Margaret Setter: The Choose Cruelty Free Interview, January 2006

First published in UpDate magazine– the Choose Cruelty Free magazine.

Update: Your 70th birthday was a surprise birthday. Were you surprised that friends, family and animal activists were all there to greet you when you and Ken arrived at your son’s place?

MS: Surprised? That’s scarcely the word to describe how I felt! I was expecting a small family get together, no big deal. When I arrived at Michael and Vanessa’s home I was – how could I put it - overwhelmed to find myself the centre of attention at what was an elaborately organised celebration. Members of my family assisted by generous friends, especially my friend Claudette, had gone to a lot of trouble on my behalf. I was immensely touched and shall never forget their kindness toward me in giving me such a special day.

Update: What are some of the milestones that particularly stand out in your mind across the years with your animal rights work Margaret?

MS: Two major campaigns stand out as significant. The first was the annual duck rescue, initiated by Richard Jones in the late 1970s. Talk about the power of one! Richard didn’t wait until he had a crowd to support him. He and his partner took off for the wetlands, where they peacefully went about their work of rescuing wounded ducks. Both showed enormous courage in undertaking peaceful, non-violent protest against hundreds of armed men far from any help should the situation turn violent.

In 1989 Ken and I participated in our first duck rescue at Barrenbock Swamp, near Griffith, in 1989. Even before dawn, the legal starting time, the shooters were at it, forcing the birds into panicked flight. It was absolutely gut-wrenching to be present, powerless to stop the hideous slaughter, spending an entire day searching for pathetic little creatures, weighing less than 1kg, the eyes of those still barely alive bearing mute testament to their pain and bewilderment.

Ken and I went to the wetlands four more times. After the first occasion we purchased our own kayaks, participating on each occasion as joint members of Animal Liberation and Paddlers for Peace, whose members mounted colourful protests on Sydney Harbour against visiting nuclear warships. Incidentally Ken was alongside Richard Jones when the French turned their pressure hoses on them, an action which angered our water police, not usually noted for their sympathy toward protestors.

The duck rescue went from strength to strength, made possible by the now readily available mobile phone. This technological development made long distance interviews possible, helping build the public opposition so vital to ending the barbaric institution of recreational hunting. Richard Jones, who began the campaign, saw it through to the end. His Private Members Bill, adopted by the NSW Parliament in 1995, in effect banned the open season.

With respect to the second campaign, factory farming, Animal Liberation Australia has been extremely active in this area.

Their commitment to openness and non-violence, I believe, has earned Animal Liberation (all of the groups) media respect. Animal liberationists, who had for so long been dismissed as emotional do-gooders, began to be taken seriously.

When several of us, including myself were arrested and charged with trespass for refusing to leave Parkwood Eggs, in the ACT, our detailed evidence based on experience and solid research stirred Magistrate Ward to deliver a stinging indictment of the battery egg industry. Since that verdict (1995), billions of hens have endured a hellish existence crammed into cages. Billions more will no doubt suffer the same fate. The outcome of that court case was, I believe, a significant milestone. The Magistrates words earned our movement a degree of public respect, however limited. Eleven years on, the animal rights cause is a worldwide phenomenon, embracing millions of people who have elected to follow a way of life, based on vegetarianism/veganism.

Update: What you think is going to be the hardest issue to budge in the
coming years?

MS: Despite my previous answer, it is without a doubt, factory farming. People have never been more mobile. “Turbo capitalism”, fuelled largely by China and India, is creating ever-greater markets for animal flesh and other body products. Thailand vies with the US as the world’s largest pig meat producer. Billions of sows are forced to endure the torture of the dry sow stall, to give birth on a concrete floor in a farrowing crate, so closely confined as to prevent the mother nuzzling her young.

Update: Given growing public awareness of the misery pigs endure, why do so many continue to consume their body parts?

