Did We Invite The Animal Rights Murder?
May 13, 2002
CHURCHVILLE, VA—A vegan animal-rights militant, Volkert van der Graaf, is charged with the May 6th assassination of Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn. So much for the general impression that vegetarians and animal rights activists are gentle, slightly quirky, but “well-meaning.”
The Dutch extremist thereby joins ranks with the Sept. 11 al Qaeda airline hijackers, the whole series of Palestinian homicide bombers and the black-clad “anarchist” shock troops of the anti-globalization movement. All have decided that their moral judgments justify taking the rights—even the lives—of others.
Volkert van der Graaf consumes no animal products—not even honey, because that would exploit bees. In college, he agitated to eliminate research experiments using laboratory animals bred for the purpose. But his respect for life didn’t prevent him from shooting a legal candidate for public office five times.
We don’t know all the issues that led him to murder. Based on his Internet ramblings, banning the Netherland’s intensive hog farming was a leading passion. He may have also been upset by Fortuyn’s campaign call for the Netherlands to resume fur farming.
He wrote on the Internet “People think it normal that you eat animals, and that you let fish suffocate in nets when you catch them. But inside me arose a sense of justice; such things shouldn’t be happening in a civilized country.”
History is full of people who believed their high moral principles gave them some special kind of virtue—and validated forceful actions that interfered with the rights of others. The activist slogan “No compromise in defense of mother earth” is nothing if not a call to action.
I’m fed up with “morality” that leads to murder. If eco-activists resort to violence and murder, they are no better than Hitler’s Nazis—who were also dedicated vegetarians and animal rights believers. Hitler and many of the top Nazis believed in both organic farming and holistic “natural medicine.” Himmler ordered the SS to create “paradises for animals and Nature,” at the death camps, and the guards at Dachau and Esterwegen encouraged nesting storks.
In the 1930’s the Nazis referred to Jews, Slavs, and gypsies as “weeds.” A founder of Greenpeace, Paul Watson, was quoted as saying in 1999 “We, the human species have become a viral epidemic to the earth . . . an AIDS of the earth.” There is an uncomfortable similarity of philosophy.
Too often in recent years, we’ve encouraged “good extremists.” During the Viet Nam era, it was all right to blow up buildings and rob banks “for peace.” More recently, animal rights activists have cheerfully bragged about burning buildings and turning laboratory animals out into the
forest to starve. Bill Clinton literally invited Green activists into the streets of Seattle to disrupt an international conference focused on extending free trade and higher incomes to poor people around the world. The latest Washington street demonstrations by the “anti-globalists” glorified the Palestinian bombers.
Europe applauds its extremists even more loudly, following the concept that science is not the only reality, but only one reality amongst many. This, of course, is then a perfect excuse to reject all technologies that run counter to the extremists “beliefs.” (This includes most high-yield farming technologies.)
Now this has led, indirectly, to murder.
The greatest irony of all is that hog farmers are among the most careful and considerate animal owners in the world. They have to be. Hogs are easily stressed, and when they’re stressed they don’t put on weight.
The hogs in the factory farms van der Graaf hates are probably happier and healthier than the hogs on a typical outdoor farm. Indoor hogs are protected from summer sun (hogs can’t sweat) and winter cold (they don’t have fur). Indoor hogs don’t have to wallow in mud and their own filth to regulate their temperatures. Indoor hogs are usually grown in pens of six or eight animals, which gives them the reassurance of a herd while minimizing the fighting over dominance.
It seems doubtful that young van der Graaf even visited any of the factory farms he chose to hate. It is also doubtful that any citizen of the Netherlands wants to convert its public parks to hog pastures
But we no longer require people to have knowledge. It’s enough that they care.
Van der Graaf probably believes that. He said in an Internet interview that caring about animals is a civilizing influence on people. That was before the murder of Pim Fortuyn, who feared the extremism of Moslem immigrants would destroy Dutch civility.
DENNIS T. AVERY is a senior fellow for Hudson Institute of Indianapolis and the Director of the Center for Global Food Issues. He was formerly a senior policy analyst for the U.S. Department of State. Readers may write him at Post Office Box 202, Churchville, VA 24421
This article was published by Knight Ridder Tribune
Dennis T. Avery is based in Churchville, Va., and is director of global food issues for the Hudson Institute of Indianapolis.
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