1. First, could you tell us a bit about yourself? What kind of activism are you involved in?
I am a 40-year-old queer vegan feminist. I have been calling myself a feminist since I was 28 years old, and I became a vegan six years ago when I realised that speciesism is a form of discrimination. I work in the field of visual communication, and I am interested in the visual arts. I am one of the founders of the Association for Struggle Against Sexual Violence, a queer feminist association focusing on sexual violence in Turkey. I am sometimes invited to run workshops (“Vegan Feminism” and “Sexual Violence against Animals”) by rights-based organisations and student groups working in various fields. I also give lessons on speciesism and discrimination at VegAcademia, a nationwide educational platform for nonvegans, which we founded with our activist and academic vegan friends. These seminars have been met with great interest.
In 2021, a group of vegan activists—including myself—opened an animal rights study centre in Beyoğlu, called BurHak in Istanbul in the memory of my sibling Burak Özgüner,1 an animal rights and LGBTI+ activist and a conscientious objector, whom we lost on 9 November 2019. In my opinion, one of the most significant shortcomings in Turkey at the moment is that none of the existing literature (books, articles, etc.) provides an exhaustive discussion on animal rights, which also means that it cannot be utilised in the struggle for intersectional rights. Because of this, our priority was to organise Animal Rights Discussions once a month throughout 2021. In these online discussions, which I facilitate, our aim has been to illuminate and elaborate on the historical, political, and social transformation of the animal rights movement in Turkey as well as explore the link between different power relations, patriarchy, racism, exploitation of nature, and speciesism. The discussions bring together activists and experts working in the fields of ecology, human rights,
There has been an Animal Protection Law in Turkey since 2004, but it fails to protect animal rights and it does not criminalise violence against animals. In the last 10 years, however, with the increase in vegan activists, animal rights and animal freedom advocates, changing this law has been on the agenda. Our group of animal rights advocates launched a campaign called Law for Life2 with the goal of raising awareness and ending violence against animals, while developing inclusive, protective, and transformative arrangements to prevent impunity. Our campaign consisted of twenty basic demands for a holistic law, appealing to governmental officials, sending letters to them, and organising social media and street protests.
2. You have a background in visual communication. How does this show in your activism?
Yes, I have been working as a graphic designer since 2002. It has been almost ten years since I stopped working for advertising agencies. As my awareness of discrimination increased, I could no longer bear to work in agencies that support the continuity of the capitalist system. Creating visual things for animal rights and feminism is something that I cannot stop myself from doing. Especially in recent years, social media has come to function as a news outlet and information tool, and its function only increased with the COVID-19 pandemic. Fewer people spend time reading long articles now; instead, easily understandable short videos, catchy slogans, and brief headlines stand out. I take this into account while doing digital activism. I use my skills for activism, without producing pornography of violence. I try to draw attention to equality and interconnectedness of different types of discrimination, and to produce empowering visuals.
When I was in high school, I moved to a small town with my parents and my sibling, Burak, who was seven years younger than I was. At that time, the municipal teams were killing dogs with poison. Burak founded the Bahçeköy Animal Lover Children’s Club with the aim of instilling love for animals in children. I was unaware of what we were exposing them to by ignoring the nonhuman animals with whom we share this world. I guess I was only seeing my brother as someone who was extremely sensitive.
Long before, I left home and the city for university. After I came back home from university, we moved from that town, and my sibling became a member of animal lovers’ associations. They were 18 years old when they became the president of one association and made me a member as well. Since I had an anthropocentric view of the world, I was seeing neither the animals nor the animal lovers as people waging a political struggle. I was fishing, eating animal meat, drinking animal milk, and I saw no problem in living this way. When my sibling came back from college, I was meeting with anti-authoritarian, anti-militarist activists, going back and forth to anarchist and feminist organisations, and trying to fight the fight for a nonviolent world where no one is discriminated against. When the IMF and the World Bank came to Istanbul in 2009, Burak and I participated in several protests with Rhythms of Resistance,3 an anti-authoritarian and anti-militarist group which operates via an international network. The group supports protests in many countries through music and creativity. For five years, we actively supported different areas of struggle such as for human rights, animal rights, workers’ rights, ecological rights, women’s and LGBTI+ rights, and immigrant rights.
