The only hunger strikers to my knowledge, Joan’s knowledge, and the knowledge of any other UK activist with whom we’ve spoken are Joan in support of the Oxford Lab and animal rights prisoners (mainly to show solidarity with Barry Horne or against oppression as in the 2008 case of the Austrian 10), and most notably Barry Horne himself, who starved to death, betrayed by a Labour government that refused to honour its election pledge for laboratory animals. No “body snatchers” have ever been identified, so what is Lee Hall trying to do? Imply that there is a huge split in the UK and that some “good” activists “despise” the illegal direct actions of those “bad” activists who do it? This is either ignorance, laziness, or an attempt to mislead her readers regarding the UK animal rights movement. She does so with many other matters, but I am not at liberty to divulge the nature of all of her apparent attempts to manipulate the facts. I dare say others will pick up on other areas of falsehood in Capers in the Churchyard.
5. Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty. The SHAC Hall criticises is not the SHAC I know. I cannot comment on SHAC USA, except to say that I know Kevin Jonas well, and he is a lovely, kind, and intelligent person. I also know his co-defendant, Josh Harper, and would say the same of him. Hall describes the USA SHAC7 as “youths,” which I found very patronising as they are all in their 20s and more than capable of making their own choices. She portrays them as adolescents trying to rebel rather than as thoughtful, adult activists (many of them college graduates) running what amounted to peaceful demos and a website. Other people in their twenties are surgeons, lawyers, soldiers, police officers, nurses, accountants, electricians, and the like; should they too be dismissed as “youths”? Apparently the evil duo Jerry Vlasak and Steve Best (Jerry once bought me a curry so really please leave him alone!) are corrupting youth and they are responsible for anyone under the age of 40 getting nicked! To dismiss the energy and courage of so many activists as nothing more than hanging around with a “ready made” group of friends, having lots of piercings and listening to crappy music is despicable. Just because they are not under Lee Hall’s leadership does not make them bad activists.
On page 13, Hall says: “It is only Huntingdon that the campaign means to disable.” Oh really? So why on every SHAC stall were there leaflets on veganism, the fur trade, recipes, and so on? Why did we include with every anti-HLS information pack material on veganism as well? Why are SHAC activists involved with other campaigns, from the fur trade to global warming? Why is it that across the globe in India and Russia activists are fighting against the oppression of other animals which SHAC has played a part in? Apparently all SHAC activists do is send threats and glue up cash machines. Well, wrong.
SHAC is not responsible for illegal activity; activists make their own decisions and act accordingly. SHAC is a campaign which deals with petitions, informing the public, organising legal demonstrations, and nothing else. The point of a focused campaign is not only to close down HLS but to draw attention to the horror of vivisection wherever it takes place and to challenge the assumption that other animals are ours to use. For Hall’s information, part of the remit of HLS is to get the most profit from animals used and abused in the meat, egg, and dairy industries. HLS in the UK even offered to induce mastitis in cows. HLS is enmeshed in all manner of abuse, counting amongst their customers, friends, and allies noted human and environment abusers Union Carbide (Bhopal), Shell (Ken Saro Wiwa), Bayer (mates with Hitler, GM, lethal pesticides etc), and Monsanto (lots of dead farmers in India thanks to that corporation’s efforts to monopolise world food production). The list reads like a who’s who of genocidal, corporate maniacs. SHAC has targeted them all. SO WHAT?
6. Depersonalising animal abusers. I agree with Hall here. Black and white scenarios are simplistic; there are so many shades of grey. Demonising workers at HLS, for example, ignores the fact that they are all complex individuals, some of them (like me) who have looked around at their surroundings and what they are doing, and stopped. Some brave individuals have told SHAC about the animal abuse within the razor wire of HLS compounds, and others have left, tormented by what they have seen. One man told me that his daughter, an HLS worker, once liberated an entire box of rats. More workers are likely to question what they are doing if people are outside the gates with placards, which is why in 2003 when SHAC held whistleblower demonstrations asking workers to spill the beans on illegal and immoral practices at HLS, banners and leaflets were grabbed by police and confiscated.
This demo seemed to concern the authorities more than any other demonstration. Activists were threatened with arrest under the Data Protection Act! Good people do go to work in abattoirs and laboratories; they become desensitised or they leave. Whilst they do that work though, they are our enemy, although we should be approachable to those who want to talk and discuss things. HLS workers did ring the whistleblower number looking for a way to express their revulsion at what they had seen. Some HLS workers, notably Sarah Kite, Michelle Rokke, and the NAVS investigator are in fact animal rights activists; another, Zoe Broughton, is an investigative journalist (the groundbreaking “It’s a dog’s life”), and none of them are scum.
On the other hand, it is just as simplistic to assume that “militants” are nasty, violent thugs. It is the “militants” who I remember sabbing hunts and helping save the lives of hunt supporters on several occasions. It was sabs who ran to rescue injured hunt supporters when an elderly man had a cardiac arrest whilst driving and ploughed into them at the Cambridgeshire fox hunt in the early 90s. When it comes to protecting life, even of those who abuse animals, even “militants” have done so.
