From Dusk
'til Dawn

Speaking at the BWC Animals Rock concert Animals Rock Concert, JBurg AR Africa Cape cinema crowd await Behind The Mask CLAW activist with a rescued kitten Cradle Cora Bailey rescues a sick kitten Cora Bailey treating a dog Dogs brought for treatment Earth2 vegan restaurant Eating JBurg screening of Behind The Mask Keith: found suckling himself for nourishment Live birds on sale next to the Holiday Inn, Soweto Squatter camp with newly built Holiday Inn in background Squatter camp dogs Thanks to CLAW this would be her last litter

An invite to Africa to talk about the Animal Liberation Movement seemed such a long shot a few weeks ago. However, I've recently returned from just such a trip and if nothing else my detention by the Metropolitan Police under the Terrorism Act at Heathrow cleared up any doubt that it was a good idea. I'd already sussed that out from the amazing people I got to meet out there who are wrapped up in all kinds of initiatives and the overwhelming response from screenings of Behind The Mask and Earthlings and the book. There is a burgeoning movement in South Africa. Vegan restaurants, animal rights film and music festivals, neutering programmes and lots more besides, while there are many other issues to be resolved in SA there's a lot going on at the root of the problem. Beauty Without Cruelty invited me out there to share experiences. Certainly I learnt a lot and have been inspired by their work. I was equally impressed with the other organisations and individuals I met with including Community Led Animal Welfare (CLAW), Animal Rights Africa, Uncaged, and Free Me. First stop was the BWC Animal Rights Film Festival at the Labia cinema in Cape Town. Three nights of the best films including the aforementioned, The Mad Cowboy and Truth or Dairy. The response was as it always is, something to feed off. One viewer succinctly summed up his emotions after digesting Behind The Mask: "When I woke up the following morning, the world was a very different place." Next stop was the BWC Animal Rock concert in Cape Town. For me, an 80's happy clappy pop music kind of guy this could've been two days of hell! I remain uninitiated to the music (as some would dare describe it) but the bands were a treat to watch and clearly good at their jobs and they were all there playing for free to raise money for the township-spaying programme. Hundreds of animals will be spayed as a result and human dietary changes aplenty among those not thus far converted including one entire band! I spent 7 days in Cape Town being treated like a king. The food was great and so was the company. Far from a backwater African country there is a lot to be positive about. There's a lot of work to do, clearly, but every journey begins with the first step and they made that some time ago. I visited Table Mountain, which is quite awesome and met penguins on the beach. Penguins in South Africa? I never expected them but there they were! What happened next also came as a surprise but gave me no comfort whatsoever. The engine fell from the wing of a passenger-laden jumbo as it left the runway at Cape Town airport not long before I arrived. This coupled with a number of less dramatic Health and Safety issues involving its fleet of aircraft did little to warm the cockles of my heart as I prepared to fly to Johannesburg. That the pilot of the stricken plane was able to land it safely on one engine filled me with awe. These hefty lumps of metal are apparently designed to shear off if they fail which is all good and well but why not design them to work? Just a thought. I would have happily walked the miles to JBurg as opposed to flying there but got some small comfort from the fact the internal flight employed a plane with engines safely attached to the tail section rather than hanging precariously off the wings as they do. Hurtling trough the air at 500 miles an hour in a glorified jet propelled missile does nothing for me. Vegan meals on board, the Simpsons on the TV and getting lost in a good book helps, slightly. JBurg was a mix of the very best and very worst of South Africa. Working through the delicious menu at the Earth 2 vegan restaurant was a regular highlight; another was visiting the Cradle of Humanity, the area thought to be where our species evolved. To ponder some of the savagery that had spanned the time since then return in the form of a vegan awakening is poignant. I spent a day with Cora Bailey of CLAW as she toured the townships of Soweto. This tour is so not on the tourist trail! Not a white face to be seen here, just abject squalor. Education remains poor. I wondered what happened to the ANC and the rise of the black majority. It seems the black majority are no better off, just the elite. Capitalism rules South Africa. Our first port of call was a poor family whose dog had been run over. He'd reached the age of 10 so was one of the lucky ones, until now. Sat by the side of the road in the baking sun were a mother and her children with the dog lay in a wheelbarrow. His back end was very badly damaged. We manhandled the frightened dog into the back of the car and headed for the vets. En route we were stopped at a police roadblock where an Inspector with a large weapon 'requested' a bribe to let us pass! Welcome to South Africa! Cora blagged her way past on the promise of appeasing him later. The dog was in a bad state and didn't make it. The rest of the animals we collected during the day fared much better, the dogs all neutered or spayed and later returned to the squatter camps where in spite of the conditions they are happy with their lot and fare better than many in the apparent comfort of suburbia. One site has been cleared of breeding dogs entirely; each doctored and returned on agreement with the residents. This has been a big and rewarding effort for the CLAW team, hindered by the thoroughly negative approach of the national SPCA, the UK equivalent of the RSPCA with whom there are many parallels worthy of contempt. Earlier someone representing the SPCA used a phone in after a radio interview I did on Cape Talk to deny there are animal experiments taking place in the country. It's a fact there are, they are gross and the SPCA sits on the Ethics Committee which rubber stamps the fraudulent, violent tests! One badly dehydrated 5-week old kitten we found amongst the rubbish of the municipal dump shanty town was hours from dying. He was teased away from his erstwhile owner, taken for some TLC and later named Keith! Another three nights of film screenings to packed audiences in JBurg followed and again the feedback was heart warming. From Dusk til Dawn went down a storm and orders are pouring in. The media were clamouring for a piece of the action by the end of the week and were equally enthralled by what they were seeing and hearing about this movement and the abuses we're challenging. I did several interviews for radio