In 2010, together with anarchist and anti-authoritarian friends, we founded the Association for Freedom for the Earth, which had been a joint dream for Burak and myself. Before that, there was no association in Turkey that covered all the struggles I mentioned above without creating a hierarchy among them, and there was no association that prioritised speciesism and animal freedom. With the understanding that nature and society should be considered as a whole, the association carried out activities until 2016 to contribute to the
Soon after we found the association, after I watched a video of a slaughterhouse, secretly recorded by another association member, I became a vegetarian. Then, in 2014, I decided to go vegan while drawing the Vegan Nutrition Chart for the association. Burak and their fighting spirit taught me that it is necessary to produce discourse without excluding anyone, and earlier they helped me learn that animals are individuals who have rights. Since then, I have seen animals who are sick, disabled, and subjected to human violence, and I have been trying to heal them, opening my house to them. I have been living with a dog for four and a half years, and I work to ensure that all animals—including human beings—lead a nonviolent life, regardless of species.
4. What does vegan feminism mean to you?
Vegan feminism is necessary to establish the link between the exploitation of nonhuman animals, those humans who are not white, adult, heterosexual, and cisgender male, and those who do not fit within social norms. Furthermore, it is necessary for the feminist struggle to move towards non-anthropocentric modes of action. As humans are also an animal species even though this fact tends to be rejected in practice and, most importantly, as all forms of discrimination—including sexism—relegate one to less of a human, I believe that the feminist movement should incorporate nonhuman animals into their agenda. As we cannot be free while keeping someone captive, it is not enough to demand freedom only for the human species.
In other words, intersectional feminism exposes the system—the big picture—we need to combat. It destroys our ingrained perception of victims and perpetrators and leads us to question the discriminations we simultaneously perpetrate and face within the intersectional power structures. The first step in combatting speciesism is to recognise the rights of animals that we have encroached upon and start living without exploiting them. In this context, being a vegan is the bare minimum. The feminist movement transforms through the efforts of those who see themselves as feminist agents. The combination of the words “vegan” and “feminism” has also been the result of long struggles. We need a vegan feminism wrapped in queer imagination for a world in which we are not slaves to anyone, we do not enslave anyone for ourselves, and we do not exploit anyone. We need queer vegan feminism to challenge all dichotomies inherent in power.
Various binary dichotomies (human–animal, woman–man, cis–trans, heterosexual–homosexual, sane–mad, child–adult, disabled–able-bodied, White–Black, etc.) have become normative and are reinforced by systemic power structures. However, this does not mean that women, LGBTI+ people, children, all disadvantaged groups, and animals are exploited in the same way within the patriarchal system. Nonetheless, discrimination and hate culture occur through the same norm of superiority, as indicated by the several processes of dehumanisation. For example, children are not perceived as fully human, so their rights are easily violated and the abuses they are subjected to are recklessly ignored. This is also the case for mentally “disabled” individuals, another group of people often silenced. A trans woman is regarded as not woman enough and not human enough. Jewish people were subjected to “inhuman” treatment and massacred in concentration camps on the grounds that they were an inferior race. When bosses are assumed to be smarter than workers, they are seen as more deserving people. In other words, the justification is always the same, and thus hate crimes and injustices end up swept under the rug.
