“We are not going to deal with the violence in our communities, our homes, and our nation, until we learn to deal with the basic ethic of how we resolve our disputes and to place an emphasis on peace in the way we relate to one another.” ~ Marian Wright Edelman
The South African Animal Welfare sector, and more specifically the companion animal sector, is characterised by conflict.
Conflict is a disagreement in which the parties involved perceive a threat to their needs, interests or concerns, and it is unavoidable in a world where such needs, interests or concerns are mutually exclusive. Conflict can be resolved without confrontation when the parties choose to engage in a rational manner.
It is the nature of the companion animal sector, however, that these differences are not dealt with amicably. Instead the manner in which conflicts are handled include malicious gossip more often than not based on rumour or fabrication, character assassinations, disinvestment which often includes influencing others to disinvest and in most cases without due justification, condemnation based on a single or a few instances, and various other typically unethical and somewhat adolescent practices. People who do these things need to grow up, and the fact that many also do these things ‘behind the backs’ of those they seek to discredit means they also need to grow a backbone…
What I found most disconcerting was that it seemed to me that the parties practicing these destructive behaviours had decided that the people they had chosen to malign were the ‘enemy’, and I think this is not only a misconception but it is also a cancer that prevents animal welfare from focusing on the real enemies because so many are investing time and energy on seeking the demise of other animal welfare organisations and individuals. I call it a cancer because the manner I which cancer operates is that, having separated itself from the entity in which it was first created, it then regards the ‘host’ as ‘not me’ and directs all resources to the propagation of itself, to the detriment and final destruction of the host.
What gives rise to this perception? Competition for resources, philosophical differences, practical consequences of actions, and personality clashes all play their part, and it makes for a brew of great complexity. These clashes are not irreconcilable, but there is no way any of the current tactics employed by some people will lead to sustainable solutions – they merely feed the conflict…
We need to recognise that other welfare organisations and people are not the enemy. While there may be people who get into AW for personal and selfish reasons, for the most part people get involved because they care about animals. And yes some people make mistakes and others need education and the sector is far from perfect. But going to war against individuals and organisations will not solve the problem, because the nett effect is that instead of building capacity and developing a sustainable procedural standard, we marginalise people and chase them away.
The real internecine enemies are a little less tangible but nevertheless recognisable as soon as we apply our minds to the issue:
1. Ignorance
Ignorance is the most pervasive and most significant element affecting the current companion animal crisis, and it will not help to criticise the ignorance of others. Education, whether it be hands-on in nature, or explanation of the large-scale effects of certain practices, is the only solution.
2. Immediate Emotional Gratification
In many cases, people conduct themselves in a manner that makes them feel gratified, to the detriment of others and often to the detriment of the animals. This emotional ‘knee-jerk’ is often prejudicial, especially given the scarcity of resources in the animal welfare sector.
3. Incompetence
Sometimes incompetence is a consequence of ignorance. In other cases it results from a lack of application, which may itself come from poor motivation. While incompetence should not be tolerated, it should be corrected, and while it’s difficult to see how it can be justifiable to defend the incompetent, we do need to exhort people to improve, and if necessary assist them to do a better job.
4. Lack of Respect and Consideration for others
I am often amazed at the degree to which people are willing to indulge in personal attacks, and I wonder about the internal anger felt by these people and their need to express such in condemnation of others, often knowing little about them. We need to point out such disrespect and, if it continues, avoid people who are willing to continue such destructive behaviour.
5. Double Standards
The amount of time and energy some people are willing to invest in passing judgement on others while seemingly oblivious to their own shortcomings is symptomatic of a lack of introspection. I often tell students that the person whose thinking they should question most often is their own, and many in animal welfare seem blissfully unaware that their own thinking and motivations may be less than ideal.
These are the real enemies within that threaten to counteract all the good done in animal welfare, and it’s not as if we do not have enough problems to focus on: puppy mills, pet shops, backyard breeders, animal abuse, bad legislation, poor policing, dog fighting, dog smuggling, fireworks et al give us plenty to invest our time fighting without fighting amongst ourselves.
WHY we disagree
“Peace is not the absence of conflict but the presence of creative alternatives for responding to conflict – alternatives to passive or aggressive responses, alternatives to violence” – Dorothy Thompson
It is the necessity for Change that drives disagreement. Change is the only constant, and it is the adjustments we see as necessary in the context of the current reality that give rise to disagreement. But disagreement does not necessarily need to lead to conflict.
I was dumbfounded by someone telling me that they disagreed with me when they had not read the article in question! How it’s even remotely possible to do so is beyond me. Similarly, I was told by someone else that I ‘discredited’ them (I had not; still haven’t) because they disagreed with me. When I asked them to delineate how exactly they disagreed, they did not respond. It seems some think that just stating that you disagree is enough.
It isn’t. If you disagree with someone you have an obligation to explain specifically why you disagree and then take responsibility for your opinion by allowing a rebuttal to it. If you have a right to state your opinion, anyone has a right to state their opinion about your opinion, and so on…
Telling someone you think them to have a certain personality trait is always irrelevant and unreasonable unless the subject under discussion is their character.
We disagree about the necessity of change, the answer to the question, ‘WHY should we change?’ Given that everything else is changing, it seems unlikely that anything you could be involved in would not require change. But the existence of undesirable outcomes makes change necessary and in the animal welfare sector we have plenty of those.
The next thing we differ about is WHAT needs changing. For example, some believe that all animal welfare needs is more people and more resources. This is the ‘capacity building’ argument and it is not one I subscribe to for the simple reason that the capacity growth requirements are too large to be practicable and secondly because this will do nothing to affect the inputs into the system. Unless we slow the breeding volumes, growing capacity will still leave us addressing symptoms of overpopulation. In effect, and increase in rescue and rehoming capacity helps to address symptoms but not root causes.
HOW to effect the change is the next source of conflict. Is it sufficient to enact sterilisation legislation? Is legislation a magic wand? What about the prohibitive cost of sterilisation? Are there enough vets and is there enough money to cope with the demand created by sterilisation legislation? Is sterilisation always beneficial? What about regulation of animal traders and animal welfare organisations? While all of these are unknown or debatable, they are negotiable, and such negotiation should always be rational; the silliness of the common tactics above should be self-evident. They are ‘common’ in more ways than one.
WHO will effect the changes becomes an important issue: there are many players involved and breeders, vets, the SAVC and SAVA, Government, politicians and animal welfare workers all have a role to play. To exclude any of these is to adopt a simplistic approach which will be unlikely to meet with success. These changes are not going to happen on Facebook or in emails….
WHEN and WHERE are important considerations with regard to the scope of legislation, the role of police and inspectors, and local reporting and accountability mechanisms.
ALL of these can and should be discussed, but ideally in forums where there are terms and conditions of interaction and the parties involved have the necessary understanding and expertise to influence the targeted outcomes.
The infighting and irrationality that is so pervasive serves only to distract us from our goals and serves also to undermine the completely rational prerequisite that AWSA needs to get united behind the goals it CAN agree on. It does not matter that we disagree on many issues; it does matter that we can succeed only if we act, in the eyes of the government and the public, as a concerted, committed, unified whole.
So the next time you see someone conducting character assassinations, spreading malicious gossip, influencing you to disinvest in an organisation or individual based on a single instance or rumour, or any other prejudicial attitude or action, ask them to qualify their opinion with facts, and ignore them if they cannot do so. It’s time we stopped the cancer from spreading…
Derek du Toit