18 minute read
The Making Of Animal Rebellion
Dan Kidby, Animal Freedom activist and founding member of Animal Think Tank & Animal Rebellion looks back over the past decade with us, in this truly impressive ‘origin’ story.
Tell us a little about going vegan – when and why?
I became committed to the cause of animal freedom in 2014, when I was 23 years old. I was part of a regular meditation group and had a transformative moment of insight and connectedness. Following this experience, I had a greater capacity for empathy, and found myself caring a lot more about injustices in the world. The next time I was faced with the question about eating and using animals, I gave it the attention it deserved. Once I took time to think about it in good faith, it quickly became obvious to me that I could not morally justify my participation in systems of violence and exploitation towards animals. I stopped my consumption of all animal products. I began campaigning soon afterwards for animal freedom and other issues. As time has gone on, my solidarity with animals has only deepened by personally experiencing the horrors of so called ‘free-range, organic, RSPCA farms’, and by learning countless inspiring stories of animals resisting their oppression in farms, laboratories, circuses and other spaces of oppression.
How did you get into activism?
My activism journey began in 2015 with a six-week Occupation of London School of Economics with a demand for free education. We moved into and transformed the senior management’s meeting rooms into the ‘The Free University of London’. We created an open and liberatory learning environment where thousands of students, workers and staff worked together to vision the kind of society we wanted to create. This campaign was a trigger event which led to a resurgence in the UK student movement, with occupations all over the UK and actions all over the world. All of a sudden, I found myself in interna- tional meetings organising large-scale direct actions, facilitating democratic decision-making processes and speaking to large crowds. It was an extremely transformative and empowering experience which taught me that when we work together, people have the power to re-imagine the world around us and create meaningful change. I’ve been dedicated to social change ever since.
How did the Animal Think Tank come about?
Animal Think Tank is taking a long-term strategic approach to build a broadbased nonviolent movement for Animal Freedom in the UK. The organisation is focused on developing expertise and best practice in social movement building with the goal of seeding lots of highly effective organisations and activities to transform the way society views animals, with a particular focus on building mass movements of nonviolent civil disobedience. My journey began in 2015, when I co-founded Radical Think Tank, with Roger Hallam who later went on to start Extinction Rebellion. Radical Think Tank was primarily led by Roger, who used it as a vehicle to develop best practice in social movement building – and I was able to benefit from Roger’s mentoring and witness many successful direct action campaigns from Rent Strikes to University Divestment Campaigns. I also watched as this experimentation evolved into Extinction Rebellion. By 2017, I wanted to create something similar to Radical Think Tank in the Animal Freedom space utilising the same theories of change. I was introduced to Mark Westcombe, a brilliant organisational mind who independently developed a very similar vision to mine after being inspired the UK Anti-Slavery Movement. On the day we met, we immediately recognised our alignment and decided to work together. A few months later, I met Laila Kassam, a very deep an insightful movement thinker who was exploring how to bring about structural change. After many hours of conversation and exploring ideas of social change, she was inspired to join us too, and together we formed Animal Think Tank.
Did Animal Think Tank lay the foundations for Animal Rebellion?
Within Animal Think Tank, we had the aim of building a social movement organisation similar to Extinction Rebellion, with an explicit focus on Animal Freedom and anti-speciesism. We spent years building expertise to do this, learning about powerful movement building strategies, transformative narratives to shift public opinion, open and inclusive cultures, participatory organisational structures, and more. When Extinction Rebellion (XR) emerged, I saw a strategic opportunity to form an alliance with what was increasingly becoming the most inspiring and effective social movement in my lifetime, pressuring action on the climate and ecological crisis. I saw that there was scope to both support this movement as well as bring in a sorely lacking discussion of animal farming and fishing. I was personally in a unique position to do so, with strong relationships to the founders of XR and a deep understanding of their movement building strategies. Roger Hallam introduced me to an XR campaigner, Dora Hargitai, who also believed in the necessity of building a bridge between the animal and climate movements, and we agreed to work together. I took this idea to Animal Think Tank (who at the time was just myself, Mark and Laila), but the team didn’t believe we were ready for such a large undertaking. I knew it had to happen, so we agreed that I would step away from Animal Think Tank to build Animal Rebellion. Following some initial conversations with Dora, I went away and, with a wave of inspiration, spent the day writing a 30 page document which outlined the strategies, messaging, culture and organisational structure to guide in the building of a Rebellion in October 2019. Animal Rebellion was born.
