We asked Mariana Cerovečki guitarist of the Brainfuckers about the importance of vegan intersectionalism

Why is intersectional ethical veganism is ‘the way to go’? What’s most important to you in ethical veganism?

We asked:

Mariana Cerovečki the guitarist of the Brainfuckers, vegan band from Zagreb, Croatia:

“I think the most important part is to be active in all parts of oppression: veganism, animal rights, human rights. We cannot fight for a better world if we forget about the suffering of humans also. That is why we sing about animal rights but also about human rights (poverty, injustice, LGBTIQ rights, feminism, etc.). We want people to make the connection and fight in every movement where there is oppression and injustice. As for veganism, of course for us the most important part is animal freedom and abolition of animal exploitation, empty cages and nothing less!”

Brainfuckers – The Torture

every day
brings another torture
let them stare again and again
it wont be long
until we all
face the same
reality

it wont be long
until we fade away

I can’t sleep no more
I used to dream of freedom and family
but who am I now?
another victim of reality

how does it feel
to be alive?

how does it feel
to be alive?

the terrible creatures arrive
the terrible creatures arrive
the terrible creatures arrive
to shut down another life

they say there is no meaning to my life
they say there is no meaning for my body

the terrible creatures arrive
the terrible creatures arrive
the terrible creatures arrive

and now we’re falling together in
death

I can’t sleep no more
I can’t sleep no more
I used to dream of freedom and family
but who am I now?
another victim of reality

how does it feel
to be alive?

how does it feel
to be alive?

the terrible creatures arrive
the terrible creatures arrive
the terrible creatures arrive
to shut down another life

Lyrics: Mariana Cerovečki. Performed by: Mato Kutlić, Staša Pintarić, Mariana Cerovečki and Martina Šaravanja.

Mariana Cerovečki, apart from being a vegan musician, is also a visual artist Animal Rights Art and anti-speciesist activist as the founder and head of Stop Specizmu, tweeting @marianavegan.

Veganic plus Animal Sanctuaries plus Ethics

Veganic plus Animal Sanctuaries plus Ethics

There so far is no such thing as a “positive” veganic (which means: organic vegan agriculture) Animal Rights consciousness.

Not taking into consideration that nonhuman animals must be helped by all possible means, here looks to me like a form of speciesism might be lurking in the background, since if humans where in a comparable plight, anybody who would describe him-/herself as a non- misanthrope would help the humans in question.

What I am mainly interested in is:

Why doesn’t it occur to vegans and the veganic (vegan organic) movement, that humans and nonhuman animals can co-exist, can co-live without exploitation, as an option?

I have looked at various veganic projects, and as far as one can see, “animal rights” only plays a role in the way, that exploitation and usage of animals and animal products / fertilizer derived from animals is non-permitted, on ethical grounds, mainly. Hence, these people are VEGANS, and not just any people avoiding animal products: They avoid animal exploitation. That’s the Animal Rights part of the veganic movement.

But apart from that, the very nonhuman animals that we as VEGANS want to HELP, don’t come in or become visible or noticed as beings that we are willing to live together with, that we are willing to share the earth with. As if the soil and the forests were ours to use, ours to live on, ours to say what’s right to do with it (“it” … that is: nature).

Billions of animals

Of course the forceful exploitation of the reproductive system of animals has to stop. Of course any form of overpopulation is bad for anybody and this planet. But the lives, that didn’t chose to come into this world, the lives that just happen to find themselves here – we do have to ethically respect the fact that these individuals exist.

Sanctuaries and vegan farming should merge I believe! To cut a long “story” short and practical.

But back to veganic-ism as it is

There is the mention of using human manure and faeces for fertilization (apart from the much more promising sounding self-fertilizing gardening methods which exist in veganicism too of course). But if people are willing to use their own manure, as part of the biological process of vegan agriculture, can’t the idea of “the sanctuary” and the idea of a newly veganic option be created in peoples minds? People can tolerate their own manure somewhere, but not another (nonhuman) animal’s manure? I think we cannot say that it is speciesist and exploitative if both humans and nonhuman animals live together in a natural space without harming or exploiting or using each other.

