Does intersectionality forgive the unprievlieged butcher?

Recently, an elaborated article targeting the animal liberation movement 269life was published, accusing members of the movement in a wide range of accusation, from being sexist to being racist and so on and so forth. More than anything else, this kind of accusations turn the animal liberation movement into a giant snake that eats himself. Here is my reply to the original post, titled “What’s Wrong with the Israeli Animal Rights Movement, 269?”.

Misconceptions about Israeli animal liberation.

Last September I had the privilege to visit Montreal’s first Vegan festival. It wasn’t only a first opportunity to visit the festival, but also a first opportunity to visit Montreal. Indeed, when we (Ori Shavit, Israeli media person and one of the leading figures in Israel, regarding Vegan lifestlye and animal rights/liberation and myself) got to Montreal, we spent most of the days we had in our disposal touring the city and it’s surrounding. We came upon ‘Marie Reine Du Monde’, a big, impressive church that stood out fearlessly in the middle of construction sites, shopping sprees and office buildings, and we went inside as both of us, secular and detached from religion, are very interested in the architecture and the art of churches. Inside we found paintings that were not the paintings we were expecting. The series of paintings told the story of the conquest of the northern land, rather than holy stories we all know so well. One of them showed Colonel Athanase de Charette charging into war while stepping over a dead horse. The others showed a clear distinction between the white, enlightened Christians who arrived to this land, and the dark skinned ‘barbaric’ indigenous people, ever so amazed by the arrival of the newcomers, only to learn and follow their culture ways and of course, wage war in later paintings. To make a long story short, what we’ve seen is the story of conquest and culture destruction. It happened before and it’s still happening all over the world, if not in the name of religion or nationality then in the name of capitalist progress. Does that sad story about conquest and culture destruction have anything to do with the vegan festival in Montreal? Of course not. More often than not, animal rights/liberation activists can do very little with what countries and cultures are doing to other human beings.

IF I am what I have and if I lose what I have then who am I?

While our own thoughts and opinions are fixed without any will for a change, like cavemen who are now capable of controlling nature, we do develop the ability to enrich the world of justifications for those ancient statements. This is how we build a new world of domination (and I’m going to concentrate on animal domination), rich with new forms of animal prisons, castration devices, milking machines, different methods of slaughter, public receptions and genetic mutations of our animal slaves, all of this under the archaic notion that “They were meant to serve us”.