Animal Rights Activists Shocked(!) at Being Compared to Terrorists
It seems like every day there is a new story about the government, industry and universities reassessing security and information disclosure about animal research. Most of those articles are accompanied by quotes from animal rights activists complaining that it’s just so unfair to compare them to terrorist groups like Al Qaeda.
What did they expect? Did they think that as a movement they could endorse and celebrate violent acts against animal enterprises forever without anyone noticing?
Animal rights activists occasionally send me e-mail claiming that it is unfair to broadly paint the animal rights movement as supportive of groups like the Animal Liberation Front. Fine, but where is the opposition? At best, most animal rights activists and groups seem to take the view that they might not engage in acts of violence but they are not about to condemn those who do.
In fact, the few groups or individuals who dare publicly denounce animal rights violence are quickly pounced on by even mainstream groups as being divisive and ignoring the realities that face the animal rights movement.
Animal rights activist Joanne Stepaniak did an excellent job of capturing this in an essay published on VegSource.Com,
There is an undercurrent of anger among many vegans and animal activists and, regrettably, it has become one of the central characteristics by which outsiders define us as a group. Our animosity has been contagious and highly damaging, both to the solidarity we need to realize our goals and to the tenacity required for us to hang in there. Furthermore, this negativity has acted as a repellent, warding off truly caring people who currently are involved, or might otherwise want to join us, but are deterred by the invisible wall of anger and resentment.
. . .
We are standing in the middle of a blaze we have set. Unless we learn how to extinguish or step outside the flames, we will burn ourselves alive.
In fact the animal rights movement is doing a very nice job of recreating pretty much every single mistake that the pro-life movement made. Like the animal rights movement, the pro-life movement tended to demonize its opponents and tolerate extremist tactics that resulted in both a cultural and legal backlash against it.
Source:
Standing in the fire. Joanne Stepaniak, VegSource.Com, Undated essay.
9/11 fuels fears of animal researchers. Carrie Spencer, Associated Press, July 7, 2002.
Tags: Terrorism, VegSource.Com