THE SPEAK CAMPAIGN: Co-founder Rob Cogswell Interviewed

By Claudette Vaughan

“If ever we needed evidence that those with vested interested in animal abuse fear us, we only have to look at recent developments in the UK. As we go to press, the campaign to halt a vivisection laboratory built in Oxford continues to gather momentum. The success of the campaign to stop construction of a similar laboratory in Cambridge earlier this year has fuelled the opposition’s determination to prevent a repeat performance on the Oxford stage…We must watch our backs, certainly, but we must also continue undeterred along the road we have chosen…”
– Rob Cogswell, Arkangel magazine.

Q. Rob, thanks very much for your time because I realise these are incredibly busy times for you right now. The whole SPEAK campaign has really taken off. What elements do you attribute to your stunning success?

A.  I think that if you look at the history of the SPEAK campaign and the tactics we have adopted, you will see that in many respects we have attempted to get away from the concept that one strategy fits all. I think it’s important that animal rights activists apply a little lateral thinking when they start a campaign against a particular animal abuse establishment; just because certain tactics used by activists on other campaigns have proved effective doesn’t mean they will be as effective against a different establishment. The whole point is that one should try to be unpredictable – to wrong-foot the opposition, if you like.

I will be the first to admit that after 22 years in the movement, I am still learning about what is the best methodology to adopt in conducting any campaign. The animal rights movement is still in its infancy and time and experience will no doubt continue to redefine it. One of the most important and relevant lessons I have learnt is “Know thy enemy”– their weaknesses, their strengths. I think that’s relevant wherever you are in the world. One has to study the establishment to be targeted and the mindset of those running it – that is as important as the method to be used to disseminate facts to the public. Image is also important as the authorities will try to hit you with every dirty trick in the book,  to marginalise the campaign and campaigners. At the end of the day we are fighting to end animal suffering across the board and that may mean using the opposition’s own tactics against them. I’m certain the animals undergoing unspeakable suffering don’t really care how they are liberated…

The tactics and strategies of conducting a war are as relevant to the animal rights movement as they have been for any warrior for millennia. Although the war we are waging is not a conventional one, it is vital that we remember that we are in a war, and those who think we aren’t, are kidding themselves. Anyone who doesn’t believe me should look at the numbers of non-human animals being killed on a global scale - what are they if not the innocent casualties in the war of domination and oppression waged by humans against all life on earth?  What are they if not the most enslaved, the most brutally exploited and oppressed of all P.O.Ws?

Our opponents are powerful and strong: the Laboratories, the Slaughterhouses, the Multinationals, the Factory Farms, etc., these are the vanguards that ‘protect’ the core – society itself – a society which functions according to rigid rules and principles. ‘Joe public’ is merely a pawn in the hierarchical game that protects the interests of the rich and privileged; s/he is a socially-conditioned cog in the proverbial wheel, generally neither amoral or sadistic but simply trusting that those in power make all the ‘right’ decisions for ‘the good of all’.

But I believe that the public IS beginning to listen; I believe that they have been increasingly disenchanted with the lies that politicians perpetually spin, and are starting to get pretty uncomfortable about the facts being disseminated not just about the abuse of non-human animals but also about ‘animal rights terrorists’.

Sun Tzu said that “all warfare is based on deception” and this is certainly true when we look at the smear tactics used by the opposition to brand us as lunatics, to compound the image of us as outsiders hell-bent on overthrowing society. This is essentially the divide-and-rule philosophy in practice – a means by which the governing heads of any state have kept society under control for thousands of years. It is how the witch-hunters spread fear amongst the general population for centuries, so that anyone who dared to be different ended up dead. Painting all of us in the animal rights movement (from all walks of life) as dangerous lunatics is a time-proven method to keep us set apart. In doing so, those in power have a convenient ‘scapegoat’ whom they can blame for this or that, thus diverting attention from the facts, and from the fundamental position which we represent and defend.

