简介
Fernando 成为 vegan，是因为一个陌生人说他是伪君子。
那年他 19 岁，在波哥大的一个斗牛场外发传单，呼吁禁止将斗牛向儿童开放。一个路人接过传单，问他吃不吃肉，然后说：「你站在这里为动物发声，回了家却在背后捅动物一刀」。
整段对话不到三十秒。一周后，Fernando 不再吃动物。那个瞬间让他走上了一条路，并创立了哥伦比亚第一个伦理 vegan 组织。
在哥伦比亚，动物生产背后的产业与准军事暴力有着直接的联系。Fernando 把许多人谈论畜牧业生产时忽略的东西串联了起来——当谈论牛肉生产的时候，「碳足迹」是人们的焦点。但在哥伦比亚，牛肉生产背后还有「死亡人口足迹」。哥伦比亚 80%的农业用地用于养牛，拥有这些土地的权贵家族资助私人武装来阻止土地再分配，并在这个过程中杀害了数十万人。哥伦比亚牧场主联合会的前会长也因为与准军事组织的关联而在狱中服刑。
更令人揪心的是暴力带来的麻木。Fernando 成长于 80、90 年代哥伦比亚毒品战争与武装冲突的环境，对暴力早已脱敏。他坦言自己在 PETA（善待动物组织）总部观看极其血腥的动物虐待影像时，他发现自己什么都感觉不到，只能在现场假装哭泣。他意识到，在人类暴力中幸存下来，让他失去了对动物苦难感到震惊的能力。
当面对来自家人朋友的「人还在被杀，为何关心动物的死活？」的质疑声，Fernando 是如何思考的？在这期节目中，他与我们讲述了畜牧业与战争、小农生存的联系，哥伦比亚从禁止斗牛到延伸禁止斗鸡的过程；此外，他还谈到自己所认为有效的 veganism 倡导路径，为什么把 veganism 简化为饮食选择是死胡同，以及斯宾诺莎（Spinoza）哲学和动物解放的内在关联。
Fernando went vegan because a stranger told him he was a hypocrite.
He was 19, handing out leaflets outside a bullfighting arena in Bogota, asking the city to stop letting children watch bulls get killed. A passerby took a leaflet, asked him if he ate meat, and said: “You’re standing here defending animals, and then you go home and stab them in the back.” The conversation lasted thirty seconds. A week later, Fernando stopped eating meat. That moment set him on a path that would eventually lead him to found the first ethical vegan organization in Colombia — a country where the industries behind animal production have direct ties to paramilitary violence.
In this episode, Fernando connects dots that most veganism conversations miss entirely. When we talk about beef, we talk about carbon footprints. Fernando talks about body counts. Eighty percent of Colombia’s agricultural land is used for cattle ranching, and the powerful families who own that land funded private armies to block land redistribution — killing hundreds of thousands of people in the process. The head of Colombia’s Cattle Ranchers Federation is now in prison for ties to paramilitary groups. But perhaps the most unsettling thread in this conversation is about desensitisation.
Growing up through the drug wars and armed conflict of the 1980s and 90s in Colombia, Fernando became so numb to violence that when he later watched graphic footage of animal cruelty at PETA’s headquarters, he felt nothing. He realised that surviving human violence had stripped him of the ability to feel shock at animal suffering. We also talk about what it means to do vegan advocacy when people around you are in survival mode, why copying Western activist tactics like Anonymous for the Voiceless doesn’t work in a country where masks mean someone is about to die, and how Colombia managed to ban bullfighting through a creative legal strategy that then unexpectedly extended to cockfighting. Fernando shares why he believes in community over politics, why reducing veganism to diet is a dead end, and what Spinoza’s philosophy has to do with animal liberation.
音频
小宇宙：豆腐国际Vol.05 哥伦比亚动权倡导者 Fernando：肉牛放牧如何与战争交织？
时间轴
00:00开场介绍01:47Fernando 的 vegan 起源故事03:54斗牛场外的陌生路人08:03哥伦比亚的暴力：如同背景噪音10:48暴力脱敏：在 PETA 总部毫无感觉12:47“人都在被杀，你怎么还关心一头牛？”15:15土地、畜牧与哥伦比亚武装冲突的根源21:17养牛业的经济逻辑与死亡之船25:28牛肉作为身份象征与牧场主联合会28:04环保主义者为何不敢质疑养牛业30:18对外部批评的抵触心理33:07在哥伦比亚创立第一个伦理 vegan 组织35:21匿名网站与死亡威胁的风险38:56动物感知法与斗牛禁令46:25从政还是社区建设？47:32哥伦比亚动物权利运动的变迁51:47简化主义路线：少吃肉就够了吗？54:14作为活动人士如何保持理智56:33斯宾诺莎与必然性学说-
01:00:34在哪里关注 Fernando 00:00Introduction01:47Fernando’s vegan origin story03:54The bystander at the bullfighting arena08:03Violence in Colombia as background noise10:48Desensitisation: feeling nothing at PETA headquarters12:47“How can you care about a cow when people are getting killed?”15:15Land, cattle, and the roots of Colombia’s armed conflict21:17The economics of cattle ranching and the ships of death25:28Beef as a status symbol and the Cattle Ranchers Federation28:04Why environmentalists won’t question cattle ranching30:18Resistance to outside criticism33:07Starting the first ethical vegan org in Colombia35:21Anonymous websites and the risk of death threats38:56Animal sentience law and the bullfighting ban46:25Politics vs. community building47:32How Colombia’s animal rights movement has changed51:47The reductivist approach: Is eating less meat enough?54:14Staying sane as an activist56:33Spinoza and the doctrine of necessity01:00:34Where to find Fernando
播客全文🌟
Q: Welcome back to Slighty Tofu, the podcast that is tragically still not about soil products, but is 100% about making life a bit harder for exploitative industries. My name is Q, and today I’m very happy to be joined again by Fernando. We first met this summer at the Copenhagen Animal Liberation Conference, where he gave us a talk about the intersections between war, human oppression, and animal oppression. And I remember being really moved by it, even if, to be completely honest, I have forgotten a lot of the details, which is exactly what this episode is for, to revisit these conversations. And some of you might remember Fernando from a previous episode of Slighty Tofu International, where we talked about Colombia’s path towards prohibiting bullfighting, his vegan advocacy work in Colombia, and some of the mistakes and lessons along the way. Our listeners found it fascinating to hear about doing animal advocacy in a context marked by deep inequality, generational trauma, and ongoing human rights and environmental violations, something that, in a different way, also resonates with experiences in other parts of the global south, including China. So today we’re going to pick up that thread and go deeper into how systems of violence connect, war, poverty, state, violence, and the way animals are folded into all of that, and what that means for strategy and hope in our movements. So Fernando, for listeners who don’t yet know about your work, could you briefly introduce yourself? Tell us a bit about your vegan origin story and how you ended up founding what I understand is the first vegan, ethical vegan organization in Colombia.
Q：欢迎回到《有点豆腐》——一个不幸地依然和豆制品没有半点关系，但百分之百致力于让剥削性产业日子不好过的播客。我是 Q，今天非常开心能再次邀请到 Fernando。我们今年（注：2025 年）夏天在哥本哈根动物解放大会上第一次见面，他在那里做了一场关于战争、人类压迫与动物压迫之间交叉关系的演讲。我记得当时很受触动，虽然说实话，很多细节我已经记不太清了——而这恰恰就是这期节目存在的意义：重新回到这些对话。有些听众可能还记得 Fernando 之前在《有点豆腐》国际版里的那期节目，当时我们聊了哥伦比亚走向禁止斗牛的历程、他在哥伦比亚的 vegan 倡导工作，以及一路走来的一些失误和教训。听众们觉得很有意思：在一个充满深层不平等、代际创伤、以及持续存在的人权和环境侵害的社会里做动物倡导是什么样的——这在某种程度上也和全球南方其他地方的经验相呼应，包括中国。所以今天，我们要接着上次的话题，更深入地聊一聊暴力系统之间是如何互相关联的——战争、贫困、国家暴力，以及动物是怎么被卷进这一切的，还有这对我们运动的策略和希望意味着什么。Fernando，对于还不了解你的听众，能不能简单介绍一下自己？跟我们聊聊你的 vegan 起源故事，以及你是怎么创立了据我所知是哥伦比亚第一个伦理 vegan 组织的。
Fernando: Thank you. Thanks for having me. So I was born and raised in Bogota, Colombia. That’s the capital city. And it’s central Colombia, high in the mountains. And I got involved when I was about 19 years old. I got involved in anti-bullfighting. And from there, I started questioning my own use of animals, mostly for food. And I decided to go vegan. And I stopped eating meat overnight. And I was vegetarian for about six months. And then I went vegan. And I found that there was no, not a lot of people were vegan. Like only a few of my friends knew about it. Even the people who were involved in anti-bullfighting were not vegan. And we decided with one of my best friends to start an organization that talked about veganism. Because we felt that there was a lot of talk about animal welfare. there were animal welfare groups and anti-bullfighting groups and anti-circus groups, but nobody was talking about like the meat industry and everything that that entails. So now that’s how we started. And we think we were the first people to talk about veganism in Colombia as an ethical stance, not just like…I assume there were vegans in Colombia, but there were maybe there were religious affiliations or things like that. We were the first people to talk about animal exploitation in that sense.
