Shining World Compassion and Courage Award Recipient: Animal Rebellion – Compelling Governments with Peaceful Civil Disobedience

Animal Rebellion is a mass movement with a vision to bring the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and cruelty against animal-people to an end, using peaceful civil disobedience initiatives. Their aim is to compel governments to implement policies that help the public adopt the lifesaving plant-based lifestyle, in an effort to save the planet from imminent destruction.

In October 2019, tens of thousands of environmental and animal-people protection activists of Animal Rebellion and its sister movement Extinction Rebellion, gathered in London for two weeks of peaceful demonstrations, sit-ins, and parades. Their slogans aim to bring attention to the climate emergency, requesting that governments simply “tell the truth” and “act now” on reducing emissions to net-zero by 2025, with a solution being to create a “citizen assembly” to discuss and bring light to these important issues. Their peaceful, creative and vocal stance has generated much media coverage and inspired many worldwide.

“So, the only way we can address the climate emergency is by first addressing the animal emergency, and the strategy that we’ll be using will be non-violent direct-action civil disobedience because historically, this has been a way that’s just shown how to make systematic changes in the fastest time period.” “We are bringing attention to the fact that animal agriculture contributes roughly a quarter of all global greenhouse gases and is the leading cause of deforestation in the Amazon. And we cannot have the climate crisis and climate breakdown discussion without mentioning animal agriculture.” “We are killing more animals than ever before.” “This is a human rights issue, as well as [an] animal rights and an ecological issue.”

Upon learning about this peaceful movement, Supreme Master Ching Hai presented Animal Rebellion with the Shining World Compassion and Courage Award, as well as a humble financial contribution of US$50,000 “with the deepest love, solidarity, and well-wishing. May all your members continue your all-important work of bringing justice, peace, and climate stability to the world with unabated success, in all Heaven’s glory.”