The animal rights movement needs to be smarter than resorting to the ‘tit-for-tat’ gambit; by playing up to the part of the stereotype, we simply play into the hands of the opposition. I believe that by challenging preconceptions and breaking down those stereotypes, the movement has a far better chance of reaching a wider audience, and that is what we at SPEAK have attempted to do in waging the campaign, whilst maintaining our grass-roots raison d’etre. This flexible and multi-faceted approach has been demonstrably successful, allowing us to turn negative publicity to our advantage.

In the summer of last year when work on the new Oxford animal lab ground to a halt, the University, along with the Labour Government and media launched a witch-hunt against us. SPEAK organisers were labelled extremists and terrorists; media interest was massive and a day didn’t go by without Mel Broughton or myself being asked to do interviews on national radio and television. It was a clear attempt by vested interests to manipulate the media into doing their dirty work for them and to turn the public against us.

The strategy backfired. Instead of marginalising the aims of the animal rights movement still further, the issues were debated more openly than they had been in years, and a number of prominent public figures took up the mantle in the media to say: “Yes, there is a case to be answered here”.

As the joint founders of SPEAK, Mel and I were very much in the front line, and were subjected to slanderous attempts by the media to sully our characters and our motives. Yet ironically, they couldn’t get enough of the ‘rogues’ they were crucifying and were willing to give us prime time television slots because they knew (and this from the horse’s mouth) this story would run and run. And run it did! For a large part of the summer, in fact! The truth was that they knew that there was a case to be answered here; as a result, Mel and I, as well as a number of other prominent animal rights figures, were able to capitalise on the media’s weird and contradictory love/hate stance.

The face of the masked evil terrorist presented as the true face of the animal rights movement by Oxford University, the Pharmaceutical companies and the Government just didn’t sit happily with the British public. An image of a masked figure cradling a rabbit or a puppy hardly makes one quiver in ones proverbial boots. The public simply didn’t buy it, or into the lie that if you’re an animal rights activist you’re a crank or that if you try to alleviate animal suffering, you’re a terrorist. It simply didn’t compute; a public already disenchanted with a Government trying to spin them lies about numerous political issues were simply not going to accept this bullshit.

The upshot of all this ‘negative’ media hype was that support for the campaign tripled in as many weeks, and public sympathy was genuinely felt. The fact is that the SPEAK campaign is and was a legal campaign working within a legal framework, a campaign accused of being a front for direct action because its representatives did not speak out against it and because both had served custodial sentences. The hype backfired, with the unintended result that now even more people have a greater sympathy and understanding about ALF than they did before the powers that be attempted to smear the SPEAK campaign.

Q.   For those readers who aren’t up with the SPEAK campaign can you give them some background on the campaign please.

A.  The SPEAK campaign was born from an organisation called SPEAC (Stop Primate Experiments at Cambridge) which was formed in July 2003 with the remit of preventing the building of Europe’s largest primate research centre at Cambridge University, a project with which the Government had been closely linked. In early 2004 Cambridge University announced that it would not be going ahead with its plans. Shortly after this announcement we received information from a source within Oxford University that they had plans to build a new animal research laboratory in the heart of the University’s ‘Science Area’ (a development closely affiliated to the abandoned project in Cambridge), the re-formed SPEAK launched its campaign against the new build in March 2004. In July of that year the main building contractor decided to pull out of the contract due to the pressure being put on them and I’m pleased to announce that to date, the work still hasn’t recommenced as Oxford University haven’t yet found a contractor stupid enough to take on the job.

Q.  Are you aware of the influence that English activists have in showing the rest of the world that the door to radical reform is not closed?

A.  It has indeed been suggested that the UK animal rights movement has acted as a sort of template for animal rights activists in other countries and whilst I would agree that the modern-day animal rights movement began in the UK and that its methods have been adopted internationally, the adoption of similar methods has met with varying degrees of success and acceptance in other countries. Yes, sure, we are bound to be a little ahead in our campaigning strategy purely because we have been going longer, but in fact, the speed of reform brought about in some European countries has been far more rapid than in this country.

