Why march for animal rights?
Why is it still important to march for animal justice? | Credit: National Animal Rights March / Animal Rebellion / Andrea Domeniconi
OPINION: At a time when campaigners and activists are looking for ever more impactful and imaginative types of action to get a message across, what place do marches still have? Surge writer Claire Hamlett shares her thoughts having attended her first animal rights march at the weekend.
I arrived alone in London on Saturday morning and walked to Farringdon station, the meeting point for ‘Solo Rebels’ like myself. I’d been worrying about being able to find them, imagining having to ask strangers if they were here to march for animal rights and being given confused looks in response. But the others were, of course, easy to spot, with most wearing vegan and Animal Rebellion insignia. Plus there’s something about the way activists hold themselves: open and welcoming, but also a little vigilant.
More and more marchers arrived over the next hour, including people in elaborate costumes, drummers from Extinction Rebellion samba bands, and representatives of a whole range of groups like PETA, the Hunt Saboteurs Association, Ocean Rebellion (with a huge pink octopus puppet in tow), Camp Beagle, and the Animal Welfare Party.
Credit: National Animal Rights March / Animal Rebellion / Andrea Domeniconi
Around 600 of us eventually set off from Smithfield Meat Market, making a tour of some relevant sites of animal exploitation over the next four hours, stopping outside each one to hear from different speakers. First up was the Unilever London offices, because the global corporation owns so many companies that use animal products or engage in animal testing. Next was meat-giant Cargill, then the Marine Stewardship Council for endorsing industrial fishing, and finally Smithfield Market once more.
The last stretch back to Smithfield, marching past the meat-heavy restaurants on Charterhouse Street teeming with people ready to tuck into a steak, was probably one of the more gratifying bits. Whether it was a good thing or not that the restaurant-goers seemed interested in our procession rather than offended by it is up for debate.
Saturday’s ‘National Animal Rights March’ was my first such march, but it was far from the first in history or the biggest. Surge began the yearly Official Animal Rights March back in 2016, with a peak turnout of 41,000 people across 49 cities in 2019 - with 10,000 of those in London alone. In 1990, a 25,000-strong March for the Animals took place in Washington D.C. Anti-vivisection activists have organised marches since at least the 1980s.
With this long history of marching for animals, it’s worth asking what value these events have, especially since animal exploitation remains commonplace in our society.
For my part, as a relatively recent vegan with few real-life vegan friends, it was encouraging and uplifting to be surrounded by so many like-minded people for an afternoon. When I got home that evening, I read an article in the Daily Mail about the march that, predictably, painted a less-than-flattering picture of the participants and that was followed by the usual vitriolic and ignorant comments below-the-line that you might expect. It made me feel good to know that our numbers at the march were more than double the number of hateful comments on the article.
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It should be noted that not everyone in attendance was necessarily vegan, with their focus instead being a particular issue of animal exploitation such as animal testing or fox hunting. Furthermore, the march was part of the ongoing two-week ‘Impossible Rebellion’ organised by Extinction Rebellion, whose members don’t always connect the dots between climate and ecological breakdown and animal agriculture, which is the main focus of Animal Rebellion. But a march can create a space to bring together all those concerned in one way or another with animal rights, potentially helping to facilitate sharing of information and points of view that we may not otherwise get exposed to in our regular activist circles.
Credit: National Animal Rights March / Animal Rebellion / Andrea Domeniconi
In terms of the wider impact of animal rights marches, they can and do have the power to engage people who witness them, as indicated by evidence around the impact of climate marches. Following the People’s Climate March and March for Science in 2019, researchers at Indiana University found that the marches were at least “partially effective” as they improved both bystanders’ beliefs about the efficacy of collective action and their impressions of marchers. Animal rights activists tend to be considered as extremist or radicals, so it’s no bad thing if more people get to see us parading through the streets peacefully and joyfully. And on Saturday, a number of marchers took time to chat to bystanders about why we were marching.
As one campaigner from the Stop the War Coalition wrote in 2015: “The point of this demonstration is not to have a stroll through central London. It is to build a local and national organisation which is larger, more politically focussed, and pulling in layers of people new to the movement. The purpose of bringing people together in one place is to show their strength and determination. And it creates confidence among those participating, so their own activity in the future is boosted.”
Credit: National Animal Rights March / Animal Rebellion / Andrea Domeniconi
And that’s the key point. Marches are not an end in themselves. They should be a starting point or a way to help build momentum towards something bigger. The animal rights movement has raised awareness and achieved real change for animals over the years by all sorts of means, from undercover investigations into farms to documentary films reaching mass audiences to taking an individual stand against everyday forms of animal exploitation. And there are myriad ways to be involved in and support sustained work to free animals.
If, like me, you’re fairly early on in your journey as an animal rights activist, a march can be a great way to get you going in the right direction, born along by the shared compassion of hundreds (or thousands) of others. Caring about animal lives can be a lonely endeavour. Sometimes the first step to more committed activism is to find your people.
Credit: National Animal Rights March / Animal Rebellion
Claire Hamlett is a freelance journalist, writer and regular contributor at Surge. Based in Oxford, UK, Claire tells stories that challenge systemic exploitation of and disregard for animals and the environment and that point to a better way of doing things.
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