Fernando：谢谢，感谢你们的邀请。我在哥伦比亚的首都波哥大出生长大，那是在哥伦比亚中部，海拔很高的山区。我大概 19 岁的时候开始参与反斗牛运动，从那以后就开始反思自己对动物的利用，主要是饮食方面。然后我决定成为 vegan。我一夜之间就不吃肉了，先是做了大概半年的素食者，然后彻底转为 vegan。我发现当时几乎没什么人是 vegan，只有我身边少数几个朋友知道这回事，甚至参与反斗牛运动的人也不是 vegan。于是我和我最好的一个朋友决定成立一个专门讨论 veganism 的组织。因为我们觉得，当时已经有很多关于动物福利的讨论了——有动物福利组织、反斗牛组织、反马戏团组织——但没有人在谈肉类产业以及它背后的一切。所以我们就这样开始了。我们认为自己是哥伦比亚第一批从伦理立场谈论 veganism 的人，而不是……我想哥伦比亚之前也有 vegan，但可能更多是出于宗教原因之类的。我们是第一批从动物剥削的角度来谈论这个问题的人。
Q: When you mentioned you were in the anti-bullfighting campaigns, could you describe the moment when you decided to go vegan? Was it because of a book, because of a conversation? Was there ever anyone that mentioned, you know, you are here protesting against bullfighting. What about other animals?
Q：你提到你参加过反斗牛运动，能不能描述一下你决定成为 vegan 的那个瞬间？是因为一本书，还是一次对话？有没有人对你说过：你在这里抗议斗牛，那其他动物呢？
Fernando: Yeah, so I remember that moment because I think it’s one of the most significant moments of my life. We were not even trying to ban the bullfight at the time because we thought that was like a very big ask. So we were asking the city to make the bullfight only for adults because you could you can bring kids or you could bring kids to a bullfight any age. And I was giving leaflets outside of the bullfighting arena. And it was not even somebody in the protest that talked to me. It was somebody, a bystander just came and I gave him a leaflet. And he asked me, what are you doing? And I told him, we’re trying to make the bullfight an adult event. And he asked me if I’d meet and I said, yes. And he said, you know, why are you standing here defending animals and then you go home and eat animals? And I remember literally he said, you’re standing here defending animals and then you go home and stab animals in the back.
Fernando：我记得那个瞬间，因为我觉得那是我人生中最重要的时刻之一。当时我们甚至都没想过要禁止斗牛，觉得那个要求太大了。我们只是在争取让斗牛变成仅限成年人观看的活动，因为那时候你可以带任何年龄的孩子去看斗牛。当时我在斗牛场外面发传单，跟我说话的甚至不是抗议队伍里的人，而是一个路人。我递给他一张传单，他问我在干什么，我说我们在争取让斗牛变成成人活动。然后他问我吃不吃肉，我说吃。他就说：你站在这里保护动物，回了家却在吃动物？我清楚地记得他的原话：你站在这里为动物发声，回了家却在背后捅动物一刀。
And I don’t know if that person wanted to discredit me or what we were doing or I don’t know if maybe he was vegan or nothing. Like, he just told me, think about it, and left. And it was like maybe 30 seconds. And after that, I started thinking, well, you know, this person’s right. Like, if I’m going to defend one animal, I should defend all animals. So that’s when I decided to go vegan. About a week later, I stopped eating meat.
我不知道那个人是想质疑我还是想质疑我们在做的事，也不知道他是不是 vegan。他就跟我说了一句”你想想吧”，然后就走了。整个过程可能就三十秒。但从那以后我就开始想：这个人说得对啊，如果我要保护一种动物，那我就应该保护所有动物。那就是我决定成为 vegan 的时刻。大概一周后，我就不再吃肉了。
Q: But sometimes I wonder, there must be other members in that campaign who would also be asked similar questions. But they might think, well, you know, cattle or pigs or whatever, chicken, they are being bred just for food, right? We hear this very often that these animals are, you know, they are just being brought into existence because they’re food. But you didn’t have that kind of mental gymnastic at that time. I wonder, have you ever thought about why did you not feel defensive about a question like this and decided to adopt such a drastic change?
Q：但有时候我会想，你那个运动里一定也有其他成员被问过类似的问题吧。但他们可能会想：牛啊猪啊鸡啊，牠们本来就是被养来吃的嘛。这种说法也是老生常谈了——这些动物就是因为是食物才被带到这个世界上的。但你当时并没有这种心理上的自我辩护。你有没有想过，为什么面对这样的问题你没有产生防御心理，反而做出了这么大的改变？
Fernando: well it has to do with the same conversation i remember uh when when the person asked me why why are you standing here defending bulls and not every other animal i said um i said because there’s a difference between killing animals for fun for entertainment and killing animals for food that person said something like well you know animals don’t know what you’re doing what you’re doing and I thought well you know they’re right like the difference only exists in your head but an animal doesn’t care if you’re killing them for food or for entertainment or for whatever other reason they just want to be left alone so and but I think in in a way I also was not resistant because I had always felt affinity for those who are vulnerable and even like people and I think it has to do with like the way I was raised in what I had to live through and as I grew up like I was more like a lot of people go into veganism from the animal perspective, and then they turn into and learn more about social justice issues.
Fernando：这其实跟那次对话有关。我记得当那个人问我：你为什么站在这里保护牛，却不保护其他动物？我说：因为为了娱乐杀动物和为了食物杀动物是不一样的。那个人说了类似这样的话：动物并不知道你杀牠们的理由是什么。我一想，确实，这个区别只存在于你的脑子里，对动物来说，不管你是为了食物还是娱乐还是别的什么原因杀牠们，牠们只是想被放过。另一方面，我觉得我之所以没有那么抗拒，是因为我一直对弱者有一种天然的共情——包括对人也是。这跟我的成长环境和经历有关。很多人是从关注动物开始，然后慢慢了解社会正义议题的。
I was coming from the other side. I was more aware of social justice issues in my own country before I even thought about animals. So I had always had that empathy for the weak. So it was very easy for me to expand that to include animals.
但我是从另一个方向来的。我在开始关注动物之前，就已经对自己国家的社会不公有很深的认识。所以我一直都对弱者有同理心，把这份同理心扩展到动物身上对我来说很自然。
Q: And in one of the pieces you sent me, you have described violence in Colombia, social injustice as not as isolated events, but almost like a background noise, part of daily life. Could you maybe paint a picture for our listeners? What do you mean by that?
Q：在你发给我的一篇文章里，你把哥伦比亚的暴力和社会不公描述为不是孤立事件，而更像是一种背景噪音，是日常生活的一部分。能不能给我们的听众描绘一下那是什么样的？你说的这种”背景噪音”具体是什么意思？
Fernando: Yeah, so I grew up in the 1980s and 90s, which are probably one of two of the most violent decades in Colombia. You know, we had many things going on, but the main two things that happened when I was growing up was like there was an armed conflict between, you know, communist guerrillas or what used to be communist guerrillas and the government. And then there was the drug war. The drug war had escalated quite a bit in the 80s and 90s. And so there was a lot of violence around related to that. You know, it’s so constant that you stop thinking about it. Like I remember thinking, you know, we cannot, when the drug war was kind of out of control, like early 90s, I must have been like 11, 12 years old. You cannot stop and think, you know, which car is going to blow up this time because they were putting a lot of car bombs in the city. You wouldn’t go crazy. You would never leave your house. So you just go and hope that it’s not your turn. And you kind of like stop thinking about it.
Fernando：我在 1980 年代和 90 年代长大，那大概是哥伦比亚最暴力的两个十年。当时有很多事情在发生，但主要是两件：一是政府和共产主义游击队——或者说曾经是共产主义游击队的武装组织——之间的武装冲突；二是毒品战争。毒品战争在 80 年代和 90 年代急剧升级，导致了大量的暴力事件。暴力太持续了，你就不再去想它了。我记得 90 年代初，毒品战争几乎失控的时候，我大概十一二岁。你不可能每天出门都想着”这次是哪辆车要炸”——因为当时城市里到处都是汽车炸弹。你要是老想着这些，早就疯了，也永远不敢出门了。所以你就出门、祈祷轮不到自己，然后不再去想这件事。
It becomes like very normalized. And I remember very, I especially remember September 11th, 2001, because I had a friend who was from New York, was living in New York City at the time, and this person was completely distraught about what had happened. I remember trying to comfort this person just by saying, well, you know, just keep going, like tomorrow is just another day. And they couldn’t comprehend that. And that’s when I started thinking, you know, not everybody lives like this. Not everybody deals with this kind of violence day in and day out and just keep going. So, yeah, that’s kind of like how I grew up and there was a lot of violence in the countryside. You know, the guerrillas were fighting the government. The government also sought help from paramilitary groups, which increased the amount of violence, you know, tenfold in the late 90s. So, yeah, we unfortunately went through a lot during that time.
