Bending or Breaking? — Contemplating Compromise in Social Movements
Recently, I’ve observed a couple of situations arising in the animal rights movement which have caused me to contemplate the idea of compromise. The question of whether to compromise on our ethics is something that naturally arises frequently for many activists and we’re often forced to consider it in our daily lives. For animal activists that could look as simple as choosing whether to accept speciesist behaviour by sitting at the same table as someone consuming animal products or reject it and risk social isolation. For me, I often contemplate the idea of compromise while I’m spending time in the country with my parents. Being in a rural, farming community, I’m frequently confronted with blatant examples of animal exploitation such as walking past paddocks of cows who I know will be dead within weeks. By not acting I am undoubtedly compromising on my morals however, I often don’t have another choice.
While this kind of moral compromise happens regularly on a personal level for most people who concern themselves with the struggles of oppressed individuals, it also happens on a movement level, and this is where things begin to get more complicated. Recently, we’ve seen two prominent examples of movement compromise which have caused conversation and, occasionally, accusation to flow freely within the animal rights movement. The first example I speak of occurred earlier this month when the animal agriculture focused branch of Extinction Rebellion, Animal Rebellion announced that they would no longer be blockading Smithfield Meat Market during the October Rebellion. Instead, they declared that they had decided to negotiate with the market to create a plant-based ‘market of the future’ which popped up inside the existing market without shutting it down. While some applauded the group’s decision to negotiate with the market, the move generated enormous backlash, with many criticising Animal Rebellion’s choice to compromise on their original plan and not shut down a site that contributed to, as well as symbolised, the exploitation of animals.
The second example happened just last week when a number of prominent animal rights groups in melbourne chose to withdraw their support from Blockade IMARC, an action to blockade the 2019 International Mining and Resources Conference. In a statement, Animal Activists Australia (AAA) stated that they were “regretfully withdrawing their involvement” with the Blockade due to the decision of some organisers to serve animals as ‘food’ during the event. This, in addition to poor communication and organising, caused AAA to make the decision to no longer actively participate in the Blockade, although they did not discourage individual activists to attend and updated their statement later to commend the Blockade Alliance for their decision to serve vegan lunches.
Both of these examples received negative and positive responses and it is not my intention to weigh in on whether either Animal Rebellion or AAA made the ‘right’ decision in these instances. To highly oversimplify things, these examples show one case of an animal rights group choosing to compromise their morals in order to achieve a strategic win, and another remaining steadfast to their ethics, even if it meant losing an opportunity to “stand in solidarity with human rights and environmental activists” (AAA 2019). Regardless of the outcomes, looking at these cases and the responses to them, a number of questions are raised about our movement and what decisions we might need to make moving forward. While I don’t consider myself an expert on this topic, in this post I wanted to explore the idea of compromise, examining whether it is necessary for our movement in the position that we’re currently in or whether it might serve to dilute our message and prevent us from achieving strategic objectives which actually make a difference for animals exploited by humans. Unfortunately, this post will undoubtedly ask more questions than it answers. However, I hope that it might serve as a starting point for future conversations around this important topic.
It has been frequently observed that, while alliances between human rights groups fighting for different issues are common and the environmental movement is often made up of activists from all different movements, the animal rights movement often sits alone. Alliances between animal rights and other movements are still rare and, in my experience, the frequency of animal activists who do not identify as activists for other causes is a lot higher than in other movements. The reasons for this are many and nuanced and unfortunately I don’t have the time to get into them here. But, what this shows us is that anti-speciesism as a concept is currently not being represented in other activist spaces, to the extent that other forms of oppression are. Why is that? Well, to put it bluntly, one of the reasons this is the case is that animal activists have been historically shit at standing in solidarity with other oppressed groups.
Too many campaigns and activists have used the bodies or suffering of other oppressed groups, such as women or people of colour, in order to advance their own cause and animal activists have frequently undermined the work of vegans of colour, women and queer vegans by only celebrating the achievement of cis-white men and refusing to accept criticisms when they are called out for racist, sexist, transphobic etc. comments or behaviours. Essentially, as melbourne based activist Betty Melon spoke about brilliantly at this year’s Animal Activists Forum (watch her talk here), animal rights activists do not have a good reputation in other movements and, if we want to build alliances, we need to stop supporting bigotry in our movement.
But what does this mean for compromise? Well, if our goal is to build a strong united ‘movement of movements’ where activists from all different movements unite against systemic oppression and exploitation of all kinds, then forming alliances is essential. But, if our reputation is so damaged within other movements because of our past choices, it may be the reality that we will have to put ourselves in positions where we are compromising on our morals in order to ensure anti-speciesist perspectives are being represented. Movements such as Extinction Rebellion and the many different activist causes represented under their banner demonstrate that this movement of movements might be already happening. If we don’t jump on board, we risk animals losing their voice amidst the crowd. As I spoke about in my earlier article, ‘Whose Environment Are We Fighting For? If animal rights activists boycott or withdraw from these spaces, we risk witnessing a future where humans are safer but animals face even more danger than they already do.
