THE THYLAZINE FOUNDATION: ARTS, ETHICS AND LITERATURE

By Dr. Coral Hull

The Thylazine Foundation is a company operating as a small non-profit organisation that promotes arts and literature in Australia and that publishes Thylazine: The Australian Journal of Arts, Ethics & Literature. The organisation serves the double purpose of promoting philanthropy amongst the creative arts community. It invites creative practitioners to serve the greater community through the initiation and/or support of various charitable projects. Where The Thylazine Foundation differs from a lot of other creative arts organisations in Australia , is that it operates from a basis of ethics which incorporates veganism or animal rights as part of its infrastructure. This is implemented in two ways:

ETHICS IN CONTENT

As a supporter and promoter of the creative arts and ethics in Australia , The Thylazine Foundation and Thylazine has a policy of “Ethics in Content” written in the Submission Guidelines. This stipulates the kind of creative arts and literature that will or will not be promoted in Thylazine or by The Thylazine Foundation via online publication or other means of production and promotion.

The Thylazine Foundation Submission Guidelines state the following; The Thylazine Foundation reserves the right to reject any material that they believe consists of racist, sexist or speciesist language or other language of derogatory description or unwarranted and unnecessary discrimination, or where the content contains undertones that may be misleading or defamatory in nature. Thylazine and The Thylazine Foundation were established to operate from an ethical principal and to explore ethics, where no life is degraded or suffers through the pursuit of human knowledge, creative art or entertainment. Your consideration of these fundamental principals is appreciated.

Thylazine is essentially an arts and literary ezine and therefore we are not publishers of political works. Anyone is welcome to contribute, however, we ask them to be mindful and respectful of the lives of others, so that during their contribution and creative process, they do not intentionally violate the rights and lives of children, indigenous people, the opposite sex, animals, people from other countries, the environment etc. We are not adverse to creative artists exploring their own ideas on violence and cruelty, but only in so far as others are not negatively affected or exploited during the process, or as part of the content itself. For example; I may publish a poem where a poet explores their feelings about being thrown from a horse and where they begin to notice the horse (without the rider and without sitting on the horse's back) in an entirely different way. But I will not publish a poem where a poet celebrates the riding, “breaking-in”, racing, show jumping or other deliberate exploitation of horses.

Despite the perpetual promotion of cruel exploits such as blatant forms of animal abuse, racism and sexism by those who are in control of the mass media, this kind of cruelty is not a given in this society and it never will be, so long as there are people to genuinely oppose violence by living a cruelty-free lifestyle.

From an ethical standpoint, it is not acceptable to promote racist literature or write about murdering and eating children for pleasure, so why should it be acceptable to write and promote the murdering other sentient beings and eating them for pleasure? There were originally a number of protests, mainly coming from Australian poets, who felt that their liberty and freedom to express themselves was being restricted by Thylazine's Submission Guidelines. In the minds of these people, freedom of artistic expression apparently means the freedom to inflict cruelty upon others, in which case they are better off writing for The Australian Meat Industry or The Australian Dairy Corporation.

Thylazine is an artistic and literary ezine, however, we do not condone subject matter that involves cruelty towards, or the exploitation of animals, for the sake of art and nor do we publish literature or art that promotes these activities through its acceptance of them. We are not living in a world where artists can freely exploit others for the sake of personal creativity. Who was it that said; “The highest form of art is love.” While art does not have to be overtly political, if we do not have love and empathy within the creator, then we will have little more than another form of shallow self-centred narcissism.

VEGANISM IN CHARITY

The Thylazine Foundation's other purpose is to instill a sense of philanthropy within creative artists, where they either donate money to The Thylazine Foundation's community orientated projects, or initiate their own projects which we advertise online and free of charge. Over the past several years the Thylazine Foundation with the valued assistance of a small number of creative practitioners has distributed 14 synthetic felt akubra hats and sunscreen, as well as 250 vegan Solstice/ Christmas hampers to kids and their families from disadvantaged circumstances in Palmerston (a small city south of Darwin), through the local branch of The Salvation Army, who allowed us to distribute on their premises. The hampers consisted of various good quality vegan foods and products. The reason for the distribution of synthetic felt hats, cruelty free products and vegan food (rather than animal corpses) is twofold.

