Review

Forum on Direct Action for Animals

Summary:

Issues of Direct Action were particularly illuminated by two different videos that were taken of recent animal rescues. Patty Mark, a presenter from Australia, showed her team's highly organized ministering to and rescue of battery-caged hens. The video showed the hens' faces up close. This powerfully captured their suffering and the gentleness and firmness of the rescue team, who make a point of contacting the police and getting arrested, thereby putting factory farms visibly on trial before the public and in the courtroom.

In contrast, Miyun Park showed a video of a break-in rescue at the University of Minnesota by the Animal Liberation Front. This video showed rescuers dressed in black "batman"-like outfits and masks. The various animals being rescued from the research laboratory were filmed at a long distance angle. Whereas the Australian direct action showed suffering, empathy, compassion, a trained team, and extremely skilled use of the camera, the ALF video captured a less mature, more egotistic, less compassionate-looking rescue: there was no involvement between the ALF rescuers and the animals they liberated as there was between the rescuers and the hens in the Australian video. Conference attendees overwhelmingly chose the Australian operation and the style of activism it embodied over the characteristics depicted in the ALF operation. Attendees were virtually unanimous that the Australian video was a model of the kind of activism that, aired, would move and educate the public, whereas the ALF video, with its batman outfits and focus on the masked rescuers instead of on the animals, would have an opposite effect on mainstream viewers. (Another difference was the screams of hens entrapped in wires and manure in the battery facility, and the rescuers' effort to extricate them, vs the antiseptic laboratory setting of the University of Minnesota rescue, where the cruelty is harder to convey.)

The conference brought face to face some key activists who have disagreed philosophically and strategically about the use of violence, working within the system, and so forth. It put these people together in the same room, in some cases for the first time. Advocates familiar with philosophic disputes aired on the Internet, but uncertain of where they personally stood, had a chance to meet, hear, and question opposing activists. A passionate, sometimes heated, but never hateful atmosphere prevailed. Respect for all presenters and viewpoints was shown throughout the conference.

Certain issues that were aired were (and can only be) unresolved, such as whether vandalism is a form of violence or whether the definition of violence should be restricted to the infliction of injury on living beings as opposed to damage to objects--vandalism. A significant distinction, with apparent consensus, was that between stealing (inanimate property) and rescuing (innocent victims).

Presenters raised questions concerning outspoken criticism from within the movement of philosophies and practices that are, or have come to be, renounced by those critics. For example: "We've decided that ALF rescue operations are not for us (anymore), and we think it shouldn't be for the rest of you either." A point about direct action is that it is already a tactic which involves law-breaking, and thus requires justification. When animal rights advocates attack direct action, they are saying to the public, "Yes, I support rights for animals, but not at the expense of the law." It makes the public, who tend to feel that animal liberation is a fringe issue anyway, think, "Gosh, even some articulate supporters of rights for animals don't think it's a big enough deal to support law- breaking." Bruce Friedrich asked: Would we really find abolitionists denouncing the underground railroad or members of the Confessing Church arguing that Anne Frank's family should be given up, in the spirit of openness? (Material in this paragraph is from Bruce Friedrich, "Presenting a United Front: The Power of Cohesion in the Struggle for Social Justice"). Such questions exemplify the key issues that were raised and debated at the conference--issues which the conference was designed to bring forth.

Cost

Evaluations

Future UPC Forum Under Consideration

This conference would be a Saturday conference at (probably) the Sunset Beach Inn, about 20 minutes from United Poultry Concerns. It would conclude with a Sunday morning visit to United Poultry Concerns' chicken sanctuary and a Sunday brunch. It would probably be held in late Spring. Presenters would be directors of sanctuaries such as Farm Sanctuary, Pigs Sanctuary, Poplar Spring Farm Animal Sanctuary, Humane Farming Association, Wilderness Ranch. (This is a provisional and hypothetical list only, at this time.)

The next conference will charge a higher registration fee: $50-$100 (instead of $20) and have fewer presenters (4 or 5 instead of 13). In addition, the Sunday brunch will be catered by local activists who have already offered to do it.

United Poultry Concerns is grateful to the following organizations and individuals for their financial assistance for the 1999 Forum for Direct Action for Animals: PETA, American Anti-Vivisection Society, Fund for Animals, Zoe Weil, Debbie Leahy, Kim Stallwood, Franklin Wade, Liqin Cao, Jean Lauren, Miyun Park, and Pamela Rice. This list includes those presenters who graciously assumed their own travel expenses. United Poultry Concerns wishes to thank everyone who attended the conference and who contributed financially and otherwise to its success.