TV and the written media. Back at Heathrow the Thought Police were not impressed. Detained under the Terrorism Act I was once again interrogated as to the purpose of my leaving the UK. This is a regular occurrence for me. Every time I come home I'm pounced upon. It's good my efforts are deemed worthy of such attention but harassment is harassment. Usually it's just a search and interrogation by the police but this time it was to investigate my links to "terrorism"!! They took my phone and copied the contents, noted the books I was reading: Animal Rights South Africa by Michele Pickover, Guide to The Bible by Ken Smith and Flight 93 Revealed by Rowland Morgan. All are about some form of terrorism in their own right but none of my making. Indeed neither I nor anyone linked to AR campaigning has ever been charged with terrorist offences, let alone convicted of any. I am now considered an author and my last arrest was for rescuing 10 dying hens from waste pits below battery cages. Prior to that in 2003 I rescued some mice from a vile botox testing programme. I am seeking clarity on the link between my educational travels and terrorism. I am baffled. The officer interrogating me was nice enough about it but seemed not to know what he was looking for amongst the factory farming leaflets, t-shirts and dirty socks. I came back from Slovenia a few weeks previous. It was another productive trip where I met some great people, showed Behind The Mask and ate some top nosh. Another turning point for me to be invited to a country that never even existed when I was first sent to prison but now coming alive to the revolution in thinking about the animal kingdom. All was great until I arrived back at Stansted. Same story at Passport Control, everyone is nice as pie until they scan my passport when lights flash it's retained and I'm 'invited' to take a seat and await the arrival of detectives. It's the same every time I re enter this country. I can travel around the world without hindrance but the minute I try to come home there is an issue! So what is it I have to explain to the quizzical coppers? Well it's pretty much the same sinister interrogation each time: where have you been and why, who have you stayed with, what is the name of your girlfriend, do you have a bank account, with who, are you vegetarian, do you have a car, what is the registration, who do you live with, what do you do for a living, what do you think of direct action to rescue animals. And so on. They know all the answers. The last time the officer was suspicious of the fact I had no wallet on me! And he was somehow confused as to why I went to visit caves. This is all they have had to be suspicious about! There tends to be some justification in their minds by reminding me that 'some of your lots do extreme things'. It immediately occurs to me when I hear this that those outside the bracket of 'animal rights extremists' do far worse things than we do. Like police for example assassinating innocent men on trains, raping, stealing, lying, imprisoning innocent people, assaulting peaceful protestors. The majority of travellers passing through Passport Control fall outside the bracket of 'animal rights extremist' so are by definition responsible for the most heinous crimes if they are all to be categorised as one, as we are. Then there's the obligatory reference to Gladys Hammond, who we all apparently conspired to kidnap; thousands of us crammed in to the graveyard! Fact is non-animal rights activists have dug up far more dead bodies than we ever have and indeed violently ended the lives of many more people and animals than any activist can be accused. Still the overriding concern is to harass the animal liberators. Paragons of virtue categorically not but with much less blood and suffering to account for than yer average Jo. When I returned from Holland a few weeks before that, the coach I travelled on was detained at Calais for an hour at 4.00am apparently because Customs needed to get confirmation that they were allowed to let me pass. Everyone else on board passed the checks no problem but when it came to scanning my passport and I was invited to take that seat. It took so long for them to get clearance to let me back in to the UK that I was asked by the driver if I would remove my luggage and wait for the next coach so everyone wasn't unnecessarily delayed. The next coach was three hours away. I eventually reluctantly agreed under protest and was escorted to the coach to remove my bags from the hold. Before I got settled to stay permission to pass was received and I was then able to get back on board. The other passengers thought there had simply been a mix up but the reality is darker than that. Back in Dover a couple of hours later and our coach was surrounded by police vehicles and blue flashing lights! For me? Here we were detained some more while Kent Police sought yet further clarity on the situation, presumably from NETCU, (the National Extremist Tactical Coordination Unit) police directed to control the spread of non violence towards other beings. No one said anything to me directly on this trip, no one searched my bags or pockets they just observed and delayed me. After another half hour wait on a hill at Dover docks a document was seen rushing to the scene under more flashing lights and we were allowed to continue the final leg of our journey. It states in the front of my passport: 'Secretary of State requests and requires in the name of Her Majesty all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance, and to afford the bearer such assistance and protection as may be necessary.' So what exactly is going on? There are forces at work who dislike what we are trying to do to make this world a better place. I am proud of the fact that my efforts cause such a stir and look forward my next encounter with the forces of evil. (Click on images for larger versions) SA newspaper story: Terrorism Act: "We have been keeping up with events on your website and as well as being outraged at the harassment & raid on the UK Animal Rights Gathering 2007 we are particularly concerned with the deliberate harassment you are getting when returning to your own country. Following on from Newton's third law of motion being that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction we have decide to donate £100 every time you are stopped at passport control. Further, if you get stopped at both ends of the journey, as happened on the coach journey from Calais to Dover, that would count as twice and so we will send you £200. An initial cheque for £100 is on the way to you for the South African trip. I hope that this will cheer you up while you're sitting on the seat waiting for them to let you in and maybe the secret policeman reading your emails will realise that this tactic is not only a waste of public money but counter productive." Extract from a letter received from 'AW'