February
2000
Editorial:
Anatomy of an Awakening
By Catherine Clyne
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My
vegan, animal and environmental awareness was a slow process of
connecting
the dots that continues to this day. It began with an inarticulate
gut-feeling, stemming mostly from experience, rather than bibliography.
Years of
living abroad in diplomatic communities in the two countries conquered
by World War II awakened me to human cruelty during both war and
(Cold
War) “peacetime.” The dark clouds of the Jewish Holocaust
and Nazism hanging over West Germany, and the atomic residue that settled
over Japan and the conveniently “forgotten” atrocities committed
by the Japanese during wartime, were cause for constant waves of silent
nationwide nausea, guilt, embarrassment, anger and denial in both countries.
Even as a child, one could not help but be profoundly affected.
As a child living in West Germany, there were three particular visual
experiences that changed my life. When it rained, the younger elementary
school children were often herded into a dark room and shown films.
One was a German documentary that followed the lives of a family of
ducks living in a marsh. In the spring, after the eggs hatched and
the
little ducks moved awkwardly about, a different kind of progress arrived.
Bulldozers churned up the land to make way for “civilization.” The
duck family was a casualty of an apartment building project. Every
kid in the room cried at the end of the movie when we realized that
the family had been killed, even though we had seen it more than once.
In the third grade, the television epic Roots arrived. The U.S. embassy
brought in film reels to be shown to the students at the American school.
What an education! As if the story itself wasn’t terrifying enough,
the terror cut to the bone when the viewing had to be stopped when my
friend and classmate fell into an uncontrollable hysterical fit, heaving,
screaming and crying. She was the daughter of the Kenyan Ambassador
and had known nothing of the slave trade. “That could have been
Susan,” I thought. “That could have been me,” I concluded.
The next year, the American made-for-TV mini-series Holocaust was (after
much controversy) dubbed into German and broadcast on national television.
For reasons beyond my understanding, I desperately wanted to watch,
and threw a monstrous tantrum with much sobbing, and with such insistence
that my mother had to consent. After each episode, there was a characteristically
German analysis, complete with discussion and actual film footage of
the concentration camps and murders. I don’t remember much of the
series itself, but at the time the stories and images had a major impact
on me. Wandering by my old friend, the Rhein River, I could only wonder
at how people could actually do such things to each other—nevermind
the why—and in this very land! Absolutely unbelievable.
Living outside of the U.S., I often found myself embroiled in political
debates over American foreign policy with a host of non-Americans. My
friends, classmates and the cultures that I lived in were highly critical.
I got used to being a minority, but I was often put in the uncomfortable
position of serving as the American spokesperson to people who wanted
explanations. People wanted to know why Americans were so xenophobic;
why U.S. foreign policy was anti-Arab, anti-Japanese, anti-Semitic,
racist, etc. Constant questioning and discussion helped me question
the position of privilege and power that the U.S. has over the rest
of the world, and forced me to formulate my own ethical and political
worldview.
By the time I moved to New York to attend college, awareness was spreading
to other species. Coming from an Irish-American family where a meal
wasn’t a meal without meat, for no real reason, I unconsciously
ate little meat in the university cafeteria. The wedge came when I
had
to cook for myself. I simply had no desire to buy or cook meat. Vaguely
the issue began to appear on my radar as I befriended vegetarians,
vegans
and straight-edgers. Without any real thought or fanfare, I privately
gave myself the gift of becoming vegetarian on my 19th birthday.
At the time, I came to the conclusion that I could no longer eat the
dead flesh of living, feeling, thinking beings who had suffered and
died to end up on my plate. I had an epiphany of sorts where I realized
that only a very fine line separated me from the meat I consumed, and
it was due solely to my good fortune of having been born a member of
the Homo Sapiens species that I was exempt from being eaten myself.
A year later I came to realize that it was hypocritical of me to consume
products either stolen from living incarcerated animals, such as dairy,
or to wear by-products from slaughtered animals, such as leather. I
became vegan. The line between humans and nonhumans, between who we
eat and who we love came to seem as random to me as the line that I
learned about as a child, when I learned about the capture of millions
of Africans, separated from their families and shipped far away to
be “slaves”; and when I learned of the systematic extermination
of Jewish and others deemed “sub-human” by the German government
during the Second World War.
At the time, I had no way of articulating the logic or feeling behind
this choice. It was all done in silence, unconsciously. Though an avid
reader, I knew nothing of the literature out there. I was primarily
engaged with religious history and feminist theory. Then one of my dearest
friends recommended The Sexual Politics of Meat by Carol Adams. The
impact was much more than the proverbial lightbulb turning on, my entire
world became illuminated and everything began to make sense. Although
a bit muddled with academic jargon, her message came through loud and
clear. Adams theoretically and literally connected women, nature, animals
and meat, and exposed the overarching sexist, racist and speciesist
thinking and language that keeps oppressive systems in place. She advocated
vegetarianism as a feminist, environmental, and animal-concerned political
act! Wow!
I joined advocacy groups and explored the animal rights literature.
Unlike many people, I found the animal advocacy book, Peter Singer’s
Animal Liberation, to be obtuse and trying too hard to be an academically
accepted philosophical work. Focusing on “rights” and theoretical
debates didn’t seem very productive or necessarily proactive, although
his descriptions of farm factories and animal experimentation were eye-opening.
John Robbins’ Diet for a New America spoke more directly to me,
outlining the animal, environmental and health issues addressed by a
vegan diet—helping me make the connections. Tom Regan and Peter
Singer’s edited work Animal Rights and Human Obligations provided
an overview of the historical texts—for and against human obligations
to animals. The lens and consciousness developed so that I could see
connections everywhere. The two most influential books that I read besides
Adams, however, were Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism
by bell hooks and the autobiography of Mohandas K. Gandhi.
Like Adams, hooks was a watershed, making connections between race,
women and feminism. Ain’t I a Woman articulated the gray, marginal
area between sexism and racism that many African-American women fell
into—not the concern of the predominantly white feminist movement,
and not exactly an integral part of the agenda of the (male-centered)
black social justice movement. Her discussions of the black female
slave
experience and the continuous devaluation of black women in our society,
and her indictment of the current imperialist patriarchal system filled
in the gaps and shed new light on racism, oppression and the marginal
experience.
Although tersely written, Mohandas Gandhi’s autobiography (The
Story of My Experiments with Truth) offered a compassionate, inspiring
and logical basis for non-violent ways to resolve conflict. Living simply
and being vegetarian are political statements that actually send ripples
across the societal ocean. Gandhi further raised my awareness of cultural
and national hegemony and the absolute injustice of imperialism. Most
important was the message that if one stuck to one’s principles,
mountains could be moved—without violent conflict.
It wasn’t until I read the works of theologian Andrew Linzey and
the Great Ape Project compilation of essays (edited by Paola Cavalieri
and Peter Singer) that animal advocacy literature had that paradigm-shifting
“aha!” effect on me again. While I may not buy fully into
Linzey’s theology and rhetoric, for me, he opened a new way of
understanding humans, animals and creation, and a different way of looking
at Jewish and Christian scripture, theology and history. The Great Ape
Project exposed me to the debates over extending basic “human rights” to
our closest ancestors, nonhuman primates; the research revealing our
genetic, behavioral and cultural similarities; and the ethical issues
involved when the ladder of rights is extended to some and not to others.
So, how do I cope with seeing all of the connections in a meat-eating,
environmentally unfriendly, animal apathetic world? By maintaining
a
sense of humor at all times. If that fails, it’s Chernobyl. So
I tend to find humor in the absolute absurdity of the world we live
in. Friends help with that. But sometimes it is simply impossible to
laugh in the face of abominable suffering.
Relief often comes from my feline buddies, Leon and Pierre, who bring
me back to Earth simply by being who they are. Each has his own individual “felinality.” When the heat’s on, Pierre loves sitting
with his paws stretched under the radiator (as if his newly-painted
nails were drying); Leon constantly tries to get any and everyone into
his “love grip”—paws wrapped around the neck, his purring
furry face up close rubbing chin against chin. They help remind me that
sometimes it’s a good thing to let go and be silly and allow a
copper wire with a bit of rolled-up cardboard to be the center of your
universe.
So, we curl up on Tuesdays with Tropical Source chocolate or Imagine
vegan pudding and watch Buffy the Slayer vanquish vampires and demons.
It’s a lovely irony—a pacifist rooting for someone whose sole
purpose in life is to kill things. Maybe I get my anger at and fear
of evil out through watching her kick butt. But Buffy is righteous,
and in her world evil is unquestionably black and white—no messy
gray areas. Who knows? In the end, the show makes me laugh and her
kicks
and punches are damn cool to watch; and, for a split-second, I feel
that all is right with the world.
Catherine
Clyne
