When we restrain from buying on Amazon for a mere five-day strike, it isn’t necessarily because we think our boycott will end capitalism or that our consumer behavior will save the planet. Anti-speciesists don’t necessarily see veganism that way either. However, of all reactionary positions defended by people who call themselves leftists, anti-anti-speciesism is one of the most unceasing.
The ways in which anti-speciesism can be applied and understood are numerous. Opposing human supremacy might mean letting your feline roommate leave your one-bedroom apartment (and accepting if it chooses to never come back). It might mean actions of sabotage against the agriculture industry, which is linked to more assassinations of land defenders in Latin America then the mining industry 1. It might also involve an understanding of hunting as practiced by a bunch of other animals, and a recognition that it can be based on subsistence and respect rather than subservience and domination. It might mean freeing and caring for pigs or studying urban agriculture. Being anti-speciesist can also mean being anti-capitalist.
Unfortunately, animal liberation can be advocated for by racists, like women liberation by classists, or the liberation of racialized groups by homophobes. One hopes leftist vegans realize how our dieting possibilities vary with our environment, our body’s limits, our knowledge, and our energy. If not, fighting one system of oppression without a good understanding of other systems is still a start. It was also our start, and possibly our right-now. So why not sacrifice a few minutes to the old popular education by telling liberal anti-speciesist that the impact of a multitude of individual veganisms in a capitalist economy remains limited by the handful of corporations that supply cafeterias, prisons, schools, and groceries. And if those racist bourgeois avocado and almond-eating vegans bother us, we should feel free to tell them to fuck off. I simply propose that we don’t yell that poor people eat cheeseburgers. Poor people eat a bunch of different things. There are poor people in our neighborhoods who chose not to eat meat. In fact, in most places, eating meat is a privilege for those who are better off. In general, beans and grains are still a lot less costly than animal protein. When university-educated folks in imperialist countries spend less time using the working class to defend their own oppressive ideologies, everyone has more time and energy to do interesting stuff (that is cooking collectively and teaching each other to eat well on the cheap, instead of building our anti-anti-speciesist argument in front of a computer).
The specisist ideology goes against social progress on all fronts. It’s the acceptance of human domination on the rest of the natural world. It’s the acceptance of hierarchical violence, as long as it simplifies enough people’s daily life. It’s the permission for the strong to determine the value of others. It’s the normalization of violence based on perceived biological differences. We must remember that species categories are determined by arbitrary characteristics chosen by those who appointed themselves as authorities on the matter, exactly like “race” or “biological sex” categories. The assignment of individuals to these categories is similarly devoid of any understanding of internal experiences. Without recognizing these links between speciesism and other forms of oppression, anti-anti-speciesists often create false dilemmas by opposing the rights of human marginalized groups and those of animals. French anarchist Louise Michel put it this way:
“[our translation] I’ve often been accused of having more concern for beasts than for people: why bemoan brutes when reasonable beings are so unhappy? It’s that everything goes together, from the bird whose brood was crushed, to human nests destroyed by war […]. The heart of a beast is like the heart of humans, capable of feeling and understanding.”2
Struggles for the welfare of non-human animals are largely the fruit of women’s anger and indignation. Ecofeminists see, in the treatment of other animals, the same patriarchal attitudes behind the non- recognition and devaluation of their work. This often-gendered sensibility however allows speciesism to feed the patriarchal representation of women as hysterical, since a rational man would not care, and allows patriarchy to feed the representation of anti-speciesism as ridiculous and futile, since they are women’s endeavor. Racist, fatphobic, and ableist insults that compare us to other animals to dehumanize us are also the combined expression of similar ideologies reinforcing themselves. In return, our use of strong terms to describe what humans do to animals only diminish the importance of these terms in the eyes of speciesists. The rest of us will remain outraged by all forms of oppressive violence.
Moreso, how are we supposed to convince our neighbors that we must abolish the private property of brick buildings, heavy machinery, and rivers while tolerating the property of living beings screaming for their freedom? The comfortable left of the North, happy to postpone any questioning of its way of life until the “Grand Soir”, will eventually have to rethink the place of other animals in the world to build. Even without empathy for non-humans, this left will inevitably be confronted with the reality that feeding animals until we can eat them requires more surface and resources than directly eating what grows…
This short text isn’t intended to convince anyone of veganism, though that would be nice. The idea is to avoid opposing struggles that would greatly benefit from being understood convergently. It’s also to avoid giving our time to those who would love to see us think of our universe as a bunch of overlaid pyramids. So let’s confront our dissonances or discuss them until we forgive ourselves. Then we’ll be able to eat together and fight together.
We’ll move in groups. At night. Sometimes making noise. Sometimes causing problems. These humans who consider us vermin will have trouble sleeping. It’s the year of the rat.
Notes:
- For example, Bolsonaro, president of Brazil, has publicly affirmed wanting to kill Indigenous activists blocking the destruction of the Amazon forest to make space for pastures. This was meant as a green light to allow armed militias of American consortiums to murder anyone who would stand in the way of the growth of the agricultural industry in Brazil. Dozens of Indigenous land defenders have been assassinated in over the last few months in Latin America.
- Louise Michel, Mémoires de Louise Michel. écrits par elle-même, (édition de 1976).