What was the driving force behind setting up Animal Rebellion?
It is hard to imagine the scale of the climate and ecological crises. We are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction, ecosystems are collapsing all around us, and the climate is breaking down causing more and more extreme weather events. The nature of the crisis is that it is exponential, meaning it gets worse and worse at a faster and faster rate. It also has a sense of randomness about it, like the pandemic; one day everything seems normal, and the next day everything changes. All it takes is a major extreme weather event which wipes out thousands of food crops, and then sooner or later people are fighting over tins of beans. Extinction Rebellion had the audacious ambition to challenge the system which is driving us to destruction head on, by declaring a Rebellion, engaging in mass civil disobedience, and seeking to transform everything. This essential movement for all life was so significant, but it had a crucial blind spot: animal farming and fishing. In its attempts to reach a mainstream audience, XR did not talk about the destructive impact of these industries.
In fact, it sometimes legitimised and promoted these industries by promoting the myths of regenerative animal farming. Many people across the animal freedom movement chose to avoid Extinction Rebellion and be critical from the sidelines, but Dora and I saw another way. We could ally with Extinction Rebellion, join a growing movement of movements, and ensure our message of a sustainable and just plant-based food system was present and supported within the climate space. We sought to show XR and the broader environmental movement that we can talk about animal farming and fishing whilst also building a mass movement for transformative change.
There was an original ‘get together’ of quite a few Animal groups and individuals in the summer of 2019 – tell us about that
As I said before, Animal Rebellion began with a 30- page document that I wrote in one day of inspiration. I laid out the plant-based food system narrative, the plan to build a Rebellion in October and the mobilisation strategy, the Occupation of Smithfields and Billingsgate, the organisational structure of Animal Rebellion, the culture, all the teams that were required and more. Dora, Mark, and I (who brought together the initial team) sent this document round to both recruit full-time campaigners and to gain support from other organisations and leaders in the Animal Freedom Movement. The ideas in this document had their own gravitational pull, and as soon as people heard about the plan they wanted to hear more. Ten amazing people even quit their jobs to work full time building it.
Due to the excitement and interest in this project, we were easily able to bring together 18 Animal Freedom organisations to meet with Extinction Rebellion. The organisations included The Vegan Society, Surge, Save, Veganuary, Animal Equality and more. We discussed the prospect of a wave of civil disobedience for a plantbased food system, the strategies to build an alliance between different communities who don’t agree on everything, and how different organisations could get involved in and support the alliance. This meeting was a wild success and led to many amazing contributions from many different organisations. This meant that some of the most daring acts of disruption in the animal movement were started with a broad support from the broader movement.
What are Your abiding memories of that first rebellion back in Autumn 2019?
Personally, I remember the blockade of Billingsgate Fish Market. When the Rebellion began, we had attracted thousands of people, but despite our central focus on civil disobedience, very few participants were willing to risk arrest. I realised just how counter-cultural law-breaking and sacrifice was in the UK Animal Freedom movement at that time. Five days into the Rebellion, during our blockade of Billingsgate Market, that all changed. Hundreds of us were standing outside the entrance of Billingsgate blocking the entrance at 3am. The cars were piling up and causing traffic disruption miles up the road.
