Animal Justice Emergency: Grassroots Activism & System Change

The last thing on my mind when I came to Bristol four years ago was starting my own animal activism group. I’d done that in Malaysia where I’d lived before and where I’d become vegan.

Moving lock, stock and barrel, from Penang, with Bob and Liz, my two Indian rescue cats was an ordeal. My sanity barely survived the vaccinations, vet visits, tests, bundles of paperwork, 24 hour flight with poor Bob and Liz in the hold, and their eventual appearance, yowling and damp with wee, in my Bristol home.

“Never again” I promised them and myself.

I’d relocated back to the UK for several reasons. As a long-term climate change activist, I was increasingly uneasy with the outlook for survival in Asia. In Malaysia I’d decided to prioritise animal activism over climate change and started a vegan outreach group Life Love Vegan with some locals.

Chen, a teacher, Rohith an IT whizz from Bangalore, Chen’s mum Selli, Mani a concerned parent, and a monk, organised film screenings, talks, hosted food events in a Buddhist temple, ran workshops at the Hin Art Depot, and met politicians to pitch putting up vegan adverts.

Since Penang is an entrepôt, audiences were mixed : middle class Malay Chinese and Indian families rubbed shoulders, while hip young Malaysians joined European economic migrants who called themselves ‘expats’. My increasing unease with the sense of white privilege I felt was another factor in my relocation to the UK.

Keen to find my activism feet in Bristol, I joined some SAVEs and found them soul destroying and upsetting. In AV Cubes I struggled to understand how the societal change required to make a vegan world could be achieved by random conversations with passers-by.

A new group, Extinction Rebellion (XR), was meeting near me, campaigning on climate breakdown. A major draw was their free vegan meals.

Younger, blokey and resolutely middle class, they seemed to have a model of organising more along the lines of previous freedom movements.

Could XR be veganised I wondered?

I became a regular, then when the actions started, handled their media. I talked about veganism, class, ageism and racism. I hoped to learn from them, and veganise them from the inside out. They were serious about catastrophic climate breakdown & served vegan food before meetings, so I figured they’d be pretty up for that. Sadly, this was far from the case, and I encountered ongoing hostility/disinterest whenever I raised the issue.

“It’s not about personal change” they’d chirp. Well it could be AND they could challenge the subsidy drenched animal agriculture industrial complex at the same time. You know, walking and chewing gum? Apparently not.

I called XR co-founder and vegan, Roger Hallam, asking his views on a vegan kind of XR. Hallam was vaguely supportive - “go and do it!” he said. So I did. Which is how Animal Justice Emergency began. Five people around a table in a community centre.

We did talks, discussed tactics and strategy, worked out a detailed five year plan and timelines, subverted some McDonalds ads... We started a Youtube channel to maximise our effectiveness alongside the AJE Facebook Page.

I’m not really an organiser and I turned to Dan Kidby, (Animal Think Tank), who I’d met briefly in Bristol, for a different perspective and to knock around ideas about organising. And then one morning, scanning Facebook, everything changed.

A new animal activism group had been launched! Like XR only for the animals and against industrial agriculture!! Earthling Ed was part of it!!

Kidby had set it up. And one of the AJE members was with him. This thing had clearly been planned for a while.

It seemed odd.

AJE carried on. More talks, including the London Vegfest. Non-XR people joined. Students. We checked out funding. Brainstormed. Planned. We were on a roll.

Then COVID hit and everything changed. Lockdown was a time to focus on the Animal Justice Emergency Youtube channel. We interviewed ALF founder Ronnie Lee; lifelong sab and activist, Lynn Sawyer. Jeanette Rowley, the Vegan Society’s legal person, who had blood-curdling stories of vegans targeted by the PREVENT ‘anti-terrorist’ legislation, who’d nearly lost their jobs then been forced to sign non-disclosure agreements as a condition of not being sacked.

Drawing on my background as an investigative journalist, I uploaded heavily researched pieces on the contribution of animal agriculture to species extinction and climate change. The COVID/animal ag connection. COVID and mink. Bird flu. Examined how consumer capitalism/neoliberalism was a key driver in the subjugation of other animals. Dug deep into language and the framings of the dominant culture in maintaining the status quo. Analysed other liberation movements, Civil Rights in the US, the Indian independence struggle against the colonial British oppressors, the Haitian rebellion, always searching for more effective forms of vegan activism. Puzzled over the vast sums of money which the Save Movement, and Anonymous for the Voiceless had access to from venture capitalists and millionaire donors.

Where was the grass roots in all of this?

Inspired by chats with Ronnie Lee, once the lockdown ended I decided to step out of the vegan bubble and see what was happening in local communities. I joined green groups, community growers, climate community groups, attended refugee events, Afrifest, and many others.

As a result and with funding from the Million Dollar Vegan and support from Friends Not Food, we organised two vegan pop-up cafes aimed at non-vegans, framing the events (in a church hall and local park) with a short talk on ethical veganism and climate breakdown.

And then something incredible happened.

I noticed a shift in vegan outreach. Perhaps mobilised by the challenges of the pandemic, the COP in Glasgow and a growing awareness of the role of the animal death industry in climate and ecological breakdown, many groups were now using the climate change framing as part of the animal liberation message.

The local SAVE was linking with Viva! The local Animal Rebellion was linking with the Saves. I was invited to speak at the launch of the Plant Based Treaty initiative in Bristol, chatting with Animal Rebellion and joining them in an outreach event and march.

There is a new sense of solidarity and unity among animal activists. A joining together of different strands of activism for one powerful and necessary end.

Veganism and animal agriculture are appearing in mainstream media as key to tackling climate and ecological collapse.

Perhaps this signals the end of the dominant speciesist and human supremacist culture?

Who knows? Only time and more activism will tell…

By Pamela Nova Founding member of Animal Justice Emergency