7. Legal matters. Sean Kirtley is in prison. When he completes his 4 ½ year sentence and probation stops he is then constrained by a 5 year super ASBO (Anti-Social Behaviour Order), all-in-all a 9 ½ year sentence. To be fair to Lee when she wrote (page 94), “There is nothing illegal about activists pressuring a corporation through emails and phone calls,” SOCPA (Serious Organised Crime and Police Act) was not in use, and Sean had not been arrested. Her comment as far as the UK is concerned is now out of date. Sean did not go as far as contacting contract testing laboratory Sequani by email or phone call. He held a banner outside and updated a website, both of which are legal; he also spoke on the phone to other vegans who became his co-defendants (they were raided and terrorized, but finally acquitted). An unknown person sent a polite fax though, and Sean was found guilty of “conspiring” with that person. Presumably Sean deserves his fate and what he did is worse than rape or bludgeoning someone to death? Well, the state believes so.
It is not just animal rights activists who find themselves imprisoned for the actions of others. Famously in 2000 Ruth Wyner was imprisoned with a co-defendant who was equally innocent of any wrongdoing. Her crime? She was the director of a charity which helped homeless people and unbeknownst to her -- despite a strong anti drugs policy at the shelter in which she worked, and despite the fact that police officers were present when the “offence” happened -- some people quietly traded dugs behind her back. Her offence was to “allow” drug dealing, just as prison officers, teachers, social workers, and police officers “allow” drug dealing all the time. You see there are those who hate the homeless, Ruth campaigned to help them, and she became a target. Are we seriously supposed to respect Cambridgeshire police, or the courts, or the law when such a thing is possible? It is POWER, not justice, which motivates the legal system in the UK, and to pretend otherwise is naive at best. There are many examples of gross injustice (e.g., involving the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six) which would fill several books.
Lee Hall does not bother to hide her contempt for those imprisoned for their beliefs. It seems that she believes that they deserve to be imprisoned for peaceful protest. Her anger regarding new draconian laws that are destroying what liberties we have is reserved not for those who made the laws but for those who have been imprisoned as a result of them. This is disgraceful. Hall seems to live in a dream world where the corporate nightmare will not harm her if she is non-violent. This is very naïve. Hall comments: “No-one among us can be arrested for buying eggless noodles” (page 127).
WANT TO BET?
For decades, many activists have been promoting a vegan diet in the UK. The Veggies vegan catering campaign is about to celebrate 25 years of supplying vegan nosh and education to all manner of events, demos, and city streets. When they celebrated their 20th anniversary (at a private venue) the police waded in and were very violent. In 2008, when Food not Bombs was arrested for giving free food to homeless people and other passers-by, apparently KFC and McDonalds felt undermined. I have known of parents threatened with social services for bringing children up as vegan by the police and accused of not having food in the house despite a massive SUMA (a whole food wholesaler-distributor) delivery being staked up high in the larder (although this was probably a very empty threat).
I hope that Hall is very successful in her vegan outreach but if she is, I believe that it is unlikely that she will be left to continue her work unmolested by the US police state. The corporations rule, and neither Lee Hall nor anyone should underestimate their power to make new oppressive laws, such as which could include, for example, prohibiting the promotion of a vegan diet to anyone under 18. They would churn out a few doctors who would chunter on about how milk is essential for growing bones, blah blah. Also, how does promoting veganism fit in with “free trade”? If converting people to veganism is successful the state will react in 2 ways: (1) suppress, vilify, and ridicule those with the message, (2) incorporate the message into the corporate nightmare, thereby water down veganism (as indeed vegetarianism and the organic/green movements have been co-opted and diluted). My point is that we should be doing just as Hall says by getting as many vegans as possible, but let us not pretend for a moment that we will not be attacked by our opponents.
In the UK the holy trinity Hugh, Jamie, and Gordon, 3 chefs, have been trying to persuade people to buy “happy” meat. I watched with interest last year on channel 4 as Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall tried to persuade the inhabitants of Axminster that factory-farmed chickens were cruelly treated. My reaction was, and remains, that eating chickens is wrong as it means killing a sentient being for no other reason than taste. Furthermore, chicken is a luxury the world population cannot afford. However, I did warm to Hugh and his interest in welfare despite myself. I soon became shocked at the response though.
Whilst many agreed with him, others actually attacked him for daring to say that they should spend a few more pence on birds with slightly better welfare. He was a “guilt tripping,” toffee nose, know-it-all who should sympathise with their pathetic argument that they needed cheap, factory-farmed, antibiotic-ridden corpses for next to nothing! Some of them were even throwing away half the carcass cos they couldn’t be arsed to get all of the meat from it. Hugh is a national celebrity, helped by Essex boy Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsey, and with all the power of entire hour slots over several weeks on national prime time TV they did manage to get lots of people to eschew cheap meat, but it is still being sold.
We have a huge task ahead of us with the vegan message if the vitriol thrown at Hugh and Jamie (who only asked that people pay a little bit more for slightly better conditions) is anything to go by. Jamie even got publicly crucified by some because he tried to get rid of junk, additive-laden crap in school dinners. Furthermore as Lee Hall rightly says, there is simply not enough land for everyone who wants meat to have it if it was all “free-range.” Even with factory farming there will not be enough for the entire world population, yet millions want a “Western” diet. The abuse of farm animals is going to rise and rise. Converting Hugh, Jamie, and Gordon to veganism would be a really good coup, and although I have witnessed them doing vegan recipes, they are full on meat-eaters who get all mushy about their sheep, pigs, and chickens, then slit their throats. Weird!
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