I’m a little uncomfortable with the notion that the UK animal rights movement influences global activism and styles of campaigning. I think it should be remembered that liberation struggles of any kind borrow some of the methods adopted by other liberation struggles – the danger is refusing to deviate from a well-tested formula. As I have argued elsewhere, the importance of tailoring ones methods to a given situation to some extent predicts the success or failure of an outcome; the modus operandi that might suit one country because of the disposition of its national character might well be disastrous in another country. One could even go so far as to suggest that perhaps because campaigners or activists have tried to model themselves on the UK movement, it may have held them back to some extent in their own country, where a different approach might have been more effective.

Not all the tactics adopted by UK activists are necessarily foolproof; the growth of the UK movement has at times been a rollercoaster ride and at others a very tough, steep learning curve. I hope that learning from our mistakes has been as useful to activists around the world as have the victories. To some extent the UK, with its reputation of being a nation of animal lovers – and the merits of this claim are open to conjecture - was a natural breeding ground for the animal rights movement to grow and flourish beyond the remit of the various long-standing ‘humane’ societies. It allowed the movement to explore the contradictions implicit in being a nation of animal lovers where hunting, meat eating, vivisection etc are commonplace. Despite this unique position (apparently) in the world, we are viewed with scepticism, mistrust, and loathing because we are challenging the ‘animal lover’s’ cosy world, in which they eat and wear the flesh of murdered calves, while spending their lifesavings on veterinary treatment for their beloved pet without ever once making a connection between the suffering of one animal and another.  

Q.   You once described yourself as neither left wing, right wing or anarchist. That you are too cynical about the human species to ally yourself with any political party. How do you think human relations will change towards nonhuman animals in a already 21^st century, virtual network, information complex, and technically over-developed but emotionally under-developed world?

A. I am not interested in putting labels on myself; what I am interested in is being effective. That is why I refuse to restrict myself by declaring my political affiliations. It’s not that I am not interested in politics, but I am more interested in effecting change for the animals and if that means taking the best from each political and social ideology and using it in my campaigning strategy then that’s what I do.

I’m not sure I agree with your comment about an emotionally under-developed world. I don’t see that the world – or rather the people in it – are any more or less emotionally retarded than in the past. In fact I would argue that because of technology not despite it, the world is now a smaller place and therefore people can’t hide from what goes on. In some respects, that has allowed us access to information, and to disseminate that information, which I believe has fostered the growth of the movement. Faced with revelations about what goes on behind closed doors, about the monumental scale of animal suffering, many are genuinely shocked. Some will be moved by their horror to join the movement, and others will respond by burying their heads in the sand and hoping it will all go away. That is a very normal human response to things that makes one uncomfortable.

It’s probably true to say that the response to tragedies such as the recent Tsunami disaster is disproportionate to the global disasters that occur on a daily basis, or to the huge numbers of casualties of wars waged by despots, including many orchestrated by global superpowers. It goes without saying – with respect to those who died or were bereaved by that disaster – that it pales into insignificance against the daily, relentless exploitation, brutalisation and murder of millions of non-human animals globally. However, what it did demonstrate was that if you push the right buttons, a genuine outpouring of concern and sympathy can motivate individuals to act in an empathic way; media and technology had a big part to play in fostering a response from people all over the world.

It is true to say that we are a species largely motivated by self-interest, and our relationship with non-human life forms is coloured by this. Nonetheless, I believe that we in the movement can make a very real difference in the world. Technology in the 21^st century is therefore as much an ally as it is potentially an enemy. The effectiveness of modern technology has shown that it has a real part to play in spreading the animal rights message and in campaigning. I think that we have far more power now to change attitudes than we did, say, even ten years ago.

I don’t think that technology, or the affiliated information-rich network engenders an uncaring attitude – that is a characteristic you either possess or you don’t, but it has to be nurtured. I think that the “Me” attitude is a product of our times, fostered by greed and capitalism, but I don’t believe it’s irreversible. People tend to follow the mood of the masses - they aren’t necessarily unwilling to change, or rather to do the right thing – you just have to show them an easy way to do it!

