Kim Stallwood

Very interesting feature article in today’s Guardian, “A tale of two herds,” which juxtaposes the proposed mega-dairy for Nocton, Lincolnshire and the treatment of a small herd of cows cared for by the Hare Krishnas at their Hertfordshire estate.

I like how the feature contrasts the attitude towards dairy cows by Peter Willes, one of two directors backing the mega-dairy, who says, “Cows do not belong in fields,” with Hare Krishna Shyamasundara, who says their cows are

part of our community. They give us their lifeblood in the form of milk and we care for them all their life. Of all the animals in the world the cow is the most important to humans. The cow replaces the role of the mother. You wouldn’t bump your mum off if she stopped giving milk.

The Independent publishes today, The Great Animal Rights Betrayal, a front page lead story continued onto pages 4 and 5, which includes several side bars under the banner, “The Betrayals,” on Game birds, Slaughterhouse cruelty, Circus animals, Beak trimming and Badger cull. There’s also a Comment by Peter Stevenson, Chief Policy Advisor, Compassion In World Farming.

Millions of hens will have their beaks mutilated; game birds will remain in cages; pigs, sheep and cows in abattoirs will lose crucial protection from abuse; badgers will be culled and lions, tigers and other wild animals will continue to perform in the big top. In a series of little-noticed moves, the Coalition has scrapped or stalled Labour initiatives to improve animal welfare some weeks before they were due to come into force. The Agriculture minister James Paice, who part-owns a farm in Cambridgeshire, has been behind most of the moves – which have infuriated welfare groups. In the latest of a series of controversial decisions, Mr Paice this week delayed by five years a ban on beak mutilations of laying hens due to come into force in January.

Hats off to The Independent for giving such prominent attention to the British government’s indifference to animal welfare and support for the commercial exploitation of animals. Difficult to imagine The Guardian publishing such an article, given its track record of indifference and, at times, hostility to animal rights and vegetarian living. Today’s Guardian, however, has below the front page fold the story this story, McDonald’s and PepsiCo to help write UK health policy.

The Department of Health is putting the fast food companies McDonald’s and KFC and processed food and drink manufacturers such as PepsiCo, Kellogg’s, Unilever, Mars and Diageo at the heart of writing government policy on obesity, alcohol and diet-related disease, the Guardian has learned. In an overhaul of public health, said by campaign groups to be the equivalent of handing smoking policy over to the tobacco industry, health secretary Andrew Lansley has set up five “responsibility deal” networks with business, co-chaired by ministers, to come up with policies. Some of these are expected to be used in the public health white paper due in the next month. The groups are dominated by food and alcohol industry members, who have been invited to suggest measures to tackle public health crises. Working alongside them are public interest health and consumer groups including Which?, Cancer Research UK and the Faculty of Public Health. The alcohol responsibility deal network is chaired by the head of the lobby group the Wine and Spirit Trade Association. The food network to tackle diet and health problems includes processed food manufacturers, fast food companies, and Compass, the catering company famously pilloried by Jamie Oliver for its school menus of turkey twizzlers. The food deal’s sub-group on calories is chaired by PepsiCo, owner of Walkers crisps.

The common link between the two articles is the ConDem’s cosy relationship with industry. Their governance is based on the premise that business must have a dominant say in determining public policy. In order for the economy to flourish, industry must be free from such irritating restrictions as concerns about human health and animal welfare.

Science does not operate alone in its own universe. Regardless of how much scientists assert their work is objective, their research, as, indeed, is everything, is viewed subjectively in the ever present, including the world of politics and morality.

Take, for example, the coalition government’s commitment to culling badgers in response to the spread of TB among dairy cattle. This motion was put at a debate at the Zoological Society of London on Tuesday evening:

Is the coalition government’s proposal for a ‘science-led programme of badger control’ an effective way to reduce tuberculosis in cattle?

Before the presentations and again afterwards two separate votes of those present were held. The results? Majority voting to reject the motion on both occasions. A result, perhaps, not that surprising.

