Non-Violent Protest: Love-Based versus Anger-Based
An experiment in working towards non-violence for humans and other animals.
Non-violent protest is an experiment in working
towards non-violence for humans and other animals -
non-violently. People often become puzzled, when outrages and
atrocities are committed: How could one have a love-based
approach to protests or vigils? Does it not mean that oneself
loves the atrocities? Is one simply too cowardly to voice the
anger that one surely feels? These are misconceptions, which
can be cleared up by doing a contrastive analysis of love-based
versus anger-based activism. There is such a thing as
channeling angry energy into something more positive. This
exercise is designed to provide some sense of justification
through a nuanced examination of the two forms of activism,
both of which are understandable, but only one of which might
show the greater understanding. Which do you think would be
more positively socially transformative?
This document was inspired by the activities of Toronto Pig
Save (TPS), which reaches out to people near a hog slaughter
concentration camp. The demonstraters and vigil-keepers used
anger-based protest at first, but then it slowly evolved. Now
workers who used to be savagely violent unloading the pigs are
much more gentle, so the action is having amazing
transformative effects, generating sympathetic media coverage,
and "vegan waves" as well. Anita Krajnc, founder of TPS,
enthusiastically endorses this document.
Download the pdf.
