As part of my degree dissertation, I chose to write about Animal Rights Activists, thus I decided to interview two professionals in my chosen subject area, as I wanted to have multiple perspectives on this subject. Therefore, I have contacted a PETA activist named Michelle Kretzer, a vegan and a writer, who has been working within this field since she graduated from The University of Kentucky, and also a PhD Professor of Humanities and Social Enquiry from the University of Wollongong, Australia, named Brian Martin. After having read Dr. Martin’s ‘ Theory for activists’ article, published in Social Anarchism, I considered him to be a perfect candidate for my subject. Fortunately, he said my dissertation topic sounds worthwhile and that my questions are challenging and well posed.
Based on his article ‘ Theory for activists’, published in Social Anarchism, Number 44, 2010, pp. 22-41, I wanted to know if he considered it a necessity for activists to be more academically informed and how would understanding these methods and movement concepts influence the outcome of their work.
“Activists – some of them, anyway – try to be more effective. Occasionally they can learn useful ideas and methods from academics. This might be by directly reading academic work or listening to academics speak, though I suspect it is far more common for activists to learn about the ideas and methods indirectly, via other activists or via popularisations such as media stories. I don’t think there is much research about this process. You ask how understanding ideas and methods can affect outcomes. That has to be studied empirically. When activists find that methods seem to work, they will probably keep using them, otherwise not.”
Also, in his article, he critiqued the academics who cite Michel Foucault for his theories on Power/Knowledge, insinuating that these concepts have already been existing within social movements in the 1960s-1970s. My question to him was if he would argue that today’s activists contribute to new theories and methods of activism, whilst remaining the ‘idea developers’ who do not receive sufficient credit for their work.
“I doubt that activists care much about credit for ideas. My point was that scholars may not be giving sufficient credit to activists, instead – as expected through citation protocols – searching to find scholars who can be credited. It’s more acceptable to cite Foucault than to say “these ideas seem to have emerged through the activities of and thinking within new social movements”. No doubt the same sort of thing is happening today, though tracking down patterns of influence is exceedingly difficult.”
In order to analyse this matter from another point of view, I picked on Michelle Kretzer’s thoughts as well.
Michelle was kind enough to share many things with me, and given the fact that I am an unknown person to her, it really disclosed how passionate she is about her work, and I really appreciate it. First of all, I wanted to know how she came to the decision to become an activist and also how her life was influenced by her decision.
“Growing up, I was always somewhat aware of animal rights […] But it was an agriculture course that I took as an elective in college that really changed my life.[…] I read about how farm workers hack cows apart while they are still alive, scald pigs to death in tanks meant to remove their hair[…] I couldn’t believe that I claimed to be an animal advocate, yet I supported that kind of cruelty by eating meat.I joined the organization (PETA) and started learning everything I could about animal rights. I was convinced that if people only knew what happened to animals on farms, in laboratories, in zoos and circuses, […] they would want to help stop it. I responded to every action alert that PETA sent out asking members to make phone calls or send emails to companies on behalf of animals […] Once you start to learn how animals are tortured in tests for more products, abused and killed in the dairy industry, denied everything that is natural and important to them in captivity, etc., you really want to change so that you aren’t contributing to it. So my activism for animals has really changed my entire life and made me a more compassionate person overall. “
Because we shared the same passions, I completely understood the determinant factors of her decision and therefore I asked her to go more in depth with how she felt she made a difference by becoming an activist.
“ Ha, well I’m not sure that I personally have made that much of a difference in the animal rights movement. My hope is that other people read my words and the sincerity and the gravity of these issues comes through, and they are motivated to act, just like I was. My favorite PETA campaign is called “Never Be Silent.” You can read more about it here: http://features.peta.org/never-be-silent/. Basically, “Never Be Silent” is our effort to urge people to find their voice, to stand up in the face of adversity, and to speak up for animals when it would be easier not to rock the boat. I can be a little bit timid at times, as I think a lot of people can be when it comes to speaking up when we see something that isn’t right. I had to learn to find my voice because animals need me to. And I hope that I can inspire other people to do the same thing.”
One thing that struck me when reading her second answer was the feeling of insecureness she had towards the ‘making a difference’ concept, being unsure she was able to actually change people’s perceptions. In my opinion, this fear might come from the opposition some people hold towards a vegan lifestyle, but also from the negative representations of PETA activists. To me, I think her work is really vital and may inspire many people, such as myself, towards a cruelty-free lifestyle. For my better understanding of what it means to be an activist, I asked her what her inspiration was to take a stand for Animal Rights.
“Animals try to tell us that they value their own lives, want to be free from oppression and abuse, and don’t want to die, but humans often don’t listen. […] You can hear it when a monkey cowers and rocks in the corner of his barren metal cage inside the laboratory, terrified of what will else the humans will do to him when they return. […] it’s up to animal advocates to be that unceasing voice that people can’t ignore.”
Having some concepts of what an activist for Animal Rights means, I am sure there are many issues that they encounter daily, so I asked her to share some of them with me.
“I think the biggest problem facing the animal rights movement right now is that the industries that we are up against are much richer than we are. The meat industry, for example, is very powerful, and it does everything that it can to discredit the undercover investigative videos and other facts that we release to the public. Another great example is SeaWorld, which is spending massive amounts of money to refute the evidence of SeaWorld’s cruelty to marine mammals presented in the documentary Blackfish and the information released by PETA. But PETA is lucky to have more than 3 million people around the world who actively support what we do and readily use social media to help us spread the message. By helping people see cruelty for themselves, as I did, we are making the tide turn in favor of animals. “
Her answer can be very well related to Foucault’s notions of power relations we study at Media, demonstrating therefore how these concepts exist and change their meaning in every domain. Foucault sometimes gives a sense that power somehow inheres in institutions themselves rather than in the individuals that make those institutions function.
Moving on, I wanted to discover more about her primary method of activism and why she chose it, in order to see how methods differ in every domain.
“Anyone who wants to advocate for animals has to use every tool in his or her toolbox. I mainly write about animal issues on the web, and in news papers, magazines, PETA’s Animal Times magazine, etc. of course, because that’s the job I was hired to do. But I also go to demonstrations, post on social media, sign petitions, investigate facilities in my area and report back on them, and report cruelty wherever I see it. In short, we must never, ever be silent.”
Through my research, I have found out that most people describe activists as “too harsh” or “too insisting”, therefore I wanted to know what she thinks, as an activist, as somebody who is directly involved, of what the general perception of Animal Rights activists might be.
“People who say that animal rights activists are “insisting” may be right in some ways. I think that one of the main challenges of this type of activism is that people do not like to look at, talk about, or even think about cruelty to animals. […] I used to tell people, “I think I cry a little bit every single day at my job.” If I don’t look at these things, and then get the information out there and tell people what they can do to stop the cruelty, who is going to? In all of our outreach, we try to impress upon people the same thing: “If you don’t spread the message about what these animals are going through, how are we ever going to effect change?” Our president, Ingrid E. Newkirk, has this saying that I love and that I think about all the time: “Animals don’t need us to be teary-eyed tissue-wetters—they need us to act!” We can’t be afraid of what people will think of us. We have to be brave enough to take a stand when silent compliance is easier. So I think that is why we are perceived as insistent. […]We want them (people) to say “I care about animals, so I know that they are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for entertainment, or abuse in any way.” That is how we will win.”
I consider these two interviews to have helped me gain a better understanding of what the notion of activist means and I’d like to thank them for participating and helping me!
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