We as vegans ought to LIVE together with the other animals on this planet, in a peaceful manner, in mixed communities. If we can’t develop a consciousness for that, we fail at creating a (more complete) positive ethic. It’s enormously tragic that we let the speciesist view of “animals, us and the world” win insofar, that this view manages to inspire us vegans not to willingly plan to live together with the so called farm animals in a vegan, caring manner, with a strong will to co-exist.

Are the only options we can chose from the one of degrading nonhuman animals or otherwise totally excluding them, and making them nonexistent in a (desired utopian) daily reality? No, really, because this planet is also an animals’ planet!

Ethics … To me the veganic movement makes itself look as if it creates and expresses a bifurcation in what veganism ideally should mean. As good at it looks now and as much as such farming practices are heading for the major part in a promising and important and ethically inevitable direction, the veganic code of ethics nevertheless ignores an important factor and that is, again, to include all animals in a life affirming way.

This fallacy in the veganic vegan understanding makes vegans overall look as if this movement was basically about clearing nonhuman animals in their positives – and as living facts and individual fates – simply out of our lives!

I think there is morally something going drastically wrong with us.

This text as a PDF (link opens in a new window)

Anti-Speciesist angles

Anti-Speciesism, another angle

tc7

Making Anti-Speciesism itself a subject

We rightly want to ask people to do more than donate money to animal advocacy groups. We rather hope that people make others aware of veganism – in ethical terms. So only or mainly talking about vegan health and cooking (for instance) isn’t doing the job (far less is promoting vegan consumerism).

In which way to thematize speciesism?

1. By comparison …

A lot of the drawings of analogies are taken in reference to racism and sexism. In the discussions though the weight tends to lay more on the specifics of racist and sexist psychology, in those analogies, than on the juxtaposed speciesist type of psychological mindsets.

2. With cases …

On the other hand activists who discuss actual on the spot atrocities that are taking place and which mark those faces of speciesism, they do show the sheer extremes of killing, and those extremes again can’t be directly compared with other forms of discrimination. (At least we are confronted here with the fact that every category of an atrocity has own contextualities.)

How do you thematize speciesism?

In the frame of human anthropology? Or by comparing biological observations and findings on nonhuman / humans … ? Sociologically?

How?

My first suggestion is – cos I really do see that too little we describe how speciesism psychologically works in practice, is: let us have a look at the HOW’S of how speciesism manifests in basically many varying forms.

This is a highly fragmentary list for going into that direction:

Many forms of speciesism

Objectifying nonhuman animals takes various forms:

– in legal terms nonhumans are classified as property

– in religious terms the separation is being made spiritually, man is preferred and given the right to dominate all that is on earth

– philosophical schools may give an array of different reasons for why whichever form of speciesism might be ethically sound or a right view to maintain

– the natural sciences differentiate between beings driven by instinct, the lower forms of life, the higher forms and man with the supposedly most complex make up of mind and brain.

– carnism could be said to be a term for one form of speciesism that classifies domesticated farm animals only (or finally, as in the case of horses and some exotic animals that are eaten such as ostriches) as “meat” or suppliers of food.

– pets on the other side are. in spite of being loved by our society, also affected by speciesist views on them.

– wild animals are forced to make up the object for hunters and hunting culture’s needs to re-exercise continuously the idea of a primeval and supposedly ideal condition of man as the hunter and gatherer.

– but also wild animals are affected by argumentations that target them in terms of whether they are intrusive species or should be seen as protectable.

For every animal species we seem to get one or more forms of speciesist views, classifications, argumentations. In every aspect that defines the human view on his or her environment we seem to come across a derogative stance on nonhumans.

When we discuss speciesism we should bear in mind how complex and difficult to analyze the subjugative view on animal life is in our cultures and societies.

***

I think taking a direct look at the cloaked psychology behind speciesism (itself), we can get closer to the framework that enables a speciesist society in the first place.

With ‘cloaked psychology’ I don’t mean a model such as it was discussed with the ‘carnism’-term, which focussed on two forms of speciesism basically: pets that are loved, yet have no rights, and so called farm animals that are being killed for “food”, and have of course also no rights.

With ‘cloaked psychology’ I mean questions of why as a fact human traits are values over nonhuman animal traits, or the same goes for ‘interests’, features, attributes, realities, etc.

By breaking down the probably manifold components of the speciesist framework, we can find our way through a mess of a collective-psychological character, I think.

Artwork by Farangis G Yegane

vegan, animal rights, animal liberation, bands (15-27 July notes / bookmarks)

In Short:

this is such a sloppy list, sorry for that …

Faktion Ravachol – Commando de Liberation Animale,
Kochise F.L.A (Front de Liberation Animale)

DAVAÏ ! — A.L.F. Animal Liberation Front, more

Gattaca – Ve Jménu Pokroku / Kríže Na Čele, vegan hardcore, czech republic

xNunca es Tardex – Compasión, vegan sxe panama, facebook

IRON – vegan sxe sweden, http://xironx.bandcamp.com/, facebook

No love for a nation 7″ by Landverraad http://landverraad.bandcamp.com/ vegan netherlands punk, harcore lyrics

Hello Bastards, vegan sxe uk http://hellobastards.bandcamp.com/

Vegan Punk Norway: URBANOIA – Svart Sement – July 2013 release

Noose – vegan sxe from chicago on http://theveganstraightedge.bandcamp.com/, facebook

holy – holyvegan – http://holyvegan.tumblr.com – vegan band from milan italy

Black Kites / Swallowed Up split LP by Black Kites, Swallowed Up – http://listen.hydrogenmanrecords.com//a> vegan punk sxe philadelphia

Dying / Less Life split LP, june 2013 release

Axidance – anarchist,crust, punk, dark hardcore, vegan, russia http://axidance.bandcamp.com/

Forever Young, vegan, sweden, urmea “Their lyrics are about straight edge, the hardcore scene, the vegan way of life and their hometown’s local scene, Umea. Cool lyrics, in general! Forever Young appears in ‘Edge, The Movie'” – source

RxExSx. Racismo. Especismo. Seximo. Es lo mismo! RxExSx from Fragä – “s​/​t” Demo k7 2012 by fragä

У вас глаза зашиты by Освенцим Для Любимых – http://osvencimdl.bandcamp.com/ diy January 2013 release, vegan hardcore russia

Lawine – Not A Plea For Generosity, vegan punk netherlands, http://lawine.bandcamp.com/

KONTRAGOLPE, hardcore vegan metal bogota colombia, liberation animal

NO I​.​C​.​E. by ATRUTH by (A)TRUTH, vegan nyc brooklyn, http://atruth.bandcamp.com, facebook, animal liberation demo 2009

ECOWAR: Animal Rights, ADM 2010

Vicious Irene – Animal Liberation, Sweden, feminism

Animal Liberation from Hacia el Amanecer de Nuestros Sueños by Cenizas

Por Los Que No Tienen Voz, VA, Animal Liberation, Liberation Aninal, Guatemala

The Death of Ideas from Poison Planet​/​Government Flu split EP by Poison Planet – vegan hardcore chicago, facebook, http://poisonxplanet.tumblr.com/

Songs Of Existence by Gab De La Vega, sxe vegan italy

NO PART – Finnish Straight Edge Hardcore – http://nopart.bandcamp.com/, animal rights. “Hardcore punk band from Finland with an interest in (but not limited to) the straight edge, friendship, human and animal rights.”

X Species Traitor X – Pro​-​Life, Anti​-​Human, http://speciestraitor.bandcamp.com vegan finland queer hardcore

Nunca Es Tarde, vegan panama – Hardcore. Punk. Straight Edge. facebook, and