暴力变得非常正常化。我特别记得 2001 年 9 月 11 日，因为我有一个住在纽约的朋友，这个人完全被那天发生的事击垮了。我当时试图安慰他，就说：没事的，继续过日子吧，明天又是新的一天。他完全无法理解我怎么能这么说。那是我第一次意识到：不是所有人都像我们这样生活的，不是所有人都习惯了日复一日地面对暴力然后继续走下去。我就是这样长大的。农村的暴力更严重，游击队在跟政府打仗，政府又借助准军事组织（paramilitary groups）的力量，结果 90 年代末暴力程度翻了好几倍。我们那个年代确实经历了太多。
Q: And you wrote that being surrounded by these kind of extreme human violence can make someone less repulsed by animal cruelty than, you know, people in safer environments. How did you notice that in yourself or in others? I cannot even fathom, you know, how hard it is to try to do vegan advocacy in that kind of environment. Or just speaking to people who have been through that levels of trauma.
Q：你写过，长期处在这种极端的人类暴力之中，会让一个人对动物虐待的反感程度变低——至少比生活在安全环境中的人更不容易感到震惊。你是怎么在自己或者别人身上注意到这一点的？我很难想象在那种环境下做 vegan 倡导有多难，哪怕只是跟经历过那种程度创伤的人聊起这个话题。
Fernando: Yeah, so I noticed that first in myself. You know, I went vegan without ever looking at footage of a farm or a slaughterhouse. Nothing. It was just like in my head, I made this decision that this was the right thing to do. When I started trying to do advocacy, then I started looking at videos. I started off farms and slaughterhouses and I realized that I didn’t feel anything like it didn’t I could watch it like it was watching anything else and in the beginning I thought it was due because of the fact that I was already vegan so that it didn’t affect me but then I really started thinking about it when I went to PETA to headquarters back in like 2002 and I was doing volunteer work as an intern. And they showed us a documentary that was very graphic. And they were boiling this cat alive in some market somewhere for food. And people in the room who were already vegan couldn’t even look at it. They were crying. And I sat there and I was like, I don’t feel anything about, like there is something missing.
Fernando：我首先是在自己身上发现的。我成为 vegan 的时候，从来没看过任何农场或屠宰场的视频，什么都没看。纯粹是在脑子里做了一个决定，觉得这是对的。后来开始做倡导的时候，我才开始看这些视频——农场的、屠宰场的——然后我发现自己什么都感觉不到。看那些画面就跟看其他任何东西一样。一开始我以为是因为我已经是 vegan 了，所以那些画面不会影响我。但后来我真正开始思考这个问题，是 2002 年左右我去 PETA（善待动物组织）总部做实习志愿者的时候。他们给我们放了一部非常血腥的纪录片，里面有人在某个市场把一只猫活活煮死。房间里其他已经是 vegan 的人根本看不下去，都在哭。而我坐在那里，什么感觉都没有。我意识到我身上少了些什么。
So I was very desensitized to violence towards animals because I had been desensitized to violence towards humans for a very long time.
我对动物暴力已经严重脱敏了，因为我对人类暴力已经脱敏了很久很久。
Q: So when you speak with people who had also lived through these extreme violence, cartel violence, etc., how do they respond in general to the idea of not eating animals? You see there’s a level of horror, you know, people perceive human horror or human oppression and then animal oppression. Do they, you know, explicitly say, I can’t think about animals right now? Like, why do I even care about animals when you can see human body parts laying around or?
Q：当你跟那些同样经历过极端暴力的人聊起不吃动物这个想法时，他们一般是什么反应？人们对恐惧是有层级的——先是人类的苦难，然后才是动物的。他们会不会直接说”我现在没心思管动物”？或者说”连人的碎尸都随地可见，我为什么要关心动物”？
Fernando: Yeah, totally. Like that happened all the time. Every time we were trying to do outreach, people, you know, even my own family, I remember my mom just telling me, like, how can you care about a cow when, like, there’s people getting killed? And it really bothered, to be honest, it really bothered me because I didn’t have an answer. I didn’t have an answer. Like, how do I tell people that we should care about both things? But I understood where they were coming from. They were like, a lot of people were in survival mode. So to ask them to care about animals, it was like a step too far. And that’s how I ended up doing the work that I do about relating the war to animal rights, because I was really bothered by the fact that I didn’t have an answer to this question. And I looked online and I asked people around and I found, you know, the normal, the more typical answers, you know, compassion is not a zero sum game and things like that. But it didn’t really resonate with me to tell somebody that answer.
Fernando：完全是这样，这种事一直在发生。每次我们做推广的时候都会遇到。甚至我自己的家人——我记得我妈妈就跟我说过：人都在被杀，你怎么还关心一头牛？说实话，这个问题真的很困扰我，因为我没有答案。我该怎么告诉别人我们应该同时关心这两件事呢？但我理解他们的想法——很多人处在生存模式里，让他们再去关心动物，实在是太遥远了。正是因为这个问题一直困扰着我，我才开始做把战争和动物权利联系起来的研究。我在网上找过，也问过身边的人，找到的都是那些常见的说法，比如”同理心不是零和游戏”之类的。但让我拿这种话去回应别人，我觉得没有说服力。
And that’s how I started relating and investigating why, how is the war? How is what we have lived through? Is this related to what we do to animals in some way? And once I found that link, then I could tell them, yeah, you should care about animals. Because if you care about what’s happening in the countryside, in this country where there is all this violence, This violence is partly and mostly caused by what we do to animals in the first place. And then I think people found that more relatable than just me. You know, if I go tell them, you know, animals feel pain and all these other things. That’s true. But it’s not enough to make them really question what they’re doing. So, yeah, that’s how I approached it.
所以我开始研究和探索：战争是怎么回事？我们所经历的一切和我们对待动物的方式之间有没有什么关联？一旦我找到了这个联系，我就可以告诉他们：你应该关心动物，因为如果你关心这个国家农村正在发生的暴力，那么这些暴力在很大程度上恰恰是由我们对动物的所作所为造成的。我觉得人们听到这个会更有共鸣，而不是光听我说”动物也会痛”之类的话——那些当然是事实，但不足以真正让他们反思自己在做的事。
Q: we’re thinking about veganism discourse in the West, or even in China, there’s a lot of talk about carbon footprint of beef production. But there is body counts, there’s human lives behind beef production as well. And I would like to zoom out to that bigger picture for this part of our conversations, because in your article, you have mentioned connections between the drug trade, land reforms, and animal agriculture in Colombia. And for listeners who are not familiar with that story, could you give us a crash course? You know, could you sketch out how these things are connected?
Q：在西方甚至在中国谈论 veganism 的时候，大家谈的很多是牛肉生产的碳排放的足迹。但牛肉生产背后还有人命的代价。我想在这个部分把视角拉远一些，因为在你的文章里，你提到了毒品贸易、土地改革和动物农业在哥伦比亚之间的关联。对于不了解这段历史的听众，你能给我们做一个简要介绍吗？这些东西是怎么联系在一起的？
Fernando: Yeah, so it really begins way back when, you know, Europeans came over to what is now Colombia, the way it was a big land grab. You know, Europeans came and basically said, you know, this land belongs to nobody. So whatever they found became their property. And if you fast forward that process, you know, 400 years, 500 years, what happens is land ownership in Central South America is very skewed, which means that a very small amount of people own most of the land. And that’s why there is so much poverty in the countryside, because most farmers and peasants, they don’t even own the lands that they work. And in Colombia, especially, that’s a really bad problem. I think Colombia has the worst land ownership distribution of all Central South America. It became such a problem that in the 60s, in the 1960s, these rebel groups were formed. And one of their main objectives was to ask the government to redistribute the land so that peasants could have owned some land so they could work basically for themselves, not for somebody else. And so the government fought them, you know, because it was like the Cold War.
Fernando：这要追溯到很久以前，欧洲人来到现在的哥伦比亚的时候。那基本上就是一场大规模的土地掠夺。欧洲人来了，说这片土地不属于任何人，于是他们看到什么就占什么。快进四五百年，结果就是中南美洲的土地所有权极度不均衡——极少数人拥有大部分土地。这就是农村为什么有这么多贫困的原因，因为大多数农民和农户连自己耕种的土地都不是自己的。在哥伦比亚，这个问题尤其严重——我认为哥伦比亚的土地分配不均在整个中南美洲是最糟糕的。这个问题严重到在 1960 年代，反政府武装组织开始形成，他们的主要目标之一就是要求政府重新分配土地，让农民能拥有自己的土地，能为自己干活，而不是给别人打工。然后政府就跟他们打起来了——那是冷战时期。
And so it was like communists versus capitalists. And obviously the United States was involved in that, you know, dictating policy. And, well, over time, because of a U.S. demand that they should, that the government should promote the creation of self-defense groups or paramilitary forces, because they saw that the government, the Colombian government was too weak to have a state presence everywhere in Colombia, in the rural, in the countryside. So they said you got to promote people to create their own armies. A paramilitary force is basically just a private army. And that got out of control, you know. And finally, he got all these groups coalesced in one big group that was called the AUC, which stands in Spanish, but which stands for United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. And there was a right-wing group, and they were very, very violent. It only existed for about nine years officially. And in those nine years, they were responsible for almost 50% of the victims in the Colombian art conflict, which has lasted decades. So they were very violent and they were basically sponsored by the cattle industry.
