Here are the bad news: we’re all gonna die in one point or another.
The even worse news: our activism is not immortal either.
But it can, and should be.
Before you keep reading, think about your latest activity: will it “die” after you (or even before), or it will keep living?
Documentation can make the difference between both.
They say a picture worth a thousand words. If that’s so, then a video worth tens of generations that will never be able again to say they didn’t know.
Think of Behind The Mask, Gary Yourofsky’s Best Speece Ever, Phillip Wollen’s speech, Terrorists or Freedom Fighters or Earthlings for a moment, and would you give them up for anything in the world.
Sad thing is: the rescued animals will die after you (unless you document them), most chances even before. The guy you handed a leaflet to will die, even if he turns vegan, and his children (supposing it’s improbable that a man who won’t stop eating animals would come to give a second thought to his and his future children ecological footprints, and reconsider his choice) will probably either be raised to “do as they will” (eat meat) or raised to veganism, and then when leaving home to do as they will (eat meat). And if not them, then their children. And if not them, their grandson. The bottom line: leafletting is not enough. Leaflets won’t last. Your status on Facebook won’t last (not that we object Facebook – we awe too much to it to deny it), but let’s for once do the needed division between all things that last, and all things that not.
And it’s not that the things that not don’t have a place – only that their place is eventually to support the things that do last.
To help to raise fund for a film, for example.
To help promoting a site.
To leave some information before you leave.
The thumb role is that: everything made of paper, ink, and even flesh and blood won’t last.
Everything that it digital and doesn’t depend on publishers, remakers and so on, lasts.
Cinema is long used to shape society, and usually serves as means in the wrong hands; Stalin rightfully stated that “cinema is the most important to us”. Mussolini successfully used the cinema. General Franco has internalized understood the immense power as well. Hitler‘s right hand has been Goebbels, his the propaganda minister who focused most of his efforts on cinema. The Nazi propaganda and especially Leni Riefensthal‘s super esthetic films and especially Triumph of The Will were a great success in both cinema and the achieving the Nazi party’s goal to bring the pure-blooded together.
On the other hand, they say Uncle Tom’s Cabin was the book that finally brought to their freedom. When Abraham lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of this book who was brought to him, the first thing he said to her was “so you are the little women who started the revolution!”
Sadly, more negative people than positive understands the power of cinema, books.
Think about Mao Zedong‘s Red Book and the Bible (we feel a little dumb for linking to it, we must admit), but also about Confucius‘ Sayings which brought order to china and helped to prevent crime without the usual means these days, when crime rates were high on the one hand, but so do the rates of torture penalty, back when it was the norm to cut a man’s limb as a penalty for stealing bread.
Think about Marx’s The Capital, and Darwin’s Origin of Species (note that it wasn’t it research that changed the world, but his writing about it). Think of Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion.
After so many of them – nothing would be the same.
And…action!
It’s the dawn of the blogs too. Who used to be amateur writers are now award-winning professional writers, sometimes news reporters who bring the world things that we’d never know about otherwise.
Think about Silversprings monkey research center undercover investigation, and Britches liberation brief video.
These are all we need to rest our case about the importance of being timeless, using the digital media, musical records (soundtracks are some of the best uses of music, charging both the movie and the music with the extra meaning that each of them contributed), and blogs (as you can see by are very own choice – which we made after loosing so many important pictures and videos to Facebook timeline, lost in data bases that no one would ever read. We use Facebook to share posts, but it’s the post that will eventually survive and make it to google’s first page).
We want books on Amazon. We want DVDs on Ebay. We want music on Soundcloud and Myspace, but even more – soundtracks. We want numbers on iTunes (there’s an option to promote both the song and your cause by opening it up to donation – raising all the funds you get from it to your favorite animal rights group). We want YouTube “tv series”. We want comics, and we want them all in all the languages – but mainly the both most spoken and spoken on the most populated zones: English, Chinese, Hindu. We want creativity. We want a lot of thing. We turn to you, artists. We thereby give you the stage on which you create and document all the way to animal liberation.
Israel Animal Liberation Press Office 