LEZING MARIANNE – ANIMAL RIGHTS CONFERENCE

I’m very happy to speak to all of you here tonight. I have a tale to tell on the struggle for animal rights, and I hope to be able to give you inspiration for our movement.

On 22nd November 2006, for the first time ever in the world, Dutch voters elected members of a Party for the Animals to a national parliament. With two, and nearly three, seats, we achieved a victory, which has inspired animal rights advocates across the globe. In the Netherlands, animal suffering is often hidden from view. Each year, millions of factory farmed animals are sent to slaughter after living short and miserable lives: 14 million pigs, 450 million chickens and nearly one million calves. Each year 3.7 million mink are killed for their fur and 600.000 animals are used in animal testing experiments.

In this context, I would like to tell you about the rise of our party and the role that we now play in the advancement of animal rights in the Netherlands.

Animal welfare has long been a side dish for the few traditional Dutch politicians who, according to their party’s manifesto, were willing to defend it. But it is a key issue for those politicians who believe that animal welfare is high-priced nonsense. When prime minister Balkenende came to power in 2002, the farmers’ representatives of his coalition parties were keen to reverse all animal welfare measures from the last 20 years as swiftly as possible. Animals became objects once again, which were only intended to serve the appetite and the economic purposes of people.

This is why the plan to set up a Party for the Animals was hatched in late 2002. A party that would initially serve to remind the parliamentary parties about their good intentions.

It immediately became evident that our strategy worked when we participated in the elections of 2003. Overnight, other parties adopted animal welfare as an issue in their election programs and communications. Many other parties jumped on the bandwagon as a result of our role as a “pace rabbit in the marathon”, because they realised that animal welfare was becoming an increasingly important issue for the electorate.

During the TV broadcast of the election results, to everyone’s surprise the Party for the Animals scored higher than all the other new parties combined!

Last November, we finally made it into the Dutch House of Representatives, winning two seats thanks to many great people who invested their energy and money into campaigning with us, and thanks to 2% of all voters. Since that breakthrough, we have been working our butts off in parliament. Our tools vary, from participating in debates with Secretaries of Government Departments, to asking parliamentary questions, to proposing measures through petitions the parliament votes on. We asked our Prime Minister Balkenende about an official dinner where our Queen Beatrix served foie gras to her guests. He apologized and said this would be a one time mistake, and it will never happen again!

Many environmental and animal welfare organisations have to work hard to get their 5 minutes in the spotlight of politics. It’s really special that we have managed to get in the door, and that we will eventually be a permanent factor (even though we would rather not be needed there).

Within the possibilities of a party with 2 seats, in a parliament that has only been in office for 8 months, I can safely say that we have achieved the maximum and perhaps more than that. We get more publicity per seat than any other party, our proposals are being adopted, we ask more parliamentary questions than anyone, we’re the fastest growing political party in Holland, we’re rising in the polls and we’re being discovered by animal protectionists all over the world. At this moment we have 9 seats in regional parliaments, 2 seats in the National parliament and one seat in the Senate!

During the debate on the agricultural budget for 2007, 80% of the speaking time of all parties in parliament was taken up by animal rights and animal welfare. The Secretary of Agriculture (Mr. Veerman) stated that this happened for the first time in history. More and more insiders acknowledge that they initially saw us as a passing phase, but that they now see us as a new and permanent factor to be reckoned with.

We deliver a message that wasn’t heard before in politics. Before, if you were an environment-friendly politician, you drove a Toyota Prius. Nowadays it’s becoming clear that being a vegetarian saves 50% more greenhouse gases than switching to a Prius. Of course we polarize the debate with such statements, but we approach issues from a different perspective.

We see traditional parties anxiously monitoring the polls and being surprised to see that we are growing rather than disappearing. They don’t seem to understand that we would love to become redundant and for our work to be unnecessary, and that we don’t begrudge other parties their own animal-friendly successes.

We have brought the “soft factor” into politics and are perceived by more and more people as a serious new movement that just might become bigger than a number of traditional parties. Our aims are compassion, sustainability and we’re choosing no- regret scenario’s for animals, nature and the environment.

At the moment, we are the balancing vote in many cases, in a parliament almost evenly divided between left and right. When it comes to topics like immigration policy, public transport, privacy laws, stemcell research; in many of those cases the proposals stand or fall with the two deciding votes of the Party for the Animals. This of course helps tremendously to be taken seriously by the other parties ☺.

It is possible for us to grow, because 8% of voters is considering giving their vote to us and more and more people discover us and are beginning to appreciate our efforts.

Outside of the Netherlands, many people are convinced that we are at the forefront of a worldwide movement to raise the level of civilization. During an earlier visit to the US this year I have explored the possibility of founding a Party for the Animals in the US, which has already been done in the UK, Germany, Belgium, Spain, France, Luxemburg, Canada and is being prepared in Austria. There is no limit to what compassion can do in the long run.

We take heart from the wisdom of Gandhi, who said of his own emancipation movement: first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win. As has happened with other emancipation movements such as for women’s suffrage and civil rights, we experienced all this. But the promise that after all of that we will win, makes it all exciting and worthwhile.