所以就变成了共产主义对资本主义的对抗，美国当然也介入了，在背后主导政策。后来，因为美国要求哥伦比亚政府推动建立民间自卫组织或准军事力量——因为他们觉得哥伦比亚政府太弱了，无法在全国尤其是农村地区维持国家存在——所以他们说你们得鼓励人民建立自己的武装。准军事组织说白了就是私人军队。结果这就失控了。最终，所有这些组织合并成一个大团体，叫做 AUC（哥伦比亚联合自卫力量）。这是一个极右翼组织，极其暴力。它正式存在了大约九年，但在这九年里，它造成的受害者占整个哥伦比亚武装冲突受害者总数的将近 50%——而这场冲突已经持续了几十年。他们非常暴力，而他们的背后金主基本上就是畜牧业。
Cattle ranchers were founding these groups, giving them money, getting them trained, because they saw land redistribution as their main enemy. They don’t want to give up their lands that are mostly used in Colombia for cattle ranching. So 80% of agricultural land in Colombia is used for cattle ranching. So it’s either grazing or grazing crops to feed animals and so on. And these lands are owned by a very select and powerful group of people. So they saw any change as a threat, and they sponsored these groups that just went on to kill hundreds of thousands of people.
牧场主们在建立这些组织，给他们钱，给他们训练，因为他们把土地再分配视为最大的敌人。他们不想放弃自己的土地——而这些土地在哥伦比亚主要用于养牛。哥伦比亚 80%的农业用地都用于畜牧业，不是放牧就是种饲料作物。这些土地掌握在一小群非常有权势的人手里。所以他们把任何改变都视为威胁，资助了这些组织，而这些组织后来屠杀了数十万人。
Q: So would you say that peasants are being caught in the crossfire between the state cartels and agribusiness, and animal agriculture sort of function as a cover for economic activities or land grabbing in that conflict. Is that correct?
Q：所以你是说，农民被夹在国家、贩毒集团和农业综合企业之间，而动物农业在某种程度上充当了经济活动或土地掠夺的掩护？
Fernando: Yeah, that’s correct. Yeah. So peasants are, I remember this quote I read once, and it said, you know, peasants in Colombia are victims of everybody who has guns. That is true. Like, you have the government and the paramilitaries on one side and the guerrillas on the other side. And that’s a complicated subject. And a lot of people tend to, it’s debatable whether communist guerrillas in Colombia are still communists or are still even fighting for the people. We can elaborate more about that if we want, but, but there, you know, people that just want to work and live in peace, their victims, they’re caught in like this very complex conflict. And then you have the drug part of everything because drug trafficking is very profitable. So everybody is involved in drug trafficking just because they want to fund their own groups. That’s how it works. So you have, you know, guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, everybody traffics drugs. And then you have the actual drug cartels, which all they care is about making money. They don’t really have political aims other than being left alone so they can get rich. And the peasants are just in the middle.
Fernando：没错，就是这样。哥伦比亚的农民——我记得读过一句话：哥伦比亚的农民是所有持枪者的受害者。这是真的。一边是政府和准军事组织，另一边是游击队。这是一个很复杂的问题，哥伦比亚的共产主义游击队是否还是共产主义者、是否还在为人民而战，这本身就有争议。但归根结底，那些只想安安静静种地过日子的人就是受害者，被困在这个极其复杂的冲突当中。然后还有毒品的因素——贩毒太赚钱了，所以所有人都参与其中，只是为了给自己的组织筹集资金。游击队贩毒，右翼准军事组织也贩毒，所有人都贩毒。然后还有真正的贩毒集团，他们唯一在乎的就是赚钱，没有什么政治目的，只想让别人别管他们，让他们发财就好。而农民就这样被夹在中间。
Q: What’s so special about cattle ranching that would work in this kind of conflict? And also what these cattles are raised for. Are they exporting? They’re exporting the cattle somewhere else? Or what are the kind of economic functions of the cattle ranching in Colombia?
Q：养牛业有什么特殊之处，使它能在这种冲突中发挥作用？另外这些牛是养来干什么的——是出口吗？还是主要供国内消费？牛的养殖在哥伦比亚的经济功能是什么？
Fernando: Yeah, so cattle ranching is by area is the biggest thing in Colombia. You know, there is, if you looked at a map, most of eastern Colombia, basically from the end of the mountains all the way to Venezuela is like cattle grazing lands because it’s just flat. So it’s grasslands that have been used for cattle ranching for centuries. And then also northern Colombia is also very flat, and that’s also used for cattle ranching. And most of the cattle in Colombia ends up in Colombia. But there is exports, and there is also live exports, which are terrible. So Colombia live exports cows all the way to Jordan, for example.
Fernando：按面积来说，养牛是哥伦比亚最大的产业。如果你看地图，哥伦比亚东部大部分地区——从山脉尽头一直延伸到委内瑞拉——都是牧牛的草原，因为那里一马平川。北部也是平原，同样用于养牛。大部分牛最终是在哥伦比亚国内消费。但也有出口，还有活体出口，那是非常残忍的。比如哥伦比亚会把活牛运到约旦。
Q: It’s called the ship of death or something.
Q：叫什么”死亡之船”之类的。
Fernando: The ship of death. Yeah. So they load up these ships with live cattle. They take almost 30 days to reach Jordan, at which point they just get unloaded and slaughtered. So it’s a terrible thing. It’s hard to imagine what these cows go through in that month. I mean, let alone their whole lives. But that month just sounds like absolutely terrible. But yeah, so, and obviously the cattle ranchers have a lot of political power too. So that’s, so a lot of the economy is geared towards benefiting them and their business. So yeah, that’s kind of like the big picture of how cattle ranching works in Colombia.
Fernando：死亡之船，没错。他们把活牛装上船，差不多要 30 天才能到约旦，到了之后就直接卸货屠宰。这太可怕了。很难想象这些牛在那一个月里经历了什么——更不用说牠们这一生了。但光是那一个月听起来就已经够恐怖的了。而且牧场主们拥有巨大的政治权力，所以很多经济政策都是围绕他们的利益来制定的。大概就是哥伦比亚养牛业的整体面貌。
Q: But I was more curious about who brought up this idea of having such a large-scale cattle ranching to begin with. Have you investigated that?
Q：但我更好奇的是，到底是谁最早开始搞这么大规模的养牛的？你有研究过吗？
Fernando: Yeah, that’s a part of being a Spanish colony for so long. So they brought their own, you know, we raised cattle that was brought from Europe. And it’s actually interesting. Most, all of the three main species that humans consume, you know, cows, chickens, and pigs were all brought to the Americas by Europeans. They did not exist. We didn’t have cows in Colombia. They were all brought from Europe. So they, yeah, so they created this practice and they just took advantage of the fact that they believed that that land belonged to no one. It was up for grabs. And that’s how they ended up owning huge swaths of land so they can produce, raise all this cattle. Now, one difference that I see between how cattle is raised in Colombia and in other places is that Colombia practices what they call extensive animal agriculture, not intensive. So you don’t see these lots filled with as many cows as possible. What you see is huge lands with cows, but they almost roam free until they get ready to be slaughtered.
Fernando：这跟哥伦比亚长期作为西班牙殖民地有关。他们带来了自己的牲畜——我们养的牛是从欧洲带来的。说起来挺有意思，人类消费的三大主要物种——牛、鸡和猪——全部是欧洲人带到美洲的，之前根本不存在。哥伦比亚原本没有牛，全是从欧洲带来的。殖民者就是利用了这一点，他们认为这片土地不属于任何人、谁都可以占，于是最终占据了大片土地来养牛。哥伦比亚的养牛方式和其他地方有一个区别：哥伦比亚实行的是所谓的粗放型畜牧业（extensive animal agriculture），而不是集约型。你不会看到密密麻麻挤满牛的围场，而是大片大片的土地上散布着牛，它们几乎是自由漫步的——直到被送去屠宰。
So that’s why also it takes a lot more area and a lot more resources to do it that way than have those intensive, you know, like a factory farm. That’s just for cows. like the pigs and chickens raised in Colombia are raised in factory farms like they are in the rest of the world.
所以这种方式比集约型工厂化养殖需要多得多的土地和资源。不过这只是牛的情况——哥伦比亚养的猪和鸡跟世界其他地方一样，都是在工厂化农场里养的。
Q: Do you see the cattle ranching business creating like a demand, like augmented demand in the public? For example, you know, trying to increase the beef intake in the population.
Q：你有没有观察到养牛业在刻意制造需求，比如试图增加公众的牛肉消费量？
Fernando: Well, in Colombia, eating lots of beef is also seen as a status thing. Because it’s expensive compared to, you know, fruits and vegetables. And that took me a while to understand because, for example, here where I live in the U.S., it’s the opposite. Like meat is really cheap and then you go buy like fruits and vegetables that are more expensive. But in Colombia, it was always the opposite. And I remember when I stopped eating meat, a lot of people would tell me, you know, like you’re going to get sick if you don’t eat meat and all this. There was all this like propaganda going on. And I remember I used to tell them, yeah, but there’s people in this country who don’t eat meat because they can’t afford it. And they’re fine. So it’s not really, you don’t really need this to survive. But yeah, so they have, there’s a Cattle Ranchers Federation and do a lot of propaganda about like the quality of the beef and, you know, how good it is for you and things like that.
Fernando：在哥伦比亚，大量吃牛肉也是一种身份象征，因为牛肉比蔬菜水果贵。这一点我花了很久才理解，因为比如我现在住在美国，情况正好相反——肉很便宜，蔬菜水果反而更贵。但在哥伦比亚一直是反过来的。我记得我不吃肉之后，很多人跟我说”你不吃肉会生病的”之类的，到处都是这种宣传。我当时就说：这个国家有很多人不吃肉是因为买不起，他们不也好好的吗？所以吃肉并不是生存的必需品。哥伦比亚有一个牧场主联合会（Cattle Ranchers Federation），他们做了大量的宣传，吹嘘牛肉的品质、对健康有多好之类的。
And actually, and a lot of people involved in that Cattle Ranchers Federation, some of them, there was this guy, he was the head of it. He’s now in prison for having links to paramilitary groups. So it’s not what I tell people about what happens in Colombia. Yes, the Cattle Ranchers Federation is run by people who have links to paramilitary groups. And some of those people are in prison now because of that. So when I tell people in Colombia, you know, like this is who you support really when you eat meat. You’re not just supporting the death of animals or the exploitation of animals. You’re supporting the people who are responsible for a lot of the violence we see. And that’s not a secret. I’m not telling them something they haven’t heard of before. They just haven’t really thought about it. Everybody knows that these people are involved in these very awful things.
实际上，牧场主联合会里很多人——有一个当过会长的人，现在就因为和准军事组织有关联而在坐牢。所以我跟哥伦比亚人说的不是什么秘密：牧场主联合会就是由跟准军事组织有关的人在运作，其中一些人已经因此入狱了。所以我跟他们说：你吃肉的时候，你支持的不仅仅是动物的死亡和剥削，你还在支持那些制造了大量暴力的人。这不是什么秘密，我不是在告诉他们不知道的事——他们只是没有真正去想过这个问题。所有人都知道这些人干了些什么。
Q: And what are the environmental groups doing to prevent extensive animal agriculture? Are they doing any effective initiatives in Colombia in the last decade or so?
Q：环保组织在阻止粗放型畜牧业方面做了什么？过去十年左右，他们在哥伦比亚有没有什么有效的行动？
Fernando: No, I don’t think so. I don’t think they’re that effective. They’re trying to prevent more land for being cleared for cattle ranching. I think they fail because the cattle ranchers just basically do whatever they want and they have the political power to get away with it. So we have, for example, in common with Brazil, a lot of our Amazon jungle is being clear cut to either grow crops to feed cattle or to graze cattle. And so that just keeps on going. There has been talks about how, and for many years, I remember there had been talks about how they need to rotate the lands that they use. So the environmentalists say, you know, yeah, grazing cattle depletes the land. And the solution is for you to start using different parts of the land so that their soil can recover. But nobody’s really saying, well, maybe we shouldn’t be raising all this cattle. Like they use, it’s a given that the cattle exists and there’s nothing we can do about it, which I think is a big failure.
Fernando：我觉得没有，他们并不太有效。他们在试图阻止更多土地被开垦用于养牛，但我觉得他们失败了，因为牧场主们基本想怎么做就怎么做，而且有政治权力可以逃脱追责。我们和巴西一样，大量的亚马逊丛林正在被砍伐，要么是种饲料作物，要么是开辟牧场。这一直在持续。多年来一直有人在说应该轮换使用土地——环保人士说放牧会耗尽土壤，解决办法是轮流使用不同区域让土壤恢复。但没有人真正在说：也许我们根本就不应该养这么多牛。他们把牛的存在当作既定事实、无可改变的前提，我觉得这是一个很大的失败。
Q: And why do you think they skipped that most important step, the root cause of the problem? Is it because the vested interest or some other reasons?
Q：你觉得他们为什么跳过了最重要的那一步——问题的根源？是因为既得利益还是其他原因？
Fernando: Well, I think there is some of that, some of vested interests that prevent people from speaking out. And it’s also culturally, we, Colombia is, like Colombian food is very meat-centered. So culturally, they just see it as this is just the way it is. So there’s nothing we can do about it. We need to eat meat because that’s what we have done forever. So that’s why I think a lot of people make connections with environmental destruction, but they still eat meat all the time.
Fernando：我觉得既得利益肯定有影响，让人不敢说出来。但也有文化因素——哥伦比亚的饮食文化非常以肉为中心。在文化层面，人们就觉得事情本来就是这样，没什么好改变的。我们一直都在吃肉，以后也得吃。所以我觉得虽然很多人理解环境破坏的问题，但他们还是照吃肉不误。
Q: I’m curious whether there are international groups because, like you mentioned, parts of this also connect to Amazon. And I think internationally, there has been lots of attention with regards to preventing deforestation, preventing the situation from getting worse. But I just think about in China, we don’t really, I mean, the general public don’t really like to hear that it is because we eating beef, eating meat, that’s causing deforestation in Amazon. I wonder if there’s similar shared kind of defensiveness in the general public when you’re, say, for example, when international environmental groups point out there’s a correlation between deforestation and meat consumption.
Q：我很好奇有没有国际组织介入，因为你提到了这也跟亚马逊有关。在国际上，防止森林砍伐一直受到很多关注。但我就想到在中国，公众其实不太愿意听到”我们吃牛肉导致了亚马逊的森林砍伐”这种说法。在哥伦比亚，当国际环保组织指出森林砍伐和肉类消费之间的关联时，公众是不是也有类似的防御心理？
Fernando: Yeah, there is definitely a resistance between those two things. And I think for a few reasons. One is like, obviously, people are going to get defensive when you’re told that what you’re doing is wrong. And they just say, you know, well, it’s just me. Like, what difference does it make if me personally, I stopped eating meat or not? So that is one thing. The other thing that I think, at least in Colombia specifically, is if the information comes from outside, there is a resistance to it. And that is for almost everything related to what happens in Colombia. Like people were very resistant to believe that the government or like the army had links to paramilitary groups and all this because there were issues that were raised by, for example, a report from human rights organizations that are from outside of Colombia. So a lot of people will be like, well, they don’t know how it is here. They’re just talking about things that they don’t know. And it was only after it became so widespread that people started believing, yes, obviously these two things are related.
Fernando：肯定有抵触。我觉得有几个原因。第一，当别人告诉你你做的事情是错的，你自然会产生防御心理。很多人就说：就我一个人不吃肉有什么区别呢？另一个原因——至少在哥伦比亚——是如果信息来自外部，人们就会本能地抵触。几乎所有涉及哥伦比亚的议题都是如此。比如当年人们非常抗拒相信政府或军队跟准军事组织有关联，因为这些问题是由哥伦比亚以外的人权组织提出来的。很多人就说：他们又不了解我们这里的情况，他们在胡说。直到事情变得太普遍了、无法否认了，人们才开始接受：是的，这两者之间确实有关联。
So I think it is also that when it comes to the environment, if you have like a big group from outside, let’s say Greenpeace or something, somebody like that, comes and tells people in Colombia, hey, you’re causing all this deforestation. The people tend to be more resistant because it’s not a group from inside that’s saying it.
所以在环境问题上也是一样，如果是一个外部的大组织——比如绿色和平（Greenpeace）之类的——来跟哥伦比亚人说”你们在造成森林砍伐”，人们往往更加抵触，因为说话的不是自己人。
Q: Well, we can circle back to the advocacy later. When you were starting the Ethical Vegan Organization in Colombia, what kind of audience were you trying to reach at that time? Were they mostly urban citizens, you know, or people who are, I don’t know, like students or activists from other movements? What was your approach at the beginning?
Q：我们稍后可以再回到倡导的话题。你们当初创建哥伦比亚的伦理 vegan 组织时，想要触达的是什么样的群体？主要是城市居民，还是学生、其他运动的活动人士？你们一开始的策略是什么？
Fernando: Yeah, so in the beginning, and this was very intentional from, you know, from my friend and I who started this organization. We didn’t want it to be limited to any, we thought we want anybody to think that they can do this. So we didn’t want to be affiliated with like, we didn’t reach out to like activist circles or anything. We just like general public. And we lived in the city. So it was mostly, it was urban. But we would go where like there was a lot of like offices and there was a lot of food traffic. Just people working there. And we would give leaflets. And yes, in the beginning we did make a mistake. I remember the first leaflets we ever gave out were made by PETA. They sent it to us, but they were in Spanish. And very quickly, somebody turned around and told us, you know, this is sad, but this doesn’t happen here. It says it’s in the United States. And I said, well, you know, that makes sense. We actually don’t know anything about what happens in Colombia. We didn’t have any numbers.