I attended this debate. I wanted to hear and consider the scientific arguments in favour of a cull. I did not expect to change my mind against the cull; however, I did expect to hear convincing evidence in support of it. This did not happen. Quite the reverse, in fact. I’m even more convinced the cull is political expediency hiding behind the fetish of scientific objectivity. Badgers are presented as the villains. Whereas they’re really the victims. The proposed badger cull is an excuse posing as a reason.

If the objective is to have TB-free cattle, then culling badgers is not the solution. Dairy cows contract TB from other sources, principally other cattle. This is why TB in cattle is spreading across south-west England and Wales to the rest of the country. Badgers generally don’t roam far from their dens. They live within a relatively small area. They certainly don’t make long journeys across the countryside. So, it’s more likely that the spread of TB-infected cattle is due to the movement of these animals, from farm to farm, from farms to auctions, and from farms to slaughterhouses.

Then, why cull badgers?

This is where the scientific rubber hits the political road. When the “objectivity” of scientific research collides with the “subjectivity” of political expediency.

I concede there may be a scientific case for showing dairy cows are susceptible to TB from badgers. This research may also show killing badgers will have some impact on TB in dairy cows. But I also conclude the scientific case for a cull is so weak and the proposed cull, with all its necessary and stringent measures to ensure its effectiveness, is so challenging to implement that it is fundamentally flawed public policy.

We must remember DEFRA and its previous incarnation, MAFF, and UK agribusiness does not have an outstanding track record in preventing farming practices from occurring that are injurious to human health. In recent times we’ve had such significant food scandals as salmonella in eggs as well as farming practices exposing human health unnecessarily to risk. How can we ever forget that the threat of BSE (“mad cow disease”) was caused by farmers who fed vegetarian animals with feed that includes the ground up remains of other animals?

Why, then, is TB in cattle such a problem?

EU law prohibits the sale of meat and dairy products from TB-infected dairy cows and beef cattle. This is why farmers are compensated at tax payers expense for the slaughter of TB-infected animals even though the animals’ ultimate fate is the killing floor. This is where the issue of vaccines, both for farmed animals and badgers, is key. Vaccines, we were told at the conference, are in development but they will not be ready for some time. Further, there are complications with their application.

So, again, why the cull?

The previous Labour government opposed the cull. The Welsh Assembly is moving forward with its own trial for a cull. Welcome to the politics of a badger cull. The current coalition government supports a cull. I suspect its rationale balances, on the one hand, recognition of a cull as being unpopular among the public while, on the other hand, wanting to placate its rural constituents. But the weak science and the cull’s unpopularity are making the government anxious. This is why, I believe, the coalition government wants to make farmers and landowners pay for the cull and responsible for its implementation. As the speakers made clear, any cull which is inefficiently implemented or only delivers moderate levels of success will most likely exacerbate the problem by facilitating the spread of TB among cattle and badgers. Any benefits to culling are modest. Therefore, the culls’ costs must be as little as possible, particularly given the economic climate. Accordingly, methods of culling need to be cheap. And the method of killing? Shooting trapped badgers in cages. Shooting free-range badgers is also under consideration; however, shooting free-range is not significantly less expensive than shooting trapped badgers. Both methods are expensive and time consuming to implement. Of course, they cause stress, suffering and pain to badgers.

In short, the government requires those who want a cull to pay for it and assume responsibility for its organisation. It will be an expensive, complex and challenging endeavour, including a four to five year time commitment. But if the transportation of cattle across the countryside is helping to spread TB among dairy cows, would it not make more sense to impose stringent conditions on their movement, including the quarantining of farms? Such measures would, no doubt, be very unpopular with farmers and landowners. Perhaps that’s why they’re not part of the debate.

