting animals exist at all, they are
weak, poorly enforced, and constantly revised and watered-down. In cases
where the legal system fails the animals, such as Paul Watson found
in his fight to protect seals and whales, activists have no choice but
to circumvent it and apply direct pressure on exploiters.
ALF and SHAC actions also are consistent with the ethical constraints
placed on waging a conflict. One might argue conservatively that an
illegitimate use of violence would entail, among other things, physical
violence against human beings. But, as nonviolent groups (I do not define
property destruction and psychological intimidation as violence), the
ALF and SHAC never attack or injure human beings, however righteous
their anger against animal exploiters; they attack property, not people.
Given the gravity of the situation for the animals they represent, such
direct action groups should not be criticized for using excessive force
but rather commended for exercising moderation and restraint.
Moreover, the ALF only targets individuals directly involved in animal
exploitation and thus avoids those who qualify as “innocent”
or “non-combatants.” According to just war criteria, “collateral
damage” in a war is expected and unavoidable, but combatants must
seek to minimize it, as does the ALF. SHAC, interestingly, has a different
tactic that blurs the line between combatant and non-combatant. By pressuring
companies and individuals who do not directly work for HLS but provide
financial backing or other services, such as cleaning, SHAC sees those
indirectly associated with HLS as legitimate targets.
Limitations of “Nonviolence”
Critics of direct action fail to see that nonviolent approaches condone
or contribute to violence in a larger context. The question is not whether
one will be nonviolent or violent, but rather which level of violence
will one unavoidably support? As Paul Watson states in his book, Sea
Shepherd: My Fight for Whales and Seals, “To remain nonviolent
totally is to allow the perpetuation of violence against people, animals,
and the environment. The Catch-22 of it—the damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don’t
dilemma—is that, if we eschew violence for ourselves, we often
thereby tacitly allow violence for others, who are then free to settle
issues violently until they are resisted, necessarily with violence.”
Similarly, in her Afterword to Terrorists or Freedom Fighters? Reflections
on the Liberation of Animals, Ingrid Newkirk writes, “If a concentration
camp or laboratory is burned, that is violence, but if it is left standing
is that not more and worse violence?…Isn’t the chicken house
today’s concentration camp?…Will we condemn its destruction
or condemn its existence? Which is the more violent wish?”
There is a new face of animal rights activism, a new militancy entirely
appropriate to the dire suffering of animals. Direct activists urge
nonviolent and legal tactics as preferable wherever they can work. But
they also understand that not all human beings respond to compassion
and love; that choices are strongly conditioned by economic, political,
and other institutional ties and interests; and that intractable social
conflicts are not solved by education and legislation alone.
If we are ever to win the battle for animal liberation, it will be only
after the animal advocacy movement stops infighting and learns to respect
and utilize its amazing diversity of approaches. We must renounce dogmatic
positions that see only one way to the future, and adopt a pluralist
approach that understands the need to fight our battle on as many fronts
as possible.
Ultimately, we need a revolutionary social transformation that dissolves
the worldviews, hierarchies, and sensibilities that generate violence
and conflict against humans and animals alike. Until then, let’s
strive for more understanding, respect, and cooperation in our own house.
Steve Best, Ph.D. is chair of the Philosophy Department at
University of Texas, El Paso. With Anthony J. Nocella II, he is co-editor
of Terrorists or Freedom Fighters?: Reflections on the Liberation
of Animals, published this month by Lantern Books [see Patterson’s
review in last month’s issue]. Many of his writings can be found
at: http://utminers.utep.edu/best/.
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