Fernando：一开始——这是我和我朋友创立这个组织时非常刻意的选择——我们不想局限于任何特定群体。我们希望任何人都觉得自己可以做到这件事。所以我们没有刻意去联系活动人士的圈子什么的，就是面向普通大众。我们住在城市里，所以主要是城市人群。我们会去写字楼多、人流量大的地方发传单。一开始我们确实犯了一个错误——我记得我们发的第一批传单是 PETA（善待动物组织）寄给我们的，是西班牙语的。结果很快就有人跟我们说：这些内容很令人难过，但这不是发生在这里的事啊，这写的是美国。我一想，确实有道理。我们其实完全不了解哥伦比亚本地的情况，没有任何数据。
You know, like if somebody asked us, well, how many animals do they kill in Colombia in a year? I didn’t have an answer. We didn’t know. So we had to sit down and do all this research. Or, you know, if somebody asked, well, what does a Colombian egg farm look like? What a slaughterhouse? Like we didn’t know. We had to go find out. So, yeah. So that was our first approach was like urban population. But it was just like the general public. We didn’t want to be restricted to any circles or any subcultures or anything like that.
比如有人问我们：哥伦比亚一年杀多少只动物？我答不上来。我们不知道。所以我们不得不坐下来做大量的调研。有人问哥伦比亚的蛋鸡场长什么样、屠宰场是什么样的，我们也不知道，得自己去调查。所以我们最初的策略就是面向城市的普通公众，不想局限在任何特定圈子或亚文化群体里。
Q: And were you trying to form alliance with human rights groups or, I don’t know, peasant movements, environmental organizations?
Q：你们有没有试过和人权组织、农民运动或环保组织结盟？
Fernando: No, we did not try that. We were kind of on our own in that regard. In the beginning, it was very limiting because we were not sure if we would be safe. I remember we had a meeting and at this point it was more than just my friend and I we were maybe 8 people working on this group and we had a meeting and we said because we were going to launch a website and we decided it had to be anonymous because we were talking about things that like these groups, these paramilitary groups funded by cattle ranchers, they don’t care about killing one more person. They’ve killed thousands of people already. So we couldn’t do any public events. Website didn’t have anybody’s name, like nothing. It was all, so it was very limiting what we could do. It was just over time, we relaxed a little bit.
Fernando：没有，我们在这方面基本上是单打独斗。一开始非常受限，因为我们不确定自己是否安全。我记得我们开了一次会——那时候已经不止我和我朋友两个人了，大概有八个人——我们要上线一个网站，然后决定必须匿名运营，因为我们谈论的内容涉及到准军事组织，而这些由牧场主资助的组织根本不在乎多杀一个人，他们已经杀了成千上万人了。所以我们不能搞任何公开活动，网站上不放任何人的名字，什么都没有。能做的事情非常有限。只是随着时间推移，我们慢慢放松了一点。
So what happened was somebody found our website and it was a journalist and they wrote us said we want this is very new like nobody kind of understood what we’re trying to talk about so they wanted to interview us to to figure out you know where are you got what are you guys talking about and we decided to go to the interview so then it became public you know like this is like these two people these are our names and all that and then we didn’t we didn’t hear anything Like we got like hate mail, but we didn’t receive any threats. So we thought, well, maybe this will be okay. And then we started doing more public events and screening of like movies or documentaries or we gave a talks at like schools and things like that. And we personally never received threats. Now, we were right about the fact that at some point, the cattle ranchers were going to start to listen to what we were saying.
后来有个记者发现了我们的网站，写信来说想采访我们——因为这在当时是很新的东西，没人理解我们在说什么。我们决定接受采访，于是就公开了，大家知道了我们是谁。结果我们没有收到什么威胁——收到过仇恨邮件，但没有死亡威胁。我们想，也许还行吧。然后就开始做更多公开活动，放映电影纪录片，到学校做讲座之类的。我们个人从未收到过威胁。但我们当初的担忧是对的——牧场主们迟早会开始注意到我们在说什么。
And as the movement grew bigger and there were more organizations, at some point they did, some people that I know personally did get death threats telling them they had to stop talking about these things. So, yeah, I mean, that makes activism in Colombia very unique in that regard. But I know that activists in all places, they’re talking about capitalist interests, and you’re just one activist. These people don’t care about killing one more person.
随着运动越来越大、组织越来越多，到了某个阶段，我认识的一些人确实收到了死亡威胁，要求他们停止谈论这些事情。所以在哥伦比亚做行动主义确实是很独特的。但我也知道，在任何地方，当你的行动触及了资本的利益，而你只是一个小小的活动人士——这些人根本不在乎多杀一个人。
Q: Yeah, environmental activists, also indigenous environmental activists being killed is also growing, I think, in Latin America and other parts of the world. But when you mentioned like the cattle ranchers, when they were being affected, have you heard any case where they made the transition? Any successful cases?
Q：是啊，环保活动人士被杀、原住民环保活动人士被杀的案例在拉美和世界其他地方都在增加。你提到牧场主们受到了影响，有没有听说过任何牧场主成功转型的案例？
Fernando: What do you mean made the transition?
Fernando：你说的转型是什么意思？
Q: Oh, I mean, like, stop cattle ranching, like abandoning their practice. Have there ever been a case?
Q：就是不再养牛了，放弃养牛业。有过这种案例吗？
Fernando: Not in Colombia. In Colombia, I don’t know of any case that anybody has stopped farming animals.
Fernando：在哥伦比亚没有。我不知道有任何人停止了动物养殖。
Q: So this is kind of makes me think about the law, the legislation, because as far as I know, in 2016, Colombia has passed the law where it acknowledged animals are sentient beings and no longer objects. So how does that translate into real-life practices when it comes to humans’ treatments of animals? Does it ever affect animal agriculture?
Q：这让我想到法律和立法层面。据我所知，2016 年哥伦比亚通过了一项法律，承认动物是有感知能力的生命，不再是物品。这在实际的动物对待方式上有什么影响吗？对动物农业有没有冲击？
Fernando: It doesn’t. And I think it’s an expression of speciesism, right? It’s like people like to think about sentient beings as like, you know, your cat, your dog, maybe a horse. But when it comes to the animals in a farm or in a slaughterhouse, they stop thinking about it. They feel like, well, that’s just the way it is. But that law and a few other pieces of legislation have been very crucial into advancing some of the things that we have seen in Colombia. like Colombia later passed an animal cruelty law that would punish people that were cruel to animals. And it was basically written to prevent cruelty to pets. That was basically what the aim was. But it was argued successfully that if the law, if these cruel practices were unlawful, then things like bullfighting were unlawful, were cruelty to animals, and they were technically illegal by this law. And that’s what that opened the door for the debate about banning bullfighting, which was finally successful last year. And they banned it. Then it was challenged in court that the ban was unconstitutional. And it went all the way to the Colombian Supreme Court.
Fernando：没有任何影响。我觉得这本身就是物种歧视（speciesism）的体现——人们想到”有感知的生命”，脑子里浮现的是猫、狗、也许还有马。但一涉及农场或屠宰场里的动物，他们就不再想了，觉得那就是天经地义的。不过这项法律和其他几项立法在推动哥伦比亚的一些进步方面确实非常关键。比如后来哥伦比亚通过了一项动物虐待法，惩罚虐待动物的行为。这部法律本来主要是为了保护宠物的。但后来有人成功地论证了：如果这些残忍行为是违法的，那么斗牛也是对动物的虐待，按这项法律也是违法的。这就为禁止斗牛的辩论打开了大门，而禁令最终在去年获得通过。之后有人起诉说这个禁令违宪，一路打到了哥伦比亚最高法院。
And I was very happy because the Colombian Supreme Court not only said that the ban was lawful and they upheld the ban, but then they actually said, well, if we’re going to ban this, then we have to ban other things too. So they extended the ban to other things automatically, like cockfighting is now illegal in Colombia, which was not even part of that campaign. It’s just the court decided this makes sense. So there is some progress, yeah. But when it comes to animals in farms, there is this divide in people’s heads that they just don’t count. And it’s sad, but I think hopefully someday we’ll see that go away.
我非常高兴，因为哥伦比亚最高法院不仅裁定禁令合法、维持了禁令，而且还主动说：既然我们要禁斗牛，那其他类似的活动也应该禁。于是他们自动把禁令扩展到了其他领域——比如斗鸡现在在哥伦比亚也违法了，而斗鸡根本不在当初那个运动的诉求范围内，是法院自己认为这是合理的延伸。所以确实有进步。但涉及到农场里的动物，人们脑子里有一道鸿沟，觉得那些动物就是不算数。这很令人难过，但我希望总有一天这种观念会消失。
Q: Coming from China, it’s already very impressive because we have the similar issues where people are using… So we’re trying to push again this year for animal cruelty law to be actually taken into consideration by the state constitution. But there are lots of people also using speciesism as an argument against having an animal cruelty law because they think, first of all, you guys only care about cute animals. This is actually animal cruelty against cute animals. You don’t care about other animals. And the second thing is how this might affect so many other businesses in China because how do you define what animals are included in the scope of these kind of law? I’m also very interested in who’s behind legislative change in Colombia, especially I think in 2016. Do you know who’s behind these change?