Q.  How did Barry’s death effect you personally and as an animal activist?

A.  I don’t think that I can separate the two - the personal is the political. For me, being an animal rights activist is about the personal and the personal is about being an animal rights activist. I live and breathe animal rights. Some might call that boring. I call it commitment.

When I first heard of Barry’s death, I was deeply shocked. I felt sad, but also immensely proud - proud to have known him and proud of him for having done the ultimate for the cause by laying down his life.

Barry knew it wasn’t going to help him personally, his family or his country. It was a selfless act by a man who refused to buck to the system, or to see himself as a prisoner. He remained an activist despite his incarceration, a man whose imprisonment did not take away his liberty – he used the only weapon he had left to fight the system, which has at its very heart the institutions that abuse animals. He used himself.

There are many people around the world who are willing to lay down their life in various struggles but they are doing it in the belief that if they strap a load of C4 around their waist and go into a crowded market place and detonate the explosives, they will somehow be received into the kingdom of heaven. It is not my place to argue whether or not such actions have merit. What I do know is that Barry died a slow and painful death and he did it knowing that there was nothing in it for him, and that takes a very special kind of person.

I have heard it said in certain quarters that Barry’s death was a waste and that he should have remained alive to fight another day. Those that hold this opinion probably didn’t know Barry. I did.  Anyone who knew him can attest to the fact that Barry always wanted to be doing something, was always busy, always pushing the boundaries and he was not afraid to act alone. He was a big man, a larger-than-life character who thought big, who did not allow himself to be limited by what might seem impossible to the average person. To be honest, it made him a bloody nightmare to be around sometimes but I never questioned his sincerity or motivation and I knew when Barry was arrested that he wouldn’t be able to sit in prison for 18 years. Criticism of his sacrifice misses the importance of the ‘Hunger Strike’ as a weapon in any movement for radical change. The Suffragettes used it, the Republican movement in Ireland used it, Mahatma Ghandi used it. Barry has taken his place amongst some of the most honourable people to have ever lived.

When you’re in prison, you’re at the mercy of the system. Barry refused to be a part of that; he took control of his own destiny by doing what he thought was right, in death as in life. He deserves to be remembered first and foremost as a man - a man of courage and determination – not as a martyr, but as a unique human being whose commitment was second to none.

I believe – though I do not know for certain - that Barry had hoped that his death might rally the movement, and that it might push the Government into implementing some of the changes they had promised in their pre-election manifesto. If anything, they reneged yet further by their subsequent actions in propping up the animal abuse system. It saddens me to think that more people have not been inspired by Barry’s commitment. Certainly, it seems to have been recognised in other countries as something far more significant than it has here. I hope that one day his death will unanimously receive the recognition it deserves, and be seen in years to come as the huge part of our movement’s history that it actually was.

Q.  When the issue of animal experimentation arises, the image the public is shown to think negatively of those questioning the medical and ethical validity and the nature of trust placed in the ‘experts’ of the health care system. Is this false image of ‘men in white coats’ beginning to be seen as a false dichotomy or is it still a hard slog to get the general public on side and supportive?

A.  I think we are living in interesting times. Since the Iraq War, I have noticed that the public are a lot less inclined to believe those in authority largely due, I think, to the dissemination of false information about weapons of mass destruction etc by the likes of holier-than-thou George W. Bush and his sycophantic sidekick, Tony Blair.

The resulting increase in public mistrust of authority has made them more willing to listen, which has allowed the SPEAK campaign to challenge many of the public pronouncements by both Oxford University and the Labour Government. The vivisection industry has had free reign to manipulate, misinform and lie about the benefits of using non-human animals to replicate human disease but cracks do seem to be appearing. For the very first time, the public are generally sceptical about the role of the vivisection industry in society.

The long-held misconception by the British public as to the benefits of vivisection and the Pharmaceutical industry’s ‘sterling’ efforts to achieve global health is obviously a notion that those in the animal rights movement find absurd. I am always trying to push the fact that the Pharmaceutical companies exist first and foremost to increase the profits of their shareholders, and not in improving public health. Lets face it, if people weren’t ill they wouldn’t be in business and making massive profits and if they really existed for humanitarian purposes they wouldn’t be selling drugs at inflated prices to the third world.