The police were surrounding us all, preparing to move us on. I could see the police making their formations, and I realised something needed to happen. I picked up a megaphone and began making a speech about the tremendous injustices we were standing against and the duty to take action. Then I took a gamble and said to the crowd something like: “This is it. I am going to sit down. If the police want to move me, they will have to arrest me. If you are so moved, join me in Rebellion!” 20 people sat down with me and we all began singing as we were carried off into police vans. It was such a powerful moment and I was overcome with emotion. I spent the evening in a police cell, but I felt so powerful and strong to have stood my ground with so many beautiful people… Also, I can’t not mention the Rebellion without mentioning Mr Broccoli! I’m proud to say I had the privilege of sharing a police van with him after being arrested whilst dressed as a pea – or Mr Pea as I came to be known!
You learnt ‘on your feet’ it’s safe to say?
One of the key lessons I learned early on as a campaigner was that we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. People have been campaigning for decades and the codes for social change already exist. We need to learn these methods and begin applying them. I studied intensively to learn the science of social change from the revolutionary movements of the past, reading hundreds of books particularly focusing on the tradition of nonviolent civil resistance in the tradition of Gandhi and King. But revolution is both a science and an art, and this is where learning by doing becomes so important. We can know the strategic underpinning of what has worked well in different movements and different times, but we need to engage creatively and experiment with different approaches in our own context. I treat every campaign as an experiment and take lessons from success and failure. I don’t believe you can only learn this stuff from books. You have to practice it on the ground as well and get that real-world experience. In that sense, yes, I learned on my feet.
Would you say that Animal Rebellion has succeeded in influencing Extinction Rebellion?
I think Animal Rebellion have had a phenomenal influence on XR and the broader environmental movement. At the time of forming, XR would never talk about animal farming and fishing, or a plant-based food system. Now they are regularly speaking out against these industries and calling for transformative change to our food system. XR regularly invite Animal Rebellion to speak at all major protests, and they have even sent out newsletters to hundreds of thousands of followers dedicated to anti-speciesism. XR organisers and supporters regularly join Animal Rebellion actions, and many have been arrested for the cause. In XR’s 2021 strategy assembly, two campaigners named Marina and Kerri represented Animal Rebellion and through their presence were able to ensure that speciesism was named and included in XR’s strategy. There is still work to be done to shift the climate movement, but things have progressed so much since the time Animal Rebellion emerged in 2019. This change is not only down to Animal Rebellion, but to the whole range of passionate organisations and advocates ensuring that these issues are elevated.
What are the big challenges in combining climate justice activism with animal justice activism?
The biggest challenge in building a bridge between the climate and animal movements is the fact that we don’t all agree about whether animals should be used and exploited in the food system and other areas of society. This was made harder by the fact that animal campaigning at the time was strongly focused on promoting veganism, which meant that interactions between animal and environmental campaigners quickly became about whether or not the environmentalist was a vegan or not, breaking down relationships. We knew that in order to succeed in building a strong alliance, when so many people were involved, we needed to avoid this conflict and focus on building a strong culture of solidarity. This meant focusing on what unites us (a desire for system change), rather than what divides us (veganism). Animal Rebellion very intentionally built a culture focusing on structural change, with a structural demand for a plant-based food system. We recognised that it was more important to work together and actually effect change, than to be morally right and isolated. We also were taking the long-term perspective that if we build positive relationships, this will lead to a more organic exchange of ideas and philosophies. Then, practices of veganism and anti-speciesism will spread throughout XR, and we too will learn from the environmental movement. I believe that the alliance-building approach we took has been a great success and it is a model which could and should be replicated with other movements.
Some would say that the core anti-speciesist message and position of Animal Rebellion gets a bit lost in the post in favour of a focus on plant based food systems – is that fair do you think?
