In the history of social justice, ‘whirlwind’ moments have been crucial to social change. In ‘This Is An Uprising’ — the book that has become a bible for social justice activists — a whirlwind moment is described as ‘a dramatic public event… that sets off a flurry of activity, and that… quickly spreads beyond the institutional control of any one organization. It inspires a rash of decentralized action, drawing in people previously unconnected to established movement groups’. The Ridglan Farms beagle rescue on March 15 may be the animal rights movement’s whirlwind moment.
WAYNE HSIUNG: On March 15, 100+ activists descended on Ridglan Farms to rescue dogs who faced imminent torture or death. Mass chaos ensued… many people have described the event, and the incredible attention and outcry in the weeks since, as a whirlwind. And despite the chaos that implies, a whirlwind is exactly what the pups at Ridglan need.
That’s because, in the history of social justice, “whirlwind” moments have been crucial to social change. In This Is An Uprising — the book that has become a bible for social justice activists — a whirlwind moment is described as “a dramatic public event… that sets off a flurry of activity, and that… quickly spreads beyond the institutional control of any one organization. It inspires a rash of decentralized action, drawing in people previously unconnected to established movement groups.” These whirlwind movements, such as the Birmingham campaign by civil rights activists in 1963, are immensely chaotic but just as immensely important for making change.
And the Ridglan rescue may be the animal rights movement’s whirlwind moment. The rescue on March 15 was a dramatic event that triggered a flurry of activity on behalf of tens of thousands of people —virtually all of whom were outside of any central organization. These remarkable supporters, including 1500 people who have committed to physically join the next rescue effort, are independently acting to protect the Ridglan dogs—and raise the abuse of animals to global prominence…
The animal rights movement, in particular, has never truly been able to seize a whirlwind… What do we need to ensure that we harness the Ridglan rescue to achieve maximum progress? There are three priorities.
The first is storytelling. Effective movements are fueled with stories, and effective stories are not told by any one person… But to tell these stories, we need to create a structure and resources to make that happen. This is why we’ve drafted a short communications memo, with photos and video, and encourage everyone to give us feedback and use our content…
The second priority is logistics. We need people to prepare housing for dogs, review huge archives of photos and video for social media, manage onboarding systems, help other activists with housing/travel advice, and even just look through documents for spelling or grammar errors…
The third priority is decentralized leadership. In the modern social media era, there’s a tendency towards passive participation in movements. We wait for the “leader” to tell us what to do—and only then do we act. That won’t work in a whirlwind. Independent leaders need to step up throughout our movement if we are going to rescue 2000 dogs — and raise the issue of animal rights to national prominence. SOURCE
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