What has also helped this new found public scepticism is the fact that some in the media are finally starting to do the job they are suppose to do. Of course 90% of the media have long since lost the plot with regard to journalistic integrity, but there are still a few among them who tell it as it is. I don’t know about elsewhere in the world but nowadays, seldom a week goes by without some sort of report in a British newspaper detailing the adverse reaction of a drug, safely tested on non-human animals but having catastrophic reaction in humans.

There are also some great organisations that argue from a purely scientific perspective, whether its Europeans for Medical Progress in the UK or Americans for Medical Advancement, who are doing a valuable job in bringing to public attention the sham that is vivisection. I feel these organisations are opening up a whole new level of debate, arguing against the use of animals in medical research from a sound medical perspective.

I think that a broad front is needed for the assault on the vivisection and pharmaceutical industry if we are to be successful and I am confident that we will see a fundamental change in the way drugs are tested in the next 10 years. There is no doubt that attitudes are changing, and those in the vivisection industry are increasingly having to justify themselves – a thing that would have been unheard of until recently, and I can promise them its going to get a whole lot tougher.

A recent article in the Times newspaper entitled ‘Extremists are driving drug firms out of the UK’ (with due note taken of the biased headline!) was correct, and as the SHAC commented on their website “Yeah and close the door on your way out”. It’s not about passing the buck or pushing the problem onto another country. I believe we should call their bluff. Are they really going to want to move to the other side of the world, or are they going to take stock and finally give up the outdated notion of using animals in research? The UK and the US are the principle homes of both the vivisection and pharmaceutical industry. If we can force a change here, it will topple the vivisection industry the world over.

Q.  The bulk of vivisection is conducted on household, lifestyle, industrial toxins, pesticides and agro-chemicals. These poisons are the major cause of cancer. Humans are then treated with pharmaceuticals. The 3^rd biggest killer today in the UK is adverse drug reactions by prescribed pharmaceuticals, all animal tested. The total number of adverse drug reactions is now considered to be only 5-10% of the total reported. A study out in the US shows, not cancer, or heart attacks or cardio-vascular accidents as the No 1 killer, it’s animal tested pharmaceutical products. How will vivisection be abolished with the establishment so corrupt and its sway so widespread?

A.  I don’t believe vivisection will ever be abolished per se. I think two things are likely to happen.

Firstly grassroots groups like SPEAK or SHAC will put so much pressure on vivisection establishments that the Pharmaceutical Industry will be forced to find alternatives to animal testing.

The Pharmaceutical industry isn’t run along ethical lines. Ethics and morals should perhaps be their principle motive for existing but as we all know, its about profit margins, - that’s the only thing they’re interested in. The main problem the animal rights movement has is that a whole industry has grown up around the torture of animals in the vivisection laboratories. From the academics through to breeders of lab animals, cage suppliers, technicians supposedly looking after the animals in the laboratories - all are making a living from the animal-torture business and they are a very powerful lobbying group.

Though not as powerful as the Pharmaceutical Industry, there is a close link between all those that have associations with animal research, but the bottom line is profit and the pharmaceutical moguls will have no hesitation in dropping those with an interest in the continuation of vivisection if its going to make life easier and more importantly, more profitable for them. So our job is to be constantly tightening the screws on the individuals, institutions, establishments and companies vivisecting on animals, and that means down to the tiniest link in the chain.

Secondly, a front needs to be opened up that highlights the fraudulent nature of vivisection and that’s where groups like Europeans for Medical Progress have an important role to play. Rightly or wrongly, the general public are still in awe of those associated with the medical profession.  The almost reverential status that has grown up around medical professionals is centred around the belief that they have the power over life or death and to a certain extent they do. Little wonder, then, that people hardly ever question what a doctor or medical professional might tell them. So it’s important that it is the medical professionals who are questioning the efficiency and reliability of animal based research, moral and ethical issues aside. In the end, self-interest is what motivates the larger majority and if it is aptly demonstrated that the science we rely on is a false science that misleads and fails to offer satisfactory answers to disease, then people will no longer support or believe in it.