MS: Our hedonistic way of life is kept going by a powerful public relations industry with billions of dollars to spend each year persuading us that the consumption of animal-based products is the key to a happy and fulfilled life. Constant marketing, based on the insights of depth psychology, adjusts the psychology of the individual to harmonize with the needs of the system, which in turn requires constant growth to generate profit.

Millions of people in the developed world recognise the necessity to make the corporations who try to control our lives, accountable to the people. It seems to me that increasing numbers of animal rights activists also understand this. It is this developing awareness that keeps me optimistic about the prospect for meaningful change.

Update: How did you become involved with animal rights work? Was it an extension of your other activist work?

MS: My father was a socialist. A man of his own time and place, he believed only a strong State could override the power of capital to control the lives of working people. When the Australian government introduced conscription for the war in Vietnam, I was twenty-nine years old, a single mother with five small children, four of them little boys, and the eldest only four years old. Vietnam was the target of indiscriminate bombing by the US. I was deeply shocked by the death and suffering inflicted on the Vietnamese people, particularly the little children.

My children and I began participating in the marches, travelling 34Km each way into the city by bus and train. There was a wonderful spirit of camaraderie and solidarity in those marches. I can remember young men coming forward to carry my boys on their shoulders up William Street. Maritime workers refused to load merchant ships carrying offensive weaponry to Vietnam. One evening a young Asian man, most likely an overseas student approached and with great dignity, offered to buy us a soft drink. Responding I hope, in a similar dignified manner, I accepted the freely offered gift. Forty years on I recall that incident as a brief, but meaningful encounter between strangers across a cultural divide at a moment of danger.

Update: Do you think animal liberation will be harder to achieve than say, women's liberation?

MS: There is no doubt women have made significant gains in recent years. For example, many of our gender have achieved a measure of equality with men in terms of expanded “career paths” and “lifestyle choices” that would have been unthinkable to my mother’s generation. Without a doubt the “pill” had a lot to do with this. Its introduction in the 1960s transformed male-female relations, offered reproductive choices to women, enabling them to take advantage of new work opportunities created by technological change.

At the same time I believe many of those gains are illusory or only precariously established at best. Our society, as presently constituted, is ecologically unsustainable. We are gobbling up natural resources without any thought for the needs of future generations. Half the world’s population live in squalor while the other half goes shopping. The answers are complex. I suggest we take an interest in The Public Interest Series, a joint venture between national community organisations and the publishing house Black Inc. These are short books exploring important aspects of democracy, environmental, and indigenous issues. For starters I recommend How Ethical is Australia? Australia’s Record as a Global Citizen, by Peter Singer and Tom Gregg.

Update: How many animals do you have at your house now?

MS: I’m glad you asked me that! At the present moment I happen to have a sweet little longhaired mother cat, white, with one blue and one yellow eye. She has four dear little kittens, all requiring permanent (loving) homes. These little creatures have survived a severe ordeal of neglect but remain friendly and trustful of humans. If there is anyone out there prepared to give a kitten a new start in life my email address is msetter@ipentire.com

My regular animal family consists of one female mastiff pit bull cross, and three yappy little terriers, who have their moments but manage to coexist peaceful together most of the time. I have two cats, who have to sleep outside on the front veranda, after being displaced by three rabbits were in urgent need of a home. The rabbits, I must say, are the most peaceful and least demanding of my extended family.

Update: What are you currently working on for animals?

MS: I continue to work for Animal Liberation NSW now reduced to one day a week. I am also engaged in learning the art of writing book reviews and articles for Claudette’s new online magazine, Abolitionist-Online. www.Abolitionist-online.com

I do a little, very little, to help save our precious iconic animal, the kangaroo. I urge everyone to read wonderful book Kangaroos Myths and Realities, featuring over 100 glorious colour shots and priced at only $30 from Maryland Wilson at kangaroo@peninsula.hotkey.net.au Maryland is doing an amazing job and needs all the help she can get.

Update: What is your philosophy for a successful and relevant life?

MS: I think I have already attempted to answer that question in practice. It’s rather late to think of changing now.