The journey began from Utrecht Centraal station, to find Park Lepelenburg, where a vegan picnic was taking place (poetically enough, my bus stop to get there was on Hamburger street). This was being held by the newly formed group Utrecht Animal Defense as a sort of call-for-arms for local vegans and anyone interested in animal rights to show up as possible recruits for actions and demos. This was my first actual meeting of people involved with the cause and it was interesting to hear some of their views on the situation in the Netherlands.
I immediately got the feeling that the active group of animal protesters is not as large as I had imagined. It is true that most towns and cities around the country have their local groups, connected to some of the larger organizations (such as Respect voor dieren and Anti-Dierproeven Coalitie), but nevertheless many protesters travel around whenever there is a demo going on somewhere, and most of the people recognize one another. This would be confirmed for me during the weekend, when in the next three days I would already begin seeing familiar faces. Another thing that was interesting to hear about during the vegan picnic was that at least two of the activists I spoke with, both from the North (where I was going the following day), had become frustrated with the Anti-Dierproeven Coalitie because of their working methods, and consequently "left" the group (i.e. stopped showing up for demos). They seemed a little disappointed, having put in a lot of work in recent years. The reasons for this, well, they didn't really give out any specifics, apart from a change of control - apparently a hierarchy of sorts had evolved with two people "running the show" and the rest only supposed to follow - and a change in protesting methods. What used to be a very hardcore group was now becoming mellow, by trying to get public attention through performances and by focusing on specific animals, instead of aiming for the root of the problem.
Basically, what the Anti-Dieren Coalitie had begun doing was to make specific actions for animals that generally get more sympathy from people. The organization is against all animal experiments - in general, all animals should be equal - but now they had recently finished a campaign against the use of monkeys in laboratories, and this apparently annoyed the two activists (i.e. saving only monkeys does not solve the real problem). The counter-argument, as I heard it from ADC activists the next day, is that telling the public "All Animals Free" is too vague and too unfocused to have any real effect. However, with focusing on a specific species (such as monkeys, or cats, as the latest campaign highlighted) an emotional connection can more easily be created, which then may lead to the person beginning to think about other species, and then the system as a whole.
But what was really the last straw for the renegade activists was the fact that the ADC started to wear costumes during their protests. That was too much. They found it silly, stupid and of no consequence (more info on the ADC demo in the next post). This is not the way to change things, they said. And left. So what does a lonely activist do, when not part of a larger group? Well, they are still part of the larger whole, even though they don't belong to a specific group, so they just pick the causes, protests and demos that suit them, and keep on doing their daily fight simply by affecting their own surroundings. But their decision to boycott the ADC demos was a determined decision - they hope that the less people show up, the better the group will understand that the activists don't like their new approach. Hopefully, sooner than later, they can be reunited in the fight.
A couple of other interesting conversations happened. One friend told me his reasons for becoming vegetarian - basically, it was because his sister had done it and got him interested in the issue. And why did his sister turn vegetarian? Interestingly enough, she had gone to school in a rural community, where the actual schoolhouse was connected to a farmyard. This was supposed to give the students a greater appreciation of the workings of agriculture in the area. For this girl, it certainly worked. She got to know the lambs of the farmhouse and took good care of one specific lamb, which was her responsibility. At the end of the semester, her lamb was slaughtered and eaten. Vegetarianism ensued.
A man from India showed up and we had a nice talk about animals, especially regarding religion in his country. He spoke of a sort of inherent respect for certain animals in India, the cow being the most famous example. This has to do with their links to specific gods - each god bearing a familiar spirit, or companion animal. If you believe in or have respect for that god, vicariously you will respect this animal. This is particularly true for older people, and he described to me his grandparents and their way of life, which involved respect for all living animals. They never ate meat, out of religious respect. Needless to say, this is not as strong today as it was for their generation, but nevertheless, the influence of this respect is still strong in Indian society. Vegetarianism is widespread and the whole issue of human-animal relationship vastly different from the attitudes of the West. Of course, this knowledge is not new to me, as Hinduism is commonly used as an example of a different world view than the Judeo-Christian one, but still it was the first time that I've had a conversation with someone from that background, and in the end that is really what this trip is all about. The outcome of our conversation was the realization that people generally can have a lot of sympathy for animals, but they lack the feeling of responsibility as consumers.
So: SYMPATHY MUST TRANSFORM INTO RESPONSIBILITY.
I like that line.
PS: And briefly, one nice story about the human-animal gap that still seems to stay burned in the brains of some people: One of the guys told me about a friend of his who was working in a museum in Leiden where a zoological exhibition was taking place. The friend was working on a set of skulls - all sorts of animal skulls, labeled and presented to show the diversity and commonality of species. During the exhibit, two people, separately and on two different occasions, came up to this friend to rectify a mistake. Politely, they pointed out that she had made an error when putting up the exhibition: she had put the human skulls in with the animal skulls. How rare!
PPS: The Utrecht picnic also gave me the first mention of ultra-right-wing (neo-nazi) animal rights activists, that have been clashing with the left-wing section. More info on that later.
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