Emancipation, Anti-Fascism & Animal Liberation

For a number of years fascists have been infiltrating the AR movement in Europe with their own special brand of hatred, often [mistakenly] seeing Animal Liberation as a misanthropic movement in which they can spread their poison...and for some reason fascists also seem to identify with the Animal Liberation struggle, usually in the same perverse way that they identify with the great anti-fascist struggle more commonly referred to as World War 2.

The vast majority of ARAs believe in a philosophy of "Total Liberation", opposing domination and discrimination based on any arbitrary value, [including species], which is the only difference between the philsophy of Animal Liberation and other anarchic philosophies, (in essence it is simply an extention of those principles and not an abstraction). Animal Rights declares, by virtue, that all sentient beings have equal value; be they a goldfish or a human (of whatever race, gender, sexuality, ability etc etc etc). AR philosophy dictates that all beings have the right to live and express their nature according to their biology and their needs, without unnatural interference which could cause unnecessary suffering [of course this extends to living beings in "the nature", as well as those dominated by mankind in our habited regions, and therefore AR philosophy naturally extends to include "Environmental" issues as well].

Animal Rights is the direct antithesis of fascism, yet perversely it does attract more fascists than overtly "Leftist" or "Anarchist" based movements although this is only through a lack of articulation by ARAs about what Animal Liberation really means. Fascists seem to have made their first forays into the Animal Liberation movement through the "Straight-Edge" scene of hardcore music, where veganism [or at least dietary veganism] is also common. This has served to create a "common ground" as AR groups end up doing information stalls at these nights, (often unaware of the true nature of the bands playing at the gigs), and those fascists who have been "enlightened" to the suffering of animals then continue to carry the message in their fascist circles. Of course some groups are more cynical, and less discerning in where they'll seek support, however my personal experience is that fascism is neither welcomed nor encouraged amongst ARAs.

However, the Animal Rights message has long been circulating within Fascist circles and has long since taken root, with many Far-Right affinity groups active in the Animal Rights struggle in large parts of Europe. In most groups, those types of ideologies simply aren't welcome and those fascists who participate are quickly ousted for their repugnant views...however, this often causes a lot of friction between those who care more about "the animals" than "personal politics" and those who downright refuse to work with nazis. The core supporters generally kick up enough fuss that the fascists are ousted but this has led to a number of overtly fascist campaign groups being set-up, predominately in Germany and Denmark but they are slowly taking hold in the Netherlands, France, Italy and Eastern Europe.

Unsurprisingly these groups with a core of fascist supporters seem to focus their campaigns on Circuses, [a good way to target "Gypsies"], religious slaughter, [because it's so much more cruel than "normal" slaughter], the dreaded "China", [a hell for animals and a fascists wet dream!], or other contorted angles such as protesting against Hungarian foie gras in France, [number 1 producer and consumer of foie gras pate], because it is more "cruel" than the French produced version of the putrid diseased liver "delicacy"....yet these groups are expanding on the back of the low-level racsim in the societies they are active, [thankfully Britain is still a haven from the worst kinds of fascism].

Many European AR groups are faced with the difficult decision of whether to work with these groups on campigns, or whether to openly oppose them and risk dividing the movement in the country down political lines [the classic way to create a paralysed and ineffective movement riddled with infighting]. Two good examples of this are the Bridget Bardot Foundation in France, [Bridget Bardot is an outspoken racist with very close links to Jean Marie le Penn's National Front], who are the biggest and richest AR group in France and a small, [happily now defunct], fascist campaign group set-up in the Netherlands.

French Activists have little choice but to act in unison with the Bridget Bardot Foundation, there is simply no way they can compete with them except to work together and repeatedly remind everyone that their Associations are completely emancipatory. Still, they avoid the BBF wherever possible but as last weekend's National Anti-Fur March showed the support of the BBF is vital to grass-roots French campaigning. The March was organised in unison with 30 Associations, however the BBF provided the core of the funding and their involvement [despite alienating many other Associations which refused to participate in protest] ensured a turn-out of over 400 activists, (most of whom oppose Bardot's vile opinions on race and religion).

The Netherlands has been much more effective in resisting fascism in their movement, mainly down to the good work of the activists on the ground. Last year a small group of fascists decided to set-up a campaign group to target animal circuses, naturally their motives for targetting circuses were racist although there is little doubt their intentions towards the animals were also entirely genuine. This caused a lot of debate in the Dutch movement; Animal Circuses are a big problem in Holland and they're usually violent, so why not let scum deal with scum?

