SuperWeed

“Acutely mindful of suffering, I have become a stranger in a strange land, seeing and seeking what others do not want to see or seek. And this means seeing pervasive evidence of suffering in everyday life…. When I began to see things this way I couldn’t help thinking my friends and family were in a state of denial that cut them off from themselves and made them unquestioning collaborators and perpetrators”
— Michele Pickover, Animal Rights in South Africa

“I have seen first hand how injustice gets overlooked when the victims are perceived as powerless or vulnerable, when they have no one to speak up for them and no means of representing themselves to a higher authority. Animals are in precisely that position. Unless we are mindful of their interests, and speak out loudly on their behalf, abuse and cruelty goes unchallenged.”
— South African Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu

Last week, the always excellent Animal Voices radio show out of Toronto featured one of my favorite activists, Michele Pickover of South Africa. I worked virtually with Michele within the Global Hunger Alliance for a number of years and we finally got the chance to meet in person when she came to the USA for the AR2006 conference. She’s smart, courageous and tends not to to trumpet her remarkable record of effective activism. She’s gone into vivisection labs and has risked her own physical and mental health to rescue traumatized elephants. Her analyses are spot-on, especially regarding the economics of the global trade in animals and the intersections between human and animal exploitation. I’m so glad to know her and I want you to know her too, so listen to the interview!

Long associated with the Xwe African Wild Life Research and Investigations Centre, Michele now also works with Animal Rights Africa, which was founded in 2006 and already has achieved a number of victories, including the rescue of the Thukela elephants. Michele also, as I once heard Paul Watson put it, “literally wrote the book on animal rights in South Africa.” After you finish listening to her interview, you need to read that book.

Animal Rights in South Africa by Michele Pickover

If you’re not South African or even African, why should you read a book about animal rights in South Africa? Well, first of all, it’s always useful to find out how activists in other countries analyze and approach problems. And it’s always important to pay attention to South Africa, where post Apartheid democracy has been an object lesson in opportunity and challenge. Remember, it’s only been since 1994 that the black majority has had full rights. Contrary to the fearful predictions of some whites, that majority did not elect to retaliate for years of violent repression and discrimination, instead instituting a Truth and Reconciliation Commission specifically designed to promote healing within justice. Black-led South Africa was also the first country in the world to write equal rights for gay and lesbian citizens into its constitution.

On the other hand, the African National Congress (ANC) party, which was the primary agent of resistance against Apartheid and has won all of the post-Apartheid national elections, has been forced by circumstance to abandon some of its principles. Historically a communist party, the ANC has been forced to accommodate capitalism in order to prevent a precipitous flight of money and technical expertise from the country. That has meant going slow on promises like land reform. That, combined with President Mbeki’s disastrously irrational views on HIV/AIDS — which has led the government to do less than it could to prevent the spread of HIV and provide anti-retroviral treatments to people with HIV — has left many South Africans struggling with the double burden of disease and poverty.

So, South Africa is a country where we have seen both a willingness to protect those left unprotected by other governments but also a place where the preferences of capitalists and the vagaries of leaders can pervert policies. That makes me very curious to see how it will respond over time to the efforts of activists to gain rights for animals.

But that’s not the only reason to read Michele’s book. If you live somewhere where there’s a zoo to which African animals are shipped or from whence hunters go to Africa for trophy hunting, the specific abuses Michele describes in her chapters on trophy hunting and wild life for sale are your problems too.

Even more importantly, South Africa’s position within Africa makes it of vital importance in the struggles against the globalization of factory farming and for the preservation of free animals and their ecosystems. As a relatively affluent country within Africa, South Africa often serves as a model of development for other African countries. Michele has shared with me her fear that the ongoing growth of factory farming within South Africa will be the gate through which factory farming forays further and further into the continent. South Africa also has been at the forefront of efforts to promote trophy hunting as a means of income generation, under the guise of using the funds to preserve the habitats of the target animals. Both of these are gravely dangerous developments for animals, ecosystems, and people.

Finally, Michele’s thinking on the linkages among human and animal oppression is cogent and instructive. Her chapter entitled “Vivisection and the legacy of apartheid” is, in itself, sufficient reason to pick up the book. I hope you do.

Postscript: This is just the latest of a number of excellent programs offered by Animal Voices radio. Check out this list of archived shows. Or, subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

October 4th, 2007 | Category: Activism, Books, Economics, People I Love, Politics | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL