"Your Neighbour Kills Puppies" - Tom Harris - Activist, Artist & Author - Sentientism 190

Mar 25 2024 • 1 hr 48 mins

Tom is an internationally acclaimed artist, published author, and social justice activist. He is an expert and consultant on animal liberation history and strategy, and the global animal rights movement. His first book, Your Neighbour Kills Puppies was released in March 2024. The book is the previously untold story of one of the world’s most powerful social justice campaigns, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC). Tom became involved in the animal liberation movement at the age of fifteen when he attended his first hunt sab. Over the years that followed he devoted his life to helping animals and co-founded one of the UK`s most successful regional animal rights organizations, SARC (The Southern Animal Rights Coalition). Tom is a regular contributor to Forca Vegan magazine, and other periodicals. Under the professional name ‘Tattoo Tom‘, Tom has also achieved a highly successful and acclaimed career as an artist.

In Sentientist Conversations we talk about the two most important questions: “what’s real?” & “who matters?”

Sentientism is "evidence, reason & compassion for all sentient beings." The video of our conversation is ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

00:00 Clips!

00:49 Welcome

- Nicola Harris and Anita Krajnc episode @PlantBasedTreaty

03:18 Tom's Intro

- 20 years in the #animalliberation movement

- Founding the Southern Animal Rights Coalition

- Closing a military research facility, a puppy farm, several chicken units

- Getting fur and foie gras out of shops

- #SHAC (Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty) co-ordinators "the largest and most dynamic grass-roots animal liberation campaign"

- "The model we came up with was so effective... that the American and British governments were both really terrified... while I don't think any of us necessarily set out to create a blueprint that could end capitalism... I think we probably came dangerously close"

- "The government in the UK essentially framed us and set us up on bogus blackmail charges... I received a 5 year prison sentence for... a lawful campaign... I served 2 years."

- 3 years on bail before-hand and 2.5 years on license afterwards with a tag "which was probably the toughest bit... I wasn't allowed to talk to my brother... a constant threat that they were going to send me back to prison."

- Since release, finding a very different animal liberation world

- Lord Sainsbury's intention "to eliminate the anti-vivisection movement... he succeeded for a good decade"

- "The movement I knew didn't exist... new groups like the Save Movement, Animal Rebellion, DxE... started forming"

- Taking up tattoo artistry because "I was essentially banned from talking to any other activist... any other vegan... all of my friends I wasn't allowed to talk to them"

- "Stabbing people for money" :)

10:10 What's Real?

- "I actually dropped out of a philosophy degree to do more animal rights activism"

- Growing up in a non-religious family, probably atheists

- Christian grandparents "it was good for them... I saw the positives"

- Cartographer dad, psychologist mum, quite analytical / logical focus

- "I didn't learn when to stop following that logical path"

- "I was raised to be kind to animals and respect nature... to value life"

26:13 What and Who Matters?

01:04:53 A Better Future?

01:45:00 Follow Tom

TomHarris.me
Shacjustice.com
@Tattoo_tom