A space in question

Only by imagining the impossible will it be possible to transform the unacceptable.

— Paul B. Preciado¹

The day I acknowledged I wasn’t doing enough for what I believe in, I didn’t really weigh my options thoroughly. I knew I had to leave my desk and move beyond learning about non-human animals liberation from books, that much was clear. But it doesn’t mean I stopped reading on the subject. I never do.

Soon after joining Anonymous for the Voiceless (AV from now on), I found plenty of criticism concerning this organisation. This criticism is easy to look up, so I won’t point you to sources which may or may not be out of date when you read this, and I’ll also let you decide what to do with it. I for one think it’s necessary to question everything I do and reasoning about the meaning and value of my actions, which includes how I choose my activism to be. As much as I understand the limits and the problems of AV, however, I know in it I have a space where I’m finally able to accept myself for who I am.

This is not to say that the criticism I read did not make me reconsider my position. Nevertheless, the only way for any criticism to be effective is for it to come from within the boundaries of its object, that is where context matters. From there change can be highlighted, pushed forward, and eventually become reality. Otherwise we are only pointing fingers and shouting, something that won’t lead us very far any time soon.

And yet I do believe something has to change in AV if it wants to take non-human animals liberation seriously. If it doesn’t change, if it isn’t open to discussing its assumptions and opts to stand still, then nothing is ever going to happen. Again, context matters. Without the proper context, criticism may fall short. But without the proper context, AV is missing the broader spectrum of the fight it wants to be a part of.

This goes back to the limits I see in this organisation. The core of its approach is the so-called outreach, which is a way for us to engage passers-by in a conversation about the images of carnage we display. AV defines a protocol that activists must follow in order for the outreach to be successful. But what does it really mean for an outreach to be claimed as successful?

Much as any other activist in AV, I too watched its online workshops to understand what I was supposed to do in the street. One thing I’ve always found rather peculiar in these videos is the confrontational attitude that members of AV use during outreaches. Most of the time I saw activists orchestrating the exchange with their interlocutor like it was a debate they already knew how to win. Is winning a debate the point of the outreach, then?

Conducting yourself in this way can be off-putting or unreasonably intimidating for the person in front you, and thus eventually ineffectual. It also ignores the context from which that specific person comes. By treating everyone consuming animal products as one abstract, undeniably guilty entity, we are missing the opportunity to actually listen and understand each and every person there with us. We are, in fact, missing everything that is worth discussing, which is a scope much larger than that of an individual experience. We are missing what makes it possible, how it is put into place, and why it is exactly the way it is.

At the same time, I believe AV places me as an activist in an interesting position. Whenever I start a conversation with someone who stops to look at our screens, I’m grateful for the time this stranger is taking out of their life to at least, and perhaps unconsciously, accept that something is not right. I consider their willingness to sustain the horror an opportunity and not a challenge. This is our starting point, theirs and mine. From here, we can try to build something. We can become aware of power structures we have never considered before, we can question our biases, we can try to look at our society from the point of view of the non-human animals we trapped in it. It’s not about winning an argument, for me. It’s about normalising together the work towards an argument for a better world.

But AV has also shown me something I wasn’t prepared for. Not to this extent anyway. Our local chapter has introduced me to amazing people who never stop encouraging each other. When activism becomes tiring, demanding, disheartening, as it can be when everyone else seems to think the opposite, they’re always there to pick me up. They remind me of our purpose just by being who they are, they embrace me as one of them without asking anything in return. In the small town where I live, chances to meet people like these are not that many, and I can never underestimate a thing this precious. We are a group that moves as one not because rules force us together. We stand together as one because we all share the same sparkle. We want change. We want liberation.

My only wish is for AV to one day realise that unless liberation comes for everyone, nobody will truly be free.