Sometimes the opportunity for action is right outside your front door. That was literally the case this past Tuesday night, as eight SCW students joined the throngs of animal rights activists on 34th Street in protesting the Ringling Brothers' Circus' maltreatment of its performing animals. The students, Yael Fischer, Rachel Shtern, Sharon L. Weiss, Shifra Chana Rothstein, Tzippy Metzger, Jessica Moore, Sara Berman, and Estie Rosen, had limited experience in the realm of environmental activism. "I had participated in a protest against oil drilling operations two years ago," recalls Fischer, "but I felt that I had a much more significant impact on Tuesday."
Indeed, as hundreds of students gathered to consume slaughtered-chicken bits, the SCW Eight proved their devotion to a crowd of impressed sympathizers. "We were joining in the chanting, but we were louder and more enthusiastic than they were," noted Fischer, "so we started to lead the chants." And lead they did, with cheers like: "Ringling Brothers are to blame/ Stop the torture, stop the pain!"
The students, who had prepared picket signs beforehand, found themselves holding the main protest banner and leading chants with a megaphone. "These [the other protesters] are people who protest very often, and, sometimes, don't have one hundred percent of their energy to devote to the cause," explained Sharon I. Weiss, "but we felt that, especially since we were only able to be there for that night, we had to give it our all." Other protests of the circus' practices are planned for the duration of its stay in New York City, but they are scheduled to take place on shabbos.
The students were particularly impressed by the other protesters' endurance and determination: "We were out there from around 1:15 until 2:45," remembers Fischer, "and the other protestors got there earlier…all that time, it was very cold. That helped inspire us to be even more enthusiastic, knowing that we had the unique chance to be loud and proud with a group of people that does it all the time and doesn't give up." While the students do see their protest as important, they assign no blame to the masticating maidens in Brookdale lobby for not joining in the protest. "You can't blame people for not knowing what's going on," says Fischer, "it's our job now to spread the message and affect change."
It does appear that past protests have succeeded in eliciting change form Ringling Brothers. Shtern points to the fact that "last year, the elephants were walking down the street bound in chains, whereas this year they were unbound." Recognizing that this may only be a superficial difference, in which the circus may only be making an effort to give the appearance of humane conditions while it parades down public streets, Shtern remained optimistic, nonetheless. "The fact that they even recognize a need to pacify protesters - if that's all that the removal of the chains means - is at least a step in the right direction. It means that we got them thinking."
Overall, the students state that they will always remember their protest in a positive light, and some of them even look forward to initiating an animal rights club at SCW. Regardless of the final outcome of their actions this past Tuesday, no one can question the fact that the students involved in the protest care about elephants.