Interview with Zülal Kalkandelen: Journey to becoming a Vegan Animal Liberation Activist and Challenges in Turkey
We at the Middle East Vegan Society had the pleasure to interview Turkish journalist, columnist, author, and vegan animal liberation activist, Ms. Zülal Kalkandelen.
What inspired your journey to becoming a vegan animal liberation activist? How did you get involved in promoting animal liberation through journalism and activism in Istanbul, including your work with the Independent Animal Rights Society?
I am a journalist, columnist, author, and vegan animal liberation activist based in Istanbul, Turkey. I've been vegan for 30 years. The first factor that paved the way for me to become vegan was a song. At the beginning of the song "Meat Is Murder" by The Smiths, the sounds of knives mixed with the screams of animals in a slaughterhouse caught my attention. The song was telling terrible truths that no one around me had ever told me until that day. I was very shaken when I heard the lyrics. Afterward, as I started researching, and seeing the systematic cruelty behind animal consumption, I decided to withdraw myself completely from this chain of exploitation. To explain this to people, I've used every means possible since then. And then I'm on the streets with a megaphone in my hand! I first wrote articles, then published books on animal liberation and veganism. I give talks. I founded the Independent Animal Rights Society with a few friends to revive street activism.
What challenges have you faced as a vegan animal liberation activist in Turkey, and how have political divisions and social media impacted the animal liberation movement in the country?
Animal liberation activism in Turkey has unfortunately weakened in recent years and has become stuck only on social media. A person engaged in activism in any field in Turkey may face serious difficulties at any time. Government pressure has been applied to silence every segment for the last 21 years. Animal liberation activism is no exception. Also, there is a lot of division because of the differences in approaches to vegan activism. There is not much solidarity among activists. One of the reasons for this is the political factions that permeate almost every area in Turkey. Especially in recent years, this struggle has done a lot of damage. This situation poses a serious obstacle to organizing animal liberation activism. Animals pay the price for this. The biggest challenge of being vegan is dealing with the antagonism and harassment that we get from so much of the world. Most people who don’t have any idea what vegan means think that you are a freak. There are always sarcastic comments, put-downs, stupid “jokes” and so on... Personally, I am a journalist who has been subjected to a lot of verbal attacks, threats, humiliation, and marginalization for defending veganism in such a country for 30 years. For this reason, professionally, I have been defeated in many ways. I have a large number of cases pending in the courts for exposing the torture of animals.
How do you feel about animal liberation, and what is its purpose?
There are different approaches to activism. While there are people who defend gradual progress toward the objective, there are others who clearly state the animal liberation idea we defended from the start. They think it is right to express this to society without any compromise. I am closer to the second group. Because animals are sentient beings whose lives matter. They can experience both positive and negative emotions, including pain and distress; they can socialize in their community and make decisions. They think. They feel. They love. Likening animals to 'things' mean ignoring the current state of scientific knowledge. Animals’ capacity to feel pain is now the object of broad consensus. The scientists behind the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness, publicly proclaimed on July 7, 2012, wrote, "Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. As a result, it has been established that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.” (http://fcmconference.org)
By defining animals as sentient beings, we accept that animals have the ability to feel, perceive, or be conscious, or to experience subjectivity. This is proven scientifically. So my goal is to explain this scientific fact to as many people as possible and to ensure that animal husbandry ends.
Could you tell us about your attempts to stop Turkey from keeping stray dogs in cages and putting them to death? What about the results?
There is an Animal Protection Law dated 2014 in Turkey. In that law, it is clearly written that municipalities must have stray animals vaccinated and sterilized, and then leave them where they are found. But the number of animals increased because municipalities did not fulfill their duties. Since some people wanted stray dogs to be collected and there were some undesirable events, dogs were targeted. As a result of this wave of hatred, some people ganged up against stray dogs in order to protect them. Animals are collected by municipalities in clear violation of the law these days. Some are found poisoned and killed on the streets. We are fighting against this as animal rights organizations and activists. However, due to the President's unlawful order, the authorities collect animals and put them in prisons called 'municipal shelters'. We have been fighting very hard on this issue for the last two years.
In one of your books, you wrote: Veganism: Ethics, Politics, and Struggle. How do you explain this, and why do you see it as a social justice movement?
The book titled “Veganism: Ethics, Politics, and Struggle” [Veganizm: Ahlakı, Siyaseti ve Mücadelesi] was published as an e-book in 2013. It is the first veganism book published in Turkish. With Can Başkent, we wrote it to answer the questions that can come to the minds of vegans and non-vegans in daily life.
I see animal liberation as a political act because it is a commitment to justice and a refusal to participate in animal slavery. The decision to boycott animal products has major political implications. I don't agree with people who separate veganism from its ethics and politics.
Vegan Revolution and Animal Liberation - Zülâl Kalkandelen - E-Book 2021
We must question speciesism which attributes superiority to humans and carnism which defends protecting one animal while slaughtering another.
We must bring forward the individuality status of animals as well as their right to live without being subject to violence. This is an ethical revolution for humanity.
The idea that a sensitive being's life is less valuable than others is speciesism. This is based on the same foundation as racism based on discrimination among human races and sexism based on discrimination among the sexes. Slaughtering animals is based on this anthropocentric idea. This is the reason why we defend human, animal, and earth's freedom at the same time. If the whole planet is an enormous slaughterhouse for animals, how can people hope for peace here? Humanity must face this truth. Keeping a handhold on the past and making it an excuse for continued exploitation makes no sense. If all things continued the same way, neither slavery would be abolished nor women’s rights would be defended. In order to be against all discrimination in the same way, we must emphasize that all creatures have the right to live without being subjected to any kind of exploitation or discrimination. Discrimination against animals cannot be accepted in the same way as discrimination based on race, religion, sect, or sex.