Many Dutch ARAs felt it was important to deal with this issue before it took hold, but how do you shame someone for being a racist whilst they're protesting for the animals, without giving passers-by the impression you're shaming them for protestng for animals or in some way protesting on behalf of the animal abusers?

The decision was taken, [by some activists but by no means all as many favoured leaving them unopposed], to form a counter-demo with a mixture of anti-fascist and animal-rights placards. The counter-demo was set-up first to occupy the space and not let the fascists protest when they arrived, although this went "wrong" when the fascists inadvertently joined the counter-demo [thinking some supporters had arrived early] and the whole thing immediately exploded.

More through luck than judgement, the performance was severely affected as people rapidly ushered their children away from the chaos and the circus goons raced to join the melee. I dread to imagine what passers-by made of the situation, but the fascist group imploded after that because every attempt to organise a protest was met with plans for counter-demos, which come demo time opposed the Circuses alone until the fascists stopped trying to organise.

The tactics applied in Holland simply cannot be applied against the BBF in France, however the need for a clear and coherent message about what we actually stand for desperately needs to be given by the Animal Rights movement. The fact that fascists feel an affinity towards the Animal Liberation cause can only mean that the message being transmitted is completely wrong. The same fact that Anarchists and ARAs seem to find themselves in such conflict, or the fact that ARAs are perceived as fascists is something that needs to be urgently addressed.

The Animal Rights movement is polluted with so many pseudo-philosophers and "Ethicists" that the message has become entirely convoluted, Veganism is a "lifestyle choice" that all "Environmentalists" and "Anarchists" should be pursuing as a matter of course through their desire to limit the amount of eviromental damage and reliance on subservience that a lifestyle based on animal exploitation creates....yet this is so misunderstood outside of AR circles due to the Francione type psychobabble about "person-hood", "welfare", "new-welfarism", "reform" and "abolitionism" which alienates the average person and provides a confused message due to everyone having a different interpretation and a flat refusal to rely on any subject which might directly interest those people, (such as the ecological reasons for veganism)!

ARAs tend to be the most progressive, forward thinking and politically aware activists I have encountered, yet they seem to still carry some kind of stigma for being "Animal Rights". One of the reasons for this is the constant need to express that non-human animals also suffer in a given situation, for example an AR block on an Anti-War march protesting the suffering of non-human animals in the war. This is completely valid as many non-human animals suffer in war, and without the AR block they would receive no mention at all, but the ARAs have a tendency to forget that the human victims of the war are animals too. This kind of ambiguity about the true sentiments of ARAs is often misinterpreted externally, inviting undesirables who bring a perverse affinity [such as fascists] and alienating potential allies [anarchists, environmentalists etc] and whilst also breeding an internal culture of "the animals" [i.e. non-human animals] first.

In 2007 a group of Swiss Animal Liberation activists realised the need to express the true values of Animal Rights philosophy in order to provide a platform to defend the European AR movement from the insidious rise of fascism. What followed was a year of collective discussions and grass-roots decision making, the result being the Animal Liberation Hallmarks. The idea was that if a group subscribed to the basic emancipatory philosophy of Animal Liberation, as described by the constitution of the ALH project, they could collectively decide to bear the Animal Liberation Hallmark to deter "undesirables" and faciltate ejecting those who do not subscribe to true AR philosophy.


The 3 tennets of the ALH constitution are:--

1) Unequivocal rejection of all speciesism and exploitation of non-human animals, including but not limited to the use (breeding, detention and killing), for food, human entertainment, experimentation and clothing.

2) Unequivocal rejection of all forms of domination, exploitation and discrimination against humans based on arbitrary distinctions such as gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and religious belief.

3) Mutual recognition of the various forms of activism and resistance.


I still have no idea how fascists have come to identify with the philosophy of Animal Liberation, as so succinctly defined here, or why so many Anti-Capitalist activists view ARAs with such suspicion and lack of comprehension...yet big-Pharma is one of the worst industries out there and the ARAs are kicking down the door on their own!

What could be achieved if the Anti-Capitalist movement threw their weight behind SHAC right now???

The Military is testing the worst kinds of chemicals and biological agents on animals, where are the Anti-Militarists???

Whether it's to save animals, hammer big business, or demilitarise the planet, ARAs really need to be reaching out to other movements more. But that simply isn't going to happen whilst there's questions over fascism and single issue campaiging, (above all not caring about humans). ARAs are already active in many other campaigns, but how we shake off the negative image and become more open to other campaign groups really needs to be opened to debate.

Until we're all free,