Further, a small but vocal minority of rural residents are in apoplexy over the prospect of repealing the Hunting Act. Despite the ConDems pledge chances of the repeal taking place appear to be diminishing. But we cannot assume this is a forgone conclusion. The government, which appears to be unafraid of upsetting significant parts of the electorate, does not want to antagonise unnecessarily its loyal rural supporters. This, I believe, has a lot to do with why the government favours a culling policy; however, its unpopularity and weak scientific justification requires it to pass on the responsibility, cost and implementation to the farmers and landowners who want it. The ConDems want the appearance of supporting the cull but make it difficult, if not impossible, for it to occur. They have already upset those who want to protect badgers. They now run the risk of also antagonising the farmers and landowners who want a cull.

Of course, I have the view that the consumption of meat and dairy products are injurious to human health. I’m a vegan principally because I oppose violence toward animals. I see the health benefits of a non-animal diet as a bonus. Nonetheless, the vast majority of people eat meat, eggs and dairy food. The prospect of a badger cull is ever present.

But science is being used as a cover for the politics of a lose-lose situation. With the badgers and dairy cows with the most to lose. Their lives. What’s needed is a long term solution to address substantially the problem. Killing anything invariably means solves nothing. However much politicians want the science to prove otherwise.

I enjoyed this week’s brief interview in The Guardian with sociologist Zygmunt Bauman. I thought the following was particularly insightful–especially the bit I highlighted. I don’t see why what he has to say below is gloomy at all. It just seems right.

Unlike some sociologists, Bauman’s work is accessible, intellectual and often polemical. His own life – from communist believer to persecuted minority to forensic analyst of everyday life – makes him difficult to categorise. Underlying his theory is the idea that systems make individuals, not the other way round. He says it does not matter whether one is dealing with Communism or consumerism, states want to control their public and reproduce their elites. But in place of totalitarian rule, western society looks to scare and entice by manufacturing public panics and seducing people with shopping. Bauman’s work today focuses on this transition to a nation of consumers, unconsciously disciplined to work endlessly. Those who do not conform, says Bauman, become labelled “human waste” and written off as flawed members of society. This transformation from the “ethics of work to the ethics of consumerism” vexes Bauman. He warns that society has slid from “the ideals of a community of responsible citizens to those of an aggregate of satisfied, and therefore self-interested, consumers“. Little wonder perhaps that his critics describe Bauman as “gloomy”.

The BBC reports in No plans for hunting ban vote before 2012, MPs say:

There will not be a House of Commons vote on repealing the Hunting Act before 2012, the BBC understands. MPs close to the campaign admit they do not have the numbers at the moment to win a vote and say the PM will only call one when he knows it can be won. The MPs said a well-organised campaign was under way at Westminster to try to win new supporters to the cause. A list has been drawn up of people thought to be persuadable – and they are being wined and dined. One of the MPs involved in the operation said that it would take at least another year before enough people have been won over, which is why no vote is being planned before early 2012. The coalition government has promised to hold a free vote on repealing the Act at some stage during the five year term.

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You know Britain is seriously at risk from a slash-and-burn and shock-and-awe ConDem coalition government when even the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds runs a campaign to protest against spending cuts. As good as the RSPB is it can hardly be characterised as an organisation which you would expect to see at the barricades, is it?

Guardian columnist George Monbiot writes about how the “built environment makes us.” I know from my experiences that the place where I am greatly affects the mood I become. I link the version of the article on his Web site because it includes the references. Here’s a quote to inspire you to read it all.

We are, to a surprising extent, what the built environment makes us. Academic papers show that many of the problems we blame on individual behaviour are caused in part by the places in which we live. People are more likely to help their neighbours in quiet areas, for example, than in noisy ones. A long series of studies across several countries, beginning in San Francisco in 1969, shows unequivocally that communities become weaker as the volume of traffic on their streets increases.

I am haunted by a dream that I live in a country which is run by a government that was never elected; which is implementing a legislative program that was never put to the people at a general election; which consists of a second chamber that is unelected; which is commented upon by a media that is compliant; and which enjoys the support of those whose entitlements are mostly hereditary or, at least, class based and, therefore, natural to them and no one else.