Anti-speciesism lies at the heart of Animal Rebellion, it motivated me and all of the founding members. But we made the strategic decision not to foreground it in our messaging. Animal Rebellion’s unique contribution is to shift the environmental discourse, and to do that, we need to focus our public-facing messaging on the climate and ecological impacts of animal farming and fishing. We do bring in anti-speciesism, but it is done in more subtle ways, with individuals and organisations once we have already built relationships with them. One way I want to do this within Animal Rebellion is to organise anti-speciesist workshops for all XR local groups, something which would be welcomed now the relationship has been built. Animal Rebellion supports other movements and organisations which focus on explicitly anti-speciesist messaging, because we need that too! I hope that, by bringing the message of a plant-based food system in the more palatable form of a solution to the climate and ecological crisis, Animal Rebellion will also help prepare the public for a future social movement which foregrounds anti-speciesism.
Looking at The current rebellion – success?
For Animal Rebellion, it has been a great success. Every time there is major climate action, Animal Rebellion are there reminding the public, the politicians and the environmental organisations that we can’t ignore animal farming and fishing and a plant-based food system must be part of the future. But, for the broader movement towards system change, I don’t think the recent August Rebellion was very successful. Over the last couple of years, the movement has fallen into a pattern of trying to do what worked last time – trying to recreate the magic again by organising yet another Rebellion. But our activism needs to evolve with the rapidly changing strategic landscape and we need something new. The greatest hope I see for climate activism at this moment is Insulate Britain, which is escalating disruption to force the government to act on a specific demand. Its success will present a model for success to all those who see the urgent need for change.
And there are A lot of Animal Rebellion ‘Chapters’ springing up around the globe…
Animal Rebellion has had a global resonance and people all over the world on all continents (almost) have taken action for a plant-based food system. It is amazing to see and is absolutely essential to have disruptive protest occurring all over the world! Fun fact, despite Animal Rebellion being born in the UK, the first ever Animal Rebellion action actually occurred in Israel. Animal Rebellion UK were beaten to it! It’s amazing how quickly people can pull things together. It’s a testament to what we can achieve.
It’s fair to say you endured some significant burnout from your activism?
I led the core team to build Animal Rebellion, and that came with a lot of pressure and responsibility. I was working 70 hour weeks and was very committed to make the Rebellion a massive success. The hard work and pressure of leadership led me to a significant burnout, which took many months to recover from, and I eventually decided to take a step back from Animal Rebellion in May 2020. I learned that in order to be long-term sustainable I need a better work-life balance and must maintain effective self-care practices to ensure I am taking care of myself fully in this work. For me that is meditation and yoga.
How’s the extended lockdown been?
Tough. I was one of the unlucky ones to get ‘long covid’, which basically means that for the last year I’ve suffered post-viral fatigue and had intense fatigue and brain fog. I have had to take a step back from movement building until I am healthy enough to keep going. As challenging as it has been to step away during such a critical moment in history, I have had the opportunity to rest, reflect and grow. So when I return to the movement, I hope to be more grounded and effective.
What’s next for Dan?
I’m always coming up with seemingly overly ambitious ideas and strategies and I’m discussing large projects with people to embark on when I’m feeling healthy. In the long term I want to strategize campaigns of civil disobedience to shift public opinion and pressure change as big as or bigger than Animal Rebellion. But the first step for me is to fully recover!
Talking of plant based options – what do you eat?
I try and take a mindful approach to food and as much as possible eat wholefoods. I eat porridge every morning with fruits and nuts to start the day, and lunch and dinner ranges from salads to curries, to pasta and more. But as much as I try to be healthy, I do eat a lot of the old classic – Ready Salted Crisps. Oh and I’m slightly addicted to sweets!
Advice for up and coming vegans and activists?
Transformative change is possible, but only if there are people who are willing to stand up and demand it, with the courage to take proportionate and strategic action to challenge systems of violence and oppression. Don’t believe people when they say we have no choice but to accept the system as it is, work in the realm of what is ‘politically possible’ and only seek to achieve minor incremental changes. We can achieve so much more than that. Throughout history, we have seen time and time again ordinary people coming together, demanding the impossible, and making change. Given the unique and urgent time we are in with multiple interlocking crises which threaten the collapse of civilisation, and with trillions of animals being killed, more than ever we need campaigners to have faith and courage that we can change the world – and to go out and do it!
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