As the bodies of nonhuman animals are “captured” for consumption using much more force than collecting plants would require, they are presented primarily to normative men.4 In other words, men show off or “prove” their manly strength by capturing animals using force instead of collecting plants to eat, which in practice would be an easier task. In a similar vein, all “nonmale” bodies are seen as bodies to be conquered and dominated. The innate rights of nonhuman animals are rendered invisible by anthropocentric ways of thinking and the use of discriminatory language. I, through my activism, highlight these points. I emphasise that humans positioned themselves to a superior status that enabled them to dominate nature and animals for thousands of years. For these reasons, we should read human history from the perspective of nonhuman animals if we want to understand the struggle for animal liberation. I work with activists who embrace intersectional struggle for this purpose, and I am in a constant state of change from the moment I decide to initiate change within myself. I believe that any one of us can change as long as we are open to hearing about the lives of others and do not assume ourselves to be saviours.
In the workshops I have held, I noticed that people who were exposed to some forms of discrimination found it easier to establish connections between different power structures. University students are very open to change. I remember once when we took a break at a full-day workshop with psychologists on combatting sexual violence against animals, I saw three people hugging each other, one of them teary-eyed. When I asked, “Are you okay?”, they smiled and said: “You made us all vegan”. I do not think anyone will abandon their habits and comfort zones unless they want to do so. Therefore, I believe that people cannot be turned into vegans as if by magic, but you can broaden their horizons during their transformation process. At the end of the day, we embraced each other with our words, and they told me: “Your existence is very valuable. Please do not neglect your selfcare.” I felt that we touched each other, which is the most valuable thing in my opinion. Perhaps their lives did not change completely that very day, but I know that they set out not wanting to be a part of the system that narrows our lives.
6. Have you been involved in some situations or incidents that demonstrate the connection between animal liberation efforts and other social justice matters?
Back in 2013, when I was reading the Turkish translation (by G. Tezcan & M. Boyacıoğlu) of Carol J. Adams’ The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (original 1990) as a vegetarian feminist, I started to think about the connection between masculinity, meat-eating, and animal-owning. Then, in 2014, I attended the first Vegan Feminist Camp in Turkey. Throughout the three days of the event, I immersed myself in conversations with other vegan and nonvegan feminists about the institution of family, war politics, motherhood, our relationships, food culture, eating meat, militarism, homophobia, transphobia, feminist language and expression, veganism, and daily life. After the camp, I recognised the necessity of animal freedom to be a part of the social justice struggle against speciesism, and I went vegan. On 8 March 2015, when the first Feminist Night Walk was organised in Istanbul, we walked with our vegan feminist placards: “Vegan Feminists are Here!”; “Male Violence Rises from the Slaughterhouses”; “Human Freedom = Animal Freedom”. Since then, the number of vegan feminists in Turkey has risen, and there are vegan feminists in several movements against discrimination.
When I consider Turkey from an animal freedom perspective, I do not think that it differs from other parts of the world. However, honour killings are still committed in Turkey. The Istanbul Convention, which protects the rights of women and LGBTI+ people, was denounced in Turkey on the midnight of 20 March 2021 according to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s decision. Throughout Turkey, women and LGBTI+ people protested against the withdrawal from the Istanbul Convention (Yalcinalp 2021). At the same time, some men in Anatolia “sacrificed” animals with shouts of joy. Claiming to the newspapers that “We don’t need the immoral laws of the west to protect our women”, these men killed eight sheep on 27 March in celebration of Erdoğan’s decision (Sputnik News 2021).
The Animal Protection Law in Turkey that came into force in 2004. Since 2012—thanks to public pressure by activists—it has been on the government’s agenda that this law should be changed. Currently, the law has no deterrence sanctions for those enacting violence on animals, defines such acts “a misdemeanour rather than a crime”, and categorises animals as property that is either “owned” or “unclaimed”. However, each new proposal for amendments put forth by the Turkish state officials during these years has actually included new proposals for massacre rather than improvements for animal rights. While we have been putting pressure on the state to introduce an animal rights law, pro-government people who earn income from animals have been lobbying to prevent a law that would be in favour of animals. Numerous fascist and sexist journalists who have supported the annulment of the Istanbul Convention have also taken a stand against the proposal for an animal rights law, alleging that they are defending human rights as such a law would be “harmful” to humanity. These pro-government journalists have argued that the law demanded by animal rights activists poses a threat to people, just like they argued that the Istanbul Convention poses a threat to the institution of the family. They put pressure on the state to make the law people-oriented. Despite all our objections as animal rights defenders, the amendments to the law were submitted to a vote by the ruling party, AKP.5 The amended law went into effect after the vote was published in the Official Gazette on 14 July 2021 (Dokuz8 Haber, 2021).