Last night I went to a celebration of the Gay Liberation Front at Charleston called “A Gay Outing.” GLF was founded in London in 1970 one year after the Stonewall Inn riots in Manhattan, New York City. Charleston was the Sussex home of Vanessa Bell whose sister was Virginia Woolf. Charleston was a family home where what has become known as “Bloomsbury” artists, writers, intellectuals and others stayed. It was place in the first half of the twentieth century where people were free to have the heterosexual and homosexual relationships they wanted to have. And, therefore, an appropriate place to celebrate GLF.

The evening was particularly interesting because the panel discussion at the end of the program focussed on the origins and first days of the GLF and the context and times in which these events occurred. The discussion also contrasted that period with the present, including speculation under the ConDems coalition government whether any of the progress made for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people could be undone.

Listening to the discussion I was struck by the arc of time from what it was like to live in the UK as gay people in the 1970s to the present and how this span can be only fully appreciated when it is described by those who have lived it. I learnt from writing Animal Dharma that I believed at the time I got involved with the animal rights movement in the mid-1970s that I was in on its beginning. This, of course, is far from the truth as there was much that happened prior to my involvement. This was something I didn’t want to know and my adolescent arrogance wouldn’t have permitted. Today, I feel very differently and regret the animal rights movement pays very little attention to its past. This saddens me for no other reason other than we can learn from past mistakes which I see repeated all the time.

So, last night’s panel, which included historian Jeffrey Weeks, writer Elizabeth Wilson and transsexual activist Roz Kaveney, talked about how 40 years ago a radical GLBT social movement was born when GLF was founded. This discussion recognised, however, that there were individuals (e.g., Antony Grey) and organisations (e.g., Committee for Homosexual Equality) which pre-existed them but whose strategies were more focussed on legislative change and not on cultural and societal change as GLF was.

All of this led to a fascinating discussion about social movements and how they’re structured and organised, function and disfunction. I was intrigued by the comments made by Jeffrey Weeks about Antony Grey and CHE. He said his view of them had changed from 40 years ago when he thought they were conservative and irrelevant (my phrase, not his) to today when he recognised the vital and unique role they played as part of an essential comprehensive strategy. For example, GLF created the cultural space for people to love those of the same sex but CHE played a key role in helping to change the law so that same-sex among consenting adults became legal.

One of the panelists spoke about history moving forward “gradually and contradictorily.” This point rings so true for me. Further, I think it can be only appreciated with an understanding of the complex nature of social movements and how such a complex being as human society changes. We may well be on the cusp of a new time when the hard-fought for victories for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people are undone by a conservative government rolling back the state under the banner of alleged much-needed financial cutbacks. I was struck by Roz Kaveney who questioned the impact on transgendered people, who rely upon the National Health Service to meet their needs with surgery and medication, and the ConDem’s push to privatise the NHS. Some consolation was made in the remarks of one person who thought that the significant change in a positive cultural attitude toward gay issues could not be undone by any occasional but nonetheless determined political counter move.

What has all this got to do with the animal rights movement? Plenty. For a start, one speaker spoke last night about how diverse the gay world is today ranging from any number of polar opposites in political, social and economic perspectives. I thought this should be seen as a strength because it more accurately reflected the complexity of our society thereby making it more likely for it to move forward as one entity toward a progressive outlook. This diversity should, I think, be reflected in the animal advocacy movement. It’s strength is learning how to balance strategically and programmatically the utopian vision of animal rights on the one hand and the pragmatic politics of animal welfare on the other. It’s a tension where each side needs the other in order to move forward. There are always going to be those who are invested in one and attack the other. But I think an appreciation of each side’s strengths and weaknesses and how they could be complemented with insight and vision would make all the difference.

I left Charleston thinking that there are lessons we should learn from the past of not only those who campaign for animals but also those in other social movements like GLBT.