The orca 'Tilikum' in an image from March 2011 near trainers at SeaWorld, in Orlando, USA. By then it had already caused the death of three people.Phelan M. Ebenhack (AP Photo/LAPRESSE)
The release of the film
Blackfish
in 2013 showed the world the story of an unruly orca named
Tilikum,
who was kept in captivity and suffered daily mistreatment, like any orca captured for recreational purposes for humans.
In response,
Tilikum
retaliated numerous times, sometimes with lethal consequences.
In 2010, she killed a SeaWorld handler.
Although SeaWorld always downplayed
Tilikum's resistance,
the life reality of this marine mammal and the dangerous working conditions exposed at
Blackfish
did not give the company a good image.
The damage was done.
And the famous orca drew attention to the systemic violence inflicted on marine mammals in captivity and caused a public scandal.
In fact, the media impact of the documentary caused SeaWorld's stock price to plummet.
Tilikum
's fight
demonstrated to a wide audience that animals exert resistance.
But it was not the first time that humans supported marine mammals that had resisted captivity.
For example, in 1960 in London, Billy Smart's circus chartered a boat on the Thames for commercial purposes.
Some of the boat's promotional “props” were animals that were forced to perform, among them was
Fritzi,
a sea lion who did not want to participate in the activity and jumped into the water.
The Association for the Defense of Trained Animals came to
Fritzi
's aid and offered the then considerable sum of 60 pounds to anyone who would help the sea lion achieve freedom.
However, the circus responded to the offer with 100 pounds in exchange for its capture, with the false claim that it was “a warm-water creature from California” that needed protection from the coldness of other oceans.
Fritzi
spent two days swimming in the Thames (which can be as cold as the North Sea) and ate about nine kilos of herring, which were thrown to him from the boats that chased him with trawl nets, while he thwarted any attempt to capture him.
When night fell, he would slide to the shore and rest for a couple of hours.
He did not manage to reach the North Sea.
The circus captured him again and forced him to return to a life in which he only served as entertainment for humans.
Despite the value that humans place on freedom and the ability to choose a path in life, meet basic needs and avoid suffering, our species has deprived other beings with whom it shares the planet of all this.
Large-scale hunting, confinement and killing of many animals occurs every minute.
They use them as instruments for war, for experimentation and for entertainment.
In addition, countless species suffer the consequences of fires, droughts and other environmental disasters caused by humans.
Labeled as “commodities” and “property,” they are denied the most basic necessities of life: the right to socialize, to have shelter and privacy, and to consume healthy food and water.
There have been many attempts to justify the subordination of our fellow human beings.
The influence of Descartes' thought has led many to mistakenly consider other animals to be mere biological machines that act by reflex and are incapable of experiencing suffering, pain or pleasure.
Some reasoning still assumes that humans are the only species with a relevant social life and intentional motivation.
Others suggest that consuming animals is acceptable simply “because we can.”
These anthropocentric justifications exclude non-human animals from ethical treatment for arbitrary reasons.
That we can do something or that we have always done it does not justify from a moral point of view that we should continue doing it (in fact, if we look back at the history of humanity, we will identify many behaviors that at the time were considered normal and that now they seem atrocious to us).
For animals, their life is important.
By denying these rights to individuals like
Tilikum
and
Fritzi,
we humans cause immense suffering.
Unlike when there was a “wild state,” understood as one characterized by diversity and symbiotic relationships, the dawn of civilization led to a hierarchical society where the human animal placed itself at the highest point of the world. food chain.
Anthropologist Layla AbdelRahim explains that the emergence of industrial civilization, after the agricultural revolution, led to a critical shift in the consciousness of humans, who became absolute predators.
For 200,000 years, systematic slaughter of animals was not recorded, but, with the decline of egalitarian societies and the transition from the hunter-gatherer economy to the agricultural society, the concept of property appeared.
By capturing and confining cows, sheep, pigs, camels and goats, a powerful minority managed to place themselves above the rest.
By abandoning the idea that the human being was nothing more than one organism among many others, humans began to see themselves as an exceptional and civilized entity.
Not only did we differ from other animals, but we placed ourselves in a higher position than them and were capable of domesticating, colonizing and commodifying sentient beings.
Domestication, colonization and capitalism progressively shaped contemporary human and non-human relations.
The domestication of animals, whose appearance is usually dated between 10,000 and 8,000 BC, paved the way for Europe to exercise global domination.
Colonization, in turn, depended on the work of animals for militarization, their slaughter for the supply of food, and their grazing to expand the scope of land appropriation.
At the end of the 16th century, the conquest of less valued humans and animals, conceptualized as property, facilitated the emergence of global capitalism.
Widespread looting of precious metals, sugar, and animal products such as fat and hides fueled the new capitalist system.
The globalized campaign to seize resources increased the flow of goods, services and work across borders.
The change in self-awareness that had revolutionized subsistence strategies ended up favoring institutionalized violence in slaughterhouses, on farms, in laboratories, in amusement parks and in circuses.
It is in the context of human domination that the phenomenon of social and political resistance of animals against human oppressors arises.
Despite their excessive exploitation in the globalized capitalist economy, animals' own interests persist.
Both captives and free people have always resisted human oppression.
Although many have fought for liberation and justice for centuries, as sociologist David Nibert points out, their efforts have barely gone down in history, regardless of the success or failure of their actions.
By documenting this rebellion, I aim to contribute to filling that void and placing non-human animals at the center of their struggle for liberation.
Sarat Colling
(Hornby Island, Canada, 1984) is a sociologist and activist.
This excerpt is a preview of her book
Her Animal Insurrection.
Extraordinary stories of rebellion and resistance in the age of capitalism
, from Errata naturae, which is published this February 26.
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