Detailed information
Civil Disobedience and Confrontational Reform Campaigns English talk by Martin Balluch (Austria)
Don Bosco Saal: Main hall, ground floor
How we got a ban on the shooting of bred animals in Austria.
Some groups and people in the animal advocacy movement suggest we should only approach the individual and persuade them to change their ways by vegan outreach. Others try to publish particularly cruel abuses of animals by humans or organise creative public events, both to change personal attitudes by spreading the word through media. These approaches are important, but they are missing a very important ingredient: the political dimension. In order to change society in the way it disrespects nonhuman animals, we also need political campaigning directly geared towards companies or political decision makers to change the system in society. These campaigns need to be confrontational, since there can be no change without a struggle, as the animal movement is up against a huge industry with big profits, which is not open to good ethical arguments only. In Austria in the last 2 years, VGT has run a confrontational reform campaign to achieve a ban on the hunting of animals bred for that purpose. The talk will provide a summary of all actions and an analysis of the campaign strategy used, to argue for more civil disobedience and confrontational campaigning as means of the animal movement to achieve successes.