Voices for Animals – A series of interviews with those who speak out loud and clear for all who are born nonhuman
Noël Sweeney is a British lawyer who specialises in human rights and animal law.
His powerful poetry gives voice to those who ‘are hamstrung by being born without a human tongue’.
Here Noël gives us insight into why the words of Henry Salt, pioneer of animal rights a century ago, have travelled through time to guide, encourage and inspire him to this very day.
Animal Voice:
Noël, you pay a very moving tribute to Henry Salt in your article ‘Rights run with Life’. Salt was a pioneer of social reform at a time when women could not vote, and small children were put to work in coal mines. Yet Salt is believed to have been the first person to have explicitly suggested the inclusion of animal rights as an integral part of social reform in Britain.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
Noël Sweeney:
Yes, and the wisdom of his words has travelled through time. Indeed, although I never knew him and he never knew me, I owe a debt to this man that can never be repaid. Henry Salt was far ahead of his time.
His creed extended to all inhabitants of the earth. ​
In his book Company I Have Kept (published in 1930) he describes his “cousins” not as the “sons or daughters of an uncle or an aunt” but “as certain non-human friends of mine whom I like to think and speak of as ‘cousins’.”​​​​​​​​
Henry Salt
​​​Animal Voice:
Salt was a teacher, a writer, a social reformer, and a pioneering spirit who lived frugally without seeking personal recognition.​​​​​​​
​​​Noël Sweeney:
Yes indeed, and he understood that the divide between humans and animals, on matters that matter, is wafer-thin. In his work titled Towards Democracy in 1883, he wrote: “I saw deep in the eyes of the animals the human soul look out upon me.”​
In 1892, he published his classic work Animals’ Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress​
His guiding principles were stated quite simply:
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We have to decide not whether the practice of fox-hunting, for example, is more, or less cruel than vivisection, but whether all practices which inflict unnecessary pain on sentient beings are not incompatible with the higher instincts of humanity.​
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That man, to be truly man, must understand his common fellowship with all living nature, and that the coming realisation of human rights will inevitably bring after it the realisation of the rights of other species.​​​​​
Animal Voice:
You mention that Henry Salt’s work at the time coincided with the movement for women’s rights?
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Noël Sweeney:
Yes, for example, Edith Ward who fought for the right of women to vote, noted in an article in Shafts Magazine (1892), the connection between violence against women by men, and the abuse of animals by all humans. In the article Edith Ward wrote: 'The case for the animal is the case for the woman. What is more likely to impress mankind with the necessity of justice for women, than the awakening of the idea that justice is the right of even an ox or a sheep?'
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Animal Voice:
Salt became a vegetarian at a time when the concept had hardly come into being.
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Noël Sweeney:
And he was often ridiculed for it! But he remained steadfast. He had a sardonic humour and In his autobiography, he asked: ‘What appeal can be made to people whose first instinct, on seeing a beautiful animal, full of joyousness and vitality, is to hunt or eat it?”
Salt pointed out that like racism and sexism, we humans discriminate against animals by assuming a superiority much like a controlling husband assumes his wife is his ‘property’.​
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Animal Voice:
Salt would be happy that civilization has indeed made some progress for humans as well as animals in the last 50-odd years.
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Noël Sweeney:
Yes he would, although it’s not enough by far, by far. The crucial contemporary change for animals, came in 1975 when Peter Singer, the Australian moral philosopher, published Animal Liberation which has become the ‘Bible’ of the animal rights movement. In the preface of the 1980 re-published edition, Singer paid tribute to Salt as the incredible pioneering spirit he was.
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Animal Voice:
And in your powerful poetry, you are doing the same. We thank you.​
​Noël Sweeney draws attention to South Africa’s own revered social pioneer who was influenced by the philosophy of Henry Salt… none other than the late Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu
Courtesy: Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics
The Humane Education Trust's March 2014 issue of Animal Voice, page 4, features Tutu's historical quote:
“I have seen first-hand how injustice gets overlooked when the victims are powerless or vulnerable… Animals are in precisely that position. Unless we are mindful of their interests and speak out loudly on their behalf, abuse and cruelty goes unchallenged.”
A landmark legal bid to free three elephants from captivity in the Johannesburg Zoo has gained international traction, with heavyweight legal scholars from Harvard Law School stepping forward in support of the case.
The application – brought by Animal Law Reform South Africa, the EMS Foundation and Chief Stephen Fritz – is currently before the High Court in Pretoria.
Courtesy Daily Maverick
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