With these two ingredients, I am confident that vivisection will - in the not too distant future - be consigned to the history books where it belongs, allowing a more enlightened and relevant form of research to take its place.    

Q.  Is grassroots activism when applied by small collectives, and individuals, on a massively widespread distribution against specific targets more effective than paying an annual subscription to an organisation who will lobby the policy-makers of vivisection?

A.  It’s interesting you should ask this question, as it’s a personal bugbear of mine. I would ask everyone in the animal rights movement to be concerned with what they themselves are doing and less on what other groups are up to. Before I go on I have to nail my colours firmly to the mast and say that my heart will always be with the grassroots animal rights movement but that’s not to say that I don’t believe that there is a need for national organisations.

I think it’s important that we get away from this notion of them and us. The national organisations fill a very important role in the campaign for the rights of animals. A fragmented movement is a weak movement and those people that spend their time saying negative things about others should think long and hard as to the damage they may be doing in weakening the movement, and think more about what they could be doing themselves.

As far as I’m concerned we are all one movement, we want the same thing. However we have different approaches as to how we can achieve those aims. Some things the national organisations might do may not always sit comfortably with my particular view of what constitutes right tactics and strategies, but it would be arrogant of me to believe that I have all the answers. The way I see it, at least something is being done and at least there are people out there doing something to try and alleviate animal suffering. I don’t, for example, always agree with the methods other grassroots organisations might adopt, but that’s not to say I’m right and they’re wrong, it’s just a difference of opinion.

I also feel the grassroots movement needs to get over the concept that having some sort of subscription or membership is somehow selling out the animals and that drawing a wage from a campaign is wrong. It’s a ludicrous notion to believe that we are somehow selling out the animals if we make fighting for animal rights a full-time occupation. Do such critics believe that fighting for the rights of animals should be a part-time occupation, done in our spare time outside of ‘regular Joe’ office hours?  That is sheer lunacy. A part-time commitment, a part-time movement is a less effective movement. One person’s 100% commitment can move mountains metaphorically speaking – take a look at Gandhi, or closer to home, take a look at Barry. 100% commitment = 100% effective.

What I would caution against is the fragmentation of the animal rights movement. Fragmentation makes one impotent. We need to be getting away from the idea that grassroots activism and professionalism can’t go hand in hand or that you can’t be a full-time grassroots activist.

The animal rights movement’s strength lies in the fact that we are a movement made up of individuals from all walks of life. We all bring to the movement as individuals a vast variety of talents and skills. By pooling all our abilities and resources, by respecting the efforts of others, be it individuals, groups or national organisations, we can maximise our potential fully. By doing the reverse, we’re doing the opposition’s job for them.

I don’t know what its like in other countries, but it was refreshing to see at the height of the witch-hunt by the media against the SPEAK campaign and similar organisations when work ground to a halt at the Oxford animal lab, that there was an air of unity between the national and grassroots organisations and there was absolutely no infighting whatsoever. And that’s something I hadn’t seen in a good few years. Our approaches may have been different, but we stood together and perhaps it’s this newfound unity that makes the UK animal rights movement a formidable force to be reckoned with. The SPEAK campaign has taken on two of the largest academic institutions in the world, first Cambridge and now Oxford. We have seen them on the run, using dirty tricks to blur the issues. In doing so, we have also challenged the Government, whose interests are closely linked with the financial interests of the Pharmaceutical Industry. We haven’t done this alone – we have done it because of immense support from the entire UK animal rights movement at both a national and grassroots level, as well as with an ever-growing support base abroad.

I believe that our future lies in that unity; I believe that with this newfound strength, we will achieve more than we could ever hope to achieve through acting in isolation. I believe that as long as we keep forging links, we will make immense strides towards the ultimate goal of total liberation for our non-human brethren. If we all do something towards that every day, we will bring that future closer. Starting from today.