On non-violent direct action.

Professor Gary Francione recently posted a piece on his blog titled, "A Comment on Violence" outlining his various criticisms of the use of "violence" in the AR movement. Rick Bogle of the Primate Freedom project wrote a very thoughtful response. However, neither addressed the fact that the very definition of "violence" within, and external to, the animal rights community is currently up for debate, an issue that is fundamental to any discussion on the topic since many would suggest, as I do, that the American AR movement has been entirely non-violent until this point. As we all know, the ALF and its sympathizers define violence as physical violence against animals (human and non-). This definition is not at odds with those offered by scholars of non-violent social movements and I am going to draw on the work of one political scientist specifically to illustrate this point. Gene Sharp, researcher and founder of the Albert Einstein Institution, a non-profit organization which studies and promotes the use of nonviolent action, also contends that “violence is…physical violence against persons to inflict injury or death…not as a term of moral or political opinion” (Sharp 2003:1).

"Violence," and "terrorism" for that matter, are all too commonly used as politically-charged terms to describe forms of activism that people think is untoward. Sharp goes on to accurately note that “some people regard nonviolent [action] anything they regard as good, and “violent” anything they dislike." I think that he hits the nail on the head. Defining violence using these more objective criteria, we find that no activities undertaken by American animal rights activists (and very few carried out by AR activists worldwide), would fall under the "violence" heading.

The activities of almost all AR activists should be classified as “non-violent resistance and direct action” (1959:44-45), a term which refers to protest tactics that do not entail physical violence, but in which members of the nonviolent group commit either acts of omission (refraining from participating in culturally expected activities or rituals, e.g., veganism) or acts of commission (participation in acts not expected by custom and that are forbidden by law, e.g., physical obstructions, forms of property destruction that do not risk injury (window smashing, gluing locks, graffiti)(Sharp 1959:44).

An overwhelming majority of the tactics employed by activists are actually included in Sharp’s list of 198 Methods of Nonviolent Action (1973). Those that aren't, rather than being classified as violence, can be defined as "sabotage" which refers to "acts of demolition and related destruction directed against machinery, transport, buildings…and the like. Because these are acts against property, there are not included in the definition of violence” (Sharp 1973:608). David Barbarash's philosophy on direct action is consistent with such a definition as he has stated that, “[W]hen certain buildings, tools and other property are being used to commit violence, the ALF believes that the destruction of property is justified.”

Many advocates and activists eschew the use of these confrontational, non-institutionalized, albeit nonviolent, tactics to promote the objectives of the AR movement and have often made the claim that these activities are alienating and counterproductive.

However, it is important to note that, historically, the looming presence of militant factions of activists within a movement has served to benefit the movement at large by generating visibility for movement concerns, swaying public opinion and by making the once extreme demands of the moderates appear more reasonable and thereby improving their bargaining position.

Researchers have suggested that this phenomenon, aptly termed the "positive radical flank effect," has operated in such a way within the struggles for women’s and civil rights, and, most recently, within the modern AR and environmental movements.

AR/AW activists who denounce groups like the ALF are then, in some ways, biting the hand that feeds them.

(The intention of this elucidation is not to completely sidestep the fact that the use of certain forms of sabotage can potentially cause unintentional harm to human and non-human animals, nor to trivialize the repercussions that an event like that could potentially have for the progress the AR movement has made in general. It is simply to clarify the terms that are commonly used to describe certain forms of activism and explain the virtues of nonviolent direct action in the broader context of social justice movements.)

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