Firstly, the distribution of food that has not caused the suffering of animals is compatible with what charitable organisations stand for and that is to make the world a better place for all beings. Why non-human animals would be excluded from this worldview is beyond me, since they are just as much a part of this world as any of us are. Too often I have seen the larger charitable organisations running fund raising events that involved the frying and sale of murdered animals, through sausage sizzles and barbecues, in order to raise money to feed the disadvantaged yet more animal carcass! I have thought to myself, what's the point of assisting one life (such as a disadvantaged child) while destroying another life (a murdered calf)? I am sure that the children would not like it, if they knew that money had been raised through cruelty towards animals and the killing of animals. This general lack of awareness displayed by these charitable organisations, quickly turns into a form of blatant hypocrisy, where one life is destroyed for the benefit of another. On a holistic and ethical level this does not make sense. Why kill one life to save another, when you can save many lives at the same time by choosing to make the fundraiser a vegan event? There is no good reason not to have a vegan barbecue and by insisting that veganism be the basis of an organisation's charitable fundraiser and community work, that organisation instantly doubles its positive and caring actions in the world.

The second reason, is one of basic responsibility for the nutritional and health needs of disadvantaged people in the community. Charities that distribute food to the needy are obligated to make sure that these people receive adequate nutrition, which is why we chose good quality vegan food. The bulk of the food that is distributed by major charities in Australia is of a relatively low standard, often laden with wheat, gluten, dairy and/or other animal products. It is lacking in nutrition and contains various chemicals, preservatives and additives, that may cause allergic reactions and other serious medical problems that may lead to death. It has also caused cruelty and death to animals. While people are being fed, we need to look at to what cost this occurs to their personal health and therefore the cost to society, as a result of inadequate nutrition and poor dietary habits, resulting in various ongoing medical problems. A charitable organisation is meant to alleviate an existing problem, not create a set of new ones. The act of service and charity within the community is an educational process and introducing good quality organic vegan food into the lives of disadvantaged individuals and their families, allows them to experience an ethical and healthy alternative to what has been offered by charity in the past.

There is no reason why charities and non-profit charitable organisations cannot distribute large quantities of bulk vegan healthfood to those in need. There are companies in Australia such as Pureharvest and Orgran that provide such opportunities for locally grown and manufactured good quality organic vegan food. Many families in dire situations are lacking the staples such as rice, oats, soymilk, beans, legumes, pulses, lentils, nuts and seeds. The distribution of these kinds of foods means that families are eating foods that are of benefit to their health. It also includes supporting local Australian companies in their vegan food lines such as Pureharvest, Orgran, E.C Choate and The Australian Nougat Company, who have all assisted The Thylazine Foundation in its charitable work in the Northern Territory by providing freight, products at a manufacturers or wholesale price and/ or the actual products themselves.

The Thylazine Foundation distributes good quality vegan food hampers to kids and their families from disadvantaged circumstances in The Top End of Australia. I believe in giving people who are less fortunate something to brighten up their day and to let them know that they are cared about by other people. In this case we seek to instill and promote “care” and “service” within the creative arts community in Australia . The fact that the food is vegan, means that not only are people being fed good healthy food, but that no animal has had to suffer pain, or even lose their lives, for a worthwhile cause. There is simply “no good reason to be cruel to animals” in order to operate charities. We can conduct our charitable work as vegans, in which case, everybody wins.

Dr. Coral Hull is an established writer and artist who has produced 50 books. She is The Director of The Thylazine Foundation: Arts, Ethics & Literature.

http://www.thylazine.org