On the one hand, when we wave the rainbow flag in honour of the LGBTI+ community, we are detained. The police say, “this flag is forbidden”. The state
8. What is the political atmosphere around climate sustainability in Turkey? For example, what kind of public discussions are there about plant-based foods?
There is a rising movement to combat the climate crisis in Turkey. The fact that the planet and all living beings are under threat is on the agenda of left/socialist movements, too. Numerous pieces of research and news are being published on the impact of the livestock industry on the climate crisis. Activists and people with an ecological worldview are predominantly convinced that animal-based nutrition is unsustainable and unhealthy for humans. Yet, veganism is not dealt with on a political basis. Instead, many ecologists/environmentalists support a reductionist approach that advocates for combatting the climate crisis by consuming less meat as an individual. Those who see veganism as a personal preference or a diet are in the majority. As far as I can see, the vast majority of people in the environmental movement follow vegetarian diets and do not consider veganism necessary. When I discuss with these people, their main concern seems to be to imagine a habitable planet for humans, rendering animal exploitation as a secondary matter. For these reasons, some people switch to a plant-based diet and say that they are vegan.
However, plant-based diets are not the same as veganism because veganism is not just about nutrition. Instead, veganism is about removing animal exploitation from one’s whole life to the highest degree possible. Within the animal liberation movement, these debates have been taking place a lot lately. The livestock industry is one of the greatest causes of the climate crisis, so we
Going vegan can make a big difference for all living beings and promote a sustainable climate that enables all animals—humans included—to breathe freely. I think that recognising both our own and other species’ right to life brings us closer to nature from our current alienated state.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my friend Ezgi Burgan for recommending me to take part in this valuable book, and my friends Tuğba Yavuz, Güray Tezcan and Cansu Özge Özmen, who supported me with translation from Turkish to English, and everyone who contributed. Finally, the future is not binary, the future is queer and vegan!
For Burak Özgüner’s and BurHak’s website, see www.burakozguner.com.
For the campaign’s website, see www.yasamicinyasa.org.
For the protest group’s website, see www.rhythms-of-resistance.org.
“When the meat supply is limited, men will receive it. Assuming meat to be food for men and consequently vegetables to be food for women carries significant political consequences. In essence, because meat eating is a measure of a virile culture and individual, our society equates vegetarianism with emasculation or femininity.” (Carol J. Adams, The Sexual Politics of Meat 2016, XXXVI)
The Justice and Development Party AKP is a conservative and populist party in Turkey, led by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the time of writing.
References
Adams, Carol J. 2016 (1990). The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory [Twentieth anniversary edition]. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic, An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc.
Dokuz8 Haber. 2021. “What Does the Amended Animal Protection Law Change?” Dokuz8 Haber, 7 September 2021. https://www.dokuz8haber.net/what-does-the-amended-animal-protection-law-change
Sputnik News. 2021. “İstanbul Sözleşmesi’nden çıkıldığı için ‘şükür kurbanı’ kestiler.” Sputnik News, March 27, 2021. https://tr.sputniknews.com/20210327/sivasta-istanbul-sozlesmesinden-cikildigi-icin-8-sukur-kurbani-kestiler-1044131571.html
Yalcinalp, Esra. 2021. “Turkey Erdogan: Women Rise Up Over Withdrawal from Istanbul Convention.” BBC News, 26 March 2021. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56516462