Q：作为一个来自中国的人，我觉得这已经很了不起了，因为我们面临类似的困境。我们今年也在继续推动反动物虐待法能被纳入国家立法层面的考量。但有很多人恰恰用物种歧视作为反对反虐待法的论据——他们说，第一，你们只关心可爱的动物，这其实是针对”可爱动物”的反虐待法，你们根本不关心其他动物；第二，这会影响中国太多行业，因为你怎么定义哪些动物在法律保护范围内？我也很想知道，2016 年哥伦比亚那些立法变革的幕后推手是谁？
Fernando: So what happened was that there was a transition in which a lot of animal activists went into politics and they were successful in getting elected. And then they passed, you know, they worked together to pass all these laws. Like one of them is an activist that I’ve known for a long time. she was the spokesperson for one organization that was, it’s probably the biggest animal rights organization in Colombia right now. Mostly because they’re almost like a chapter of an organization based in Spain. So they have a lot of resources. But besides the point, she was the spokesperson and made the transition into politics successfully. And that happened not just with her, but with other people. And then they worked together to pass these laws. And they’re a little bit deluded in the sense that nobody’s really talking about, or the politicians are not really talking about animal liberation or things like that. They’re just saying, this is cruel, and we’re going to pass this law. And they’re not really advocating publicly for veganism or anything like that. A lot of them are vegan themselves. but they don’t really say this is why we’re doing it.
Fernando：当时发生的是，很多动物权利活动人士转入政界，并且成功当选了。然后他们合作推动通过了这些法律。其中有一位是我认识很久的活动人士，她曾是一个组织的发言人——这个组织可能是目前哥伦比亚最大的动物权利组织，主要因为它几乎是一个西班牙组织的分部，所以有很多资源。总之，她作为发言人成功转型进入政界，而且不只是她，还有其他人也是。然后他们一起推动了这些立法。某种程度上他们有点打了折扣——没有人真正在谈动物解放之类的议题，政治家们只是说”这是残忍的，我们要通过法律禁止”，并没有公开倡导 veganism。虽然他们中很多人自己是 vegan，但不会公开说”这就是我们这么做的原因”。
So it’s a way to get people thinking. And I think that’s what has been successful there. And it had also, there’s a lot of compromise too going on. Like the bullfighting ban had to be, there’s a transition period which is going to last like three years because the argument is that by banning bullfighting, you’re preventing people from working. And then they don’t have jobs, so they have to transition them into let’s go get trained or find a different job. So they kind of just cut it off. And that’s a compromise because obviously we as animal activists, we would like the bullfight to end tomorrow and that’s it. Close the place and call it a day. But that’s not the way the real world works. So you have to find ways to compromise.
但这也是一种让人们开始思考的方式，我觉得正是这一点使它取得了成功。当然也有很多妥协。比如斗牛禁令有一个大约三年的过渡期，理由是禁止斗牛会导致从业人员失业，需要给他们时间去接受培训或找新工作。这就是一种妥协——作为动物活动人士，我们当然希望明天就结束斗牛，关门大吉。但现实世界不是这样运作的，你必须学会妥协。
Q: Could you tell us the name of that politician, the friend of yours? Maybe I can Google her.
Q：能告诉我们那位政治家朋友的名字吗？也许我可以搜一下她的信息。
Fernando: Andrea Padilla, that’s her name. She was the spokesperson for Anima Naturalis, which is an organization based in Spain. but they have a chapter in Colombia that has been very successful, is much better known than, for example, my organization ever was. And it has to do with the fact that, obviously, they’re externally funded, so they can do way more things than we could. But to their credit, they have talked about things like the links between the war in Colombia and cattle ranching. So it’s not completely a one-issue organization. They have talked about things that are important, and I give them credit for that.
Fernando：Andrea Padilla，这是她的名字。她曾是 Anima Naturalis（自然灵魂）的发言人，这是一个总部在西班牙的组织，但在哥伦比亚有分部，而且非常成功，比我们的组织知名得多。这当然跟他们有外部资金支持有关，能做的事比我们多得多。但值得肯定的是，他们确实谈论过哥伦比亚战争与畜牧业之间的关联这类重要议题，不完全是单一议题的组织。这一点我很认可他们。
Q: And would you consider going to politics one of the most effective ways to make systemic change for animal activists?
Q：你会认为从政是动物活动人士推动系统性变革最有效的方式之一吗？
Fernando: No, I don’t think politics is the best way create systemic change. I believe more in community building and building things from the ground up. Like I don’t think, and I think if we all did that on our own space, at some point we see changes in the world. Like I don’t need to try to change the world. I need to try to change the environment around me. So like my own community and that’s vague, But my community could be, I don’t know, for example, the building I live in or my neighborhood, like something small. I have, I’m way more effective at trying to change that than trying to change, you know, the laws in the country. So I believe more in that politics.
Fernando：不，我不认为政治是推动系统性变革的最佳方式。我更相信社区建设、自下而上地推动改变。如果我们每个人都在自己的空间里做这件事，到了某个时刻，世界就会发生改变。我不需要去改变整个世界，我需要改变我身边的环境——我的社区。这个概念可大可小，可以是我住的那栋楼，也可以是我的街区。在那个尺度上我能产生的影响，远远大于试图去改变一个国家的法律。所以比起政治，我更相信这种方式。
Q: And how would you describe the animal rights community in Colombia, especially in comparison with the time when you started animal advocacy and what it has been through in the last, I think, more than two decades now, right? Because you started as a vegan very early on. So how do the community look like now in Colombia? Are there a lot of animal rights activists? Yeah.
Q：你怎么描述现在哥伦比亚的动物权利社群？尤其是跟你刚开始做倡导的时候相比——已经过去二十多年了吧？你那么早就成为 vegan 了。现在哥伦比亚的社群是什么样的？有很多动物权利活动人士吗？
Fernando: So there is quite a few animal rights activists in Colombia, but things have changed a lot. One is that, you know, at some point, you know, in 2006, the AUC, the paramilitary group, was disbanded and they went into a peace process with the government. Now, we can talk about whether that’s legitimate or fair or not, but technically it ended. And then in 2016, there was the peace accords with the FARC, which was the biggest guerrilla group. So for the last almost decade, they have considered Colombia to be in peace. I mean, that is not necessarily true, but what it does mean is that the internal conflict has de-escalated quite a bit. So there is a lot less talk about the links between war and Colombia. There is some, but the mainstream organizations seem to talk about it less. Also with the proliferation of social media, then I see things that don’t make a lot of sense in Colombia because they’re doing activism that works in other places, but not necessarily there.
Fernando：哥伦比亚确实有不少动物权利活动人士了，但很多事情变了。2006 年，AUC（哥伦比亚联合自卫力量）这个准军事组织被解散了，跟政府进入了和平进程。这个和平是否真正公正合理可以讨论，但在形式上结束了。然后 2016 年，政府跟 FARC（哥伦比亚革命武装力量）——最大的游击队组织——签订了和平协议。所以过去将近十年，哥伦比亚被认为处于和平状态。虽然这不完全是事实，但武装冲突确实大幅降级了。所以关于战争和动物权利之间关联的讨论少了很多。有一些，但主流组织谈得越来越少了。另外，随着社交媒体的普及，我看到一些在哥伦比亚做的事情其实没什么道理——他们在照搬在其他地方有效的活动方式，但在哥伦比亚未必管用。
The best example is that Anonymous for the Voiceless has a chapter in Colombia and they do cubes of truth in the city, in some cities. And I think this doesn’t make a lot of sense to do in Colombia because this is a country where people with masks are usually doing things that are not good. It usually means trouble and usually means like little trouble. It means like somebody is going to die. So it’s I’m like I look at that and I think like they’re not really having any effect. They’re probably having the opposite effect that they want. People probably don’t want to talk to them. They feel like something bad is going to happen. But these are very young activists that did not live through what people like I had to live, like me had to live. And they don’t understand, you know, the background of like, if you try to talk to somebody while wearing a mask, that’s not that’s not going to work. But it’s what they see on social media. So it tries to be replicated.
最好的例子就是 Anonymous for the Voiceless 在哥伦比亚有分部，他们在一些城市里做”真相立方体”（Cube of Truth）活动。我觉得这在哥伦比亚根本行不通，因为在这个国家，戴面具的人通常不是在做什么好事——这意味着麻烦，而且不是小麻烦，通常意味着有人要死了。所以我看到这些就觉得，他们不仅没有效果，甚至可能产生了反效果。人们可能根本不想跟他们说话，心里觉得要出事了。但这些都是非常年轻的活动人士，他们没有经历过我那一代人经历的事情，不理解那个背景——如果你戴着面具去跟人说话，这在哥伦比亚是行不通的。但社交媒体上看到什么就模仿什么。
Q: And another thing I noticed was when I tried to search the keyword veganism in Colombia on YouTube, all I can see are videos about eating at vegan restaurants. I couldn’t even find a video about a serious talk about veganism or vegan movement in Colombia.
Q：还有一件事，当我在 YouTube 上搜索”哥伦比亚 veganism”的时候，看到的全是在 vegan 餐厅吃饭的视频。我连一个关于 veganism 或 vegan 运动的严肃讨论都找不到。
Fernando: Yeah, that is unfortunately true. So there is a sadly, and I think it’s the same effect of like, and I see the same effect almost everywhere, is that veganism has been reduced to a diet and it has been reduced to like food. And that happens in Colombia. It happens here where I live. And in Colombia especially, there is a, because fruits and vegetables are so easily found, there is this proliferation of vegan food everywhere. But a lot of it is devoid of that talk about animals. It’s more like health or just like it’s trendy and that’s what it is. But yeah, I see that all the time. It’s a little frustrating, to be honest.
