"All head lights and glass smashed, all electrics
and air lines, oil lines cut, tires slashed, fuel tanks, oil and
transmission tanks contaminated, cab controls smashed up, approx
one hundred power cables supplying site electrics were chopped through.
Fuse boxes and other bits of electrics smashed, fuel pumps damaged,
fuel tanks spilled, all site conveyor belts slashed beyond repair.
Slogans painted everywhere, estimated cost [$500,000]."
It reads like a report from Cent Com. But it is a
report issued by the insurgents themselves, on a website. Not the
insurgents in Iraq - the insurgents in England: the Animal Liberation
Front (ALF). They are protesting a company, RMC, that is involved
with the building of an animal research laboratory at Oxford University.
"On the night of Wednesday June 30th members
of the Animal Liberation Front mounted a daring raid on the RMC
site at their international HQ.... Powerful incendiary devices
were left on site and resulted in the destruction of three [trucks],
the site office and severe damage to associated industrial buildings
and machinery.... This attack is a warning to RMC that collaboration
in animal torture at Oxford or anywhere else will not be tolerated,
and a further warning to all involved in building the Oxford laboratory
to expect similar ruthless treatment. You have been warned."
RMC’s crime? The sadistic mutilation of kittens and
rabbits? No. All RMC did was supply the concrete to build the
lab.
I’ve often been baffled by the boldness of animal
rights campaigners. In the century of lynchings since the end of
slavery, when did African-Americans so boldly defend black
rights? These white ALFers are willing to destroy property to protect
chimpanzees, while black Americans would never think of doing anything
similar, not even to protect their own daughters from being raped
or blown up by bombs at church. Compared to the ALF, black Americans
are as docile as trained monkeys.
I’m not advocating vandalism or terrorism. In fact,
I disagree with the animal rights campaigners. I just find the
comparison interesting.
Black Americans do not even have a spokesman (we can
safely disregard the National Association for the Advancement of
Cowardly Pawns), while animals do: an organization called SPEAK.
The ALF also has a website, where they describe their successful
acts of violence. Black Americans do not even have a website where
we can catalog violent attacks perpetrated against us.
There’s also a Vegan Prisoners Support Group. How
many members of the Black Liberation Army are rotting in jail -
unknown to the vast majority of Kobe Bryant and O.J. supporters
- while Jet Magazine runs weekly profiles of celebrity weddings
and MIT mathematics professors? Heck, if you want news about Black
Panther political prisoners, don’t ask the Urban League - go instead
to the Earth First Action Update, a website run by white liberals.
Unlike black Americans, animal rights activists honor
their heroes (and not just the ones officially stamped for approval
by the majority society). "The souls of the tortured dead
cry out for justice, the cry of the living is for freedom,"
said Barry Horne. "We can create that justice and we can deliver
that freedom." Horne died in prison in 2001, after his fourth
hunger strike. 700 animal rights activists attended his funeral.
Not one black American I know of has ever engaged in a hunger strike.
Certainly not Martin Luther King, despite his professed admiration
for Gandhi. Gandhi was skin and bones, whereas Martin Luther King
loved black people, non-violence, and chicken wings, not necessarily
in that order.
One can’t say that Horne was willing to sacrifice
himself because he had nothing to live for: he had two children
and a grandchild. Nor was he mad - government psychiatrists declared
him of sound mind. The reason he did it, according to one funeral
attendee, was simple: "Animal rights is a war...[and] we need
to make sacrifices...." Horne received as many as 40 letters
of support a day while he was in prison, serving time for a two-year
campaign of firebombing attacks.
Resistance doesn’t have to be violent. One animal
research scientist worries that anybody can find out who he is by
doing a scan of the scientific literature. Funny, in America, any
black group can find out the personal details of people who treat
us like animals - whether they are Klansmen, scientists at
Tuskegee, or people with 41 extra bullets in their guns - but nobody
ever does it.
Resistance doesn’t have to be violent. The
Animal Liberation Front wrote shareholders of the company building
the Oxford lab, suggesting that they might want to sell their stock.
The day the letters went public, share prices fell 19%. Whatever
you think of the ALF, that’s smart.
This is not an apology for violent acts. I abhor
violence and terrorism. (Did I forget to mention that I abhor terrorism
and violence?) Indeed, I violently disagree with animal rights
campaigners: I want the lipstick I wear to have been first tested
on something other than myself - not that, er, I use lipstick.
(You know what I mean.) But it is astonishing that animals, in
the minds of black Americans, are more deserving of physical protection
than black people themselves. Until that changes, the soul of the
tortured slave will still cry out for justice, and the living for
freedom.
You have been warned.
Dr. Jonathan David Farley is the winner of Harvard
University’s "Harvard Foundation Distinguished Scientist of
the Year Award." He can be contacted at ([email protected]). |