Additionally, while it is common to hear animal rights activists to compare speciesism to other forms of systemic oppression such as racism and sexism, when we look at our movement realistically, it becomes obvious that we are in a vastly different position to these other social movements. Although people of colour and women still face systemic oppression and their struggles against this continues every day, the fact that the animal rights movement is yet to secure basic rights for animals exploited by humans or shifted public consciousness to the degree that using animals is seen as undeniably wrong, shows that the movement against speciesism is far behind movements against racism and sexism. These days, while these movements should by no means be considered ‘completed’ they are fighting against something that is generally considered bad by society, whereas the animal rights movement fights against what is still the dominant narrative.
In fact, it would probably be more accurate to compare the animal rights movement to movements against ableism and cis-sexism, two areas which society are lagging behind on, despite the work of many incredible activists. If we are to make this comparison, we can see that activists with disabilities and/or neurodiversity and trans, non-binary and gender queer activists often have to compromise their own moral standards or prefigurative politics in order to be represented in spaces which do not accommodate them. For example, an activist who uses a wheelchair might believe that all buildings should be accessible for all bodies, regardless of ability, however they may compromise this moral standard in order to speak on ableism at an event that is not wheelchair accessible (animal rights and disability rights activist Sunara Taylor speaks of this very situation in her novel Beasts of Burden). Similarly, a trans activist may make an ethical compromise when deciding to attend a protest run by a group whose members have previously been observed making transphobic comments. If we are to examine these movements as a possible mirror for our own, it seems that compromise may in fact be inevitable if we are to ensure anti-speciesism is represented in spaces which currently don’t consider it an issue worthy of discussion. In this case, the actual message does not need to be compromised but ethical compromises may need to be made to ensure it will be heard. But what if animal rights isn’t even on the same level as these movements?
If we take a really long, hard, critical look at the movement against speciesism it might be optimistic to say that we’ve even made it to the point where compromise may be necessary to co-exist with other movements. It may be that we’re so far behind that we may have to compromise on a larger, strategy level scale before our asks are palatable enough for anyone, even progressives. Given the lack of rights given to animals, their continued property status, the normalisation and naturalisation of their exploitation and the frequent denials of their sentience, it may be most accurate to compare the animal rights movement to the movements against racism and sexism; only a couple of hundred years ago. This comparison is drawn brilliantly by Kelly Witwicki from Sentience Institute who, in her report Social Movement Lessons From the British Antislavery Movement: Focused on Applications to the Movement Against Animal Farming, details the many similarities between the British movement for the abolition of slavery (which led the British government to abolish the transatlantic Slave trade in 1807 and human chattel slavery in 1833) and the modern movement against animal farming. If we were to accept that our movement does in fact have more in common with the slavery abolition movement than any modern social justice movement, we might have to face some hard truths about what kind of compromises are ahead of us. The reality is, to get to the point that they have, almost all social movements have made compromises along the way and, while we may exist in the modern age, the comparatively archaic way animals are viewed by society may necessitate ethical compromises on a large scale in order to reach strategic milestones.
However it is worth considering whether the very act of compromise has in fact held past social movements back. Despite making momentous and significant progress, the social movements we hold up today as successes have rarely ever really ‘won.’ While the suffragettes achieved the right for women to vote, women are still oppressed by an intensely patriarchal society and gender based violence has reached such shocking levels in Australia that it’s no longer a surprise to hear about another woman being murdered by a man. Similarly, while the Civil Rights movement successfully led to the end of segregation laws in America, black people still face heavy discrimination with issues such as policy brutality, sexual assault, imprisonment and many more disproportionately affecting these communities. The fact is, while it’s great to look to past social movements for guidance, there is no guidebook on how to bring about systemic change and even movements who have achieved this on some level still struggle to break the systems of oppression.
Additionally, while our movement may lack maturity and progress, it also exists in a vastly different time to other movements for radical social change. Thanks to the work of activists before us, social justice and social progress is more normal and activism, at least in many countries, is often accepted to a certain degree. While this may make it harder to make an impact, it also means that radical messages aren’t as shocking as they would have been 200 years ago and holding strong opinions not as strange. There is the risk that if we compromise now it could lead to more compromise later down the line as our message becomes more diluted. This carries real danger as, being an ally movement, those we are fighting for are unable to weigh in on when we’ve gone too far.
As promised, this post does not seek to offer answers, merely more questions to contribute to this discussion. While it can be uncomfortable to discuss compromising on our morals, especially when we’re speaking on behalf of others, I believe that if these conversations don’t happen within our movement we’ll begin to crack and break from the inside. We’re all doing what we think is best to advance this movement and create a world free from species based oppression but we’re never going to win through deconstructionist thinking and tearing each other down. By thinking critically and constructively we can engage in valuable dialogue about questions that affect this movement, those who it fights for and the world as a whole.