Fernando：是的，不幸的是确实如此。我觉得这个现象几乎到处都在发生——veganism 被简化成了一种饮食，简化成了食物。哥伦比亚是这样，我现在住的地方也是这样。尤其在哥伦比亚，因为水果蔬菜非常容易买到，到处都有 vegan 食品。但很多都完全不涉及动物的话题，更多的是健康导向、或者纯粹追赶潮流。说实话，看到这些挺让人沮丧的。
Q: Yeah. But I wonder, what’s your opinion when people who are promoting plant-based diet campaigns like Veganuary or eating a plant-based meal once every week or something, this reductivist approach to veganism, right? Because I think a lot of people would say, well, why does it matter? Because eventually people are eating less meat. So why do you want to politicize it? Why do you want to bring animals into the conversation and make people uncomfortable? How would you respond to that?
Q：说到这个，你怎么看那些推广植物性饮食运动的人——比如 Veganuary（一月纯素挑战）或者每周吃一顿植物性餐食之类的，这种简化版的 veganism 策略？因为很多人会说：有什么关系呢？反正人们最终会少吃肉的。你为什么非要把它政治化？为什么非要把动物扯进来让人不舒服？你会怎么回应？
Fernando: What I would say is that there is a misguided belief or this misguided idea among people, especially some vegans, unfortunately, that because you don’t eat meat one meal or one day, then somehow you saved an animal. And that is not true. Whether you stop eating meat for one meal or one day, the animals are still being slaughtered. So I think that, like, we should try to change people’s mindset about animals. And then that leads naturally to thinking about not eating animals. I think just telling people don’t eat animals, but don’t change anything else about your life doesn’t do much because it’s not really a core belief. you know, then a lot of people change over time and they can just go back to eating meat. I think the simplest example is people who are vegan for their health or they eat plant-based for their health. It’s very easy for them to say, well, maybe I don’t care about my health today. So I’m going to go eat meat today. And in their heads, that’s fine.
Fernando：我想说的是，有一种被误导的观念——甚至在一些 vegan 中也存在——认为你少吃一顿肉或一天不吃肉，就等于救了一只动物。这不是事实。不管你少吃一顿还是一天不吃，动物依然在被屠杀。所以我觉得我们应该做的是改变人们看待动物的思维方式，这自然而然就会引导他们不再吃动物。光告诉人们”别吃动物”，但不改变他们生活中的其他东西，没什么用，因为这不是一种核心信念。很多人一段时间后就会故态复萌、重新吃肉。最简单的例子就是那些为了健康而吃植物性饮食的人，他们很容易说”今天我不那么在乎健康了，所以今天我吃肉”。在他们看来这完全没问题。
But if they had a feel, if they had changed their mindset or how they view animals, they probably wouldn’t take that so lightly and think, well, I’m going to eat animals today because somehow I don’t care about animals today. That doesn’t make a lot of sense. So it’s harder for people to take it so lightly.
但如果他们真正改变了对动物的看法，他们大概不会这么轻率地想”今天我不关心动物了，所以今天吃肉吧”——这说不通。所以当信念改变了，就不容易这么随便了。
Q: Yeah, it’s very frustrating because here in China, I also see there are so many plant-based quote-unquote movement. And it’s just so hard. Like people are so used to, you know, demoralize veganism. And I realize we’re hitting like an hour mark. So I want to end our conversation with something a bit more personal and a bit more optimistic, maybe. First of all, I want to know, like, how do you stay sane? Any, I don’t know, practices like personal, collective, spiritual, whatever, that help you stay emotionally functional while working on such a heavy topic?
Q：是的，真的很沮丧。在中国也是，到处都是所谓的”植物基”运动，但很难。人们太习惯于将 veganism 「去道德化」了。我意识到我们快到一小时了，所以我想用一些更私人的、也许更乐观的话题来结束我们的对话。首先我想知道——你是怎么保持理智的？有没有什么方法——个人的、集体的、精神层面的——帮助你在处理这么沉重的议题时还能保持情绪上的正常运作？
Fernando: Yeah, I remember there is something I tell myself all the time. I think that helps a lot. And is that like, yes, there is a lot of violence in the world and a lot of ugly things. I think you should be proud of the fact that you are trying your best not to participate, not to be a part of that. That doesn’t mean you’re going to stop it, but it just means that you are trying. And that keeps me sane because, for example, now that it’s close to the holidays, like the end of Christmas and all that, and people eat a lot of animals. A lot of vegans I know, they’re like, this is very sad. I struggle with this time of year. And I tell them, turn it around. Tell yourself, yes, this is happening, but I’m not a part of it. And that’s a good thing. turn it into something positive. So that’s how I stay sane. Also, I believe a lot in community. So like, if you feel sad, if you feel like overwhelmed, if you’re approaching like burnout, talk to other people about it.
Fernando：有一件事我经常跟自己说，我觉得很有帮助：是的，这个世界上有很多暴力和丑恶。但你应该为自己感到骄傲——你在尽最大努力不参与其中、不成为其中的一部分。这不意味着你能阻止它，但意味着你在努力。这让我保持理智。比如每到节假日、圣诞节前后，人们会吃掉大量动物。很多我认识的 vegan 都说：这个时期太让人难过了。我就跟他们说：换个角度想——是的，这些事在发生，但我不是其中的一部分，这是一件好事。把它变成积极的东西。这就是我保持理智的方式。另外，我非常相信社群的力量。如果你感到难过、不堪重负，快要倦怠了，就跟其他人聊聊。
Don’t think that because you’re an activist, you have to be invincible. And especially because if you burn yourself out, it’s not just going to be, oh, I’m going to take one day break. Once people reach burnout, you may lose an activist for like years or maybe forever before they decide to come back. So I’m always like, yeah, let’s talk about these things among ourselves. We don’t need to keep it. Let’s keep it honest. You know, this is hard and it’s harder for some than for others. But if we all take care of each other, will be a lot better than if we pretend that we’re all perfect.
不要觉得你是活动人士就必须刀枪不入。尤其是因为，一旦你倦怠了，那不是休息一天就能恢复的。一旦倦怠，一个活动人士可能会消失好几年，甚至永远不再回来。所以我一直说：让我们在内部坦诚地聊这些事情。这很难，对某些人来说更难。但如果我们互相照顾，比我们都假装一切完美要好得多。
Q: Yeah. I suddenly realized I forgot to mention Benoza because you’re a huge fan of him. And for me personally, reading philosophy is definitely also a source of comfort because I realized all the really horrible things, you know, people have been through it and all of the difficult questions they have been asked before by these really amazing thinkers. I really appreciate Spinoza’s work as well. But he also has a pretty anthropocentric, well, he’s less anthropocentric than most philosophers of that time, but he’s also considered animals as below humans. So what do you think about that? And how does that affect you?
Q：对了，我突然想起来忘了提斯宾诺莎（Spinoza），你是他的超级粉丝。对我个人而言，阅读哲学也是一种精神慰藉，因为我意识到所有那些真正可怕的事情，人们早就经历过了，那些困难的问题也早已被这些伟大的思想家们思考过。我也很欣赏斯宾诺莎的作品。但他在某种程度上还是比较人类中心主义的——虽然比同时代的大多数哲学家好一些，但他也认为动物低于人类。你怎么看这一点？这对你有什么影响？
Fernando: Yeah. So I think that, like, unfortunately, everybody’s a victim of their own time. So at the time Espinosa was alive, there was this Cartesian belief, right, that like animals are just like a biomachine. They have no soul and they don’t deserve any ethical consideration. Now, I would like to think that if Espinosa was alive today and he had the knowledge that we have of all the science, you know, we have hundreds of years now of evolutionary biology telling us differently about animals, right? Maybe he will reach a different conclusion. So I like Espinoza, but I don’t believe in dogma either. So I disagree with some of the things he said. But for me, Espinoza is most important is because he doesn’t believe in good and evil. Like good and evil are very subjective, right? But he believes in the doctrine of necessity. So what’s necessary exists and what’s not necessary should not exist. So I think about that and I think, you know, well, then causing unnecessary suffering cannot be ethical. It’s something that should not be happening. Just because we can do it doesn’t mean we should be doing it.
Fernando：我觉得每个人都是自己时代的囚徒。在斯宾诺莎活着的年代，主流观点是笛卡尔式的——认为动物就像生物机器，没有灵魂，不值得任何伦理考量。我愿意相信，如果斯宾诺莎活在今天，拥有我们现在掌握的科学知识——几百年的进化生物学已经告诉我们动物并非如此——他可能会得出不同的结论。我喜欢斯宾诺莎，但我也不信教条，所以我不同意他说的一些东西。对我来说，斯宾诺莎最重要的一点是他不相信善与恶的绝对划分——善恶是非常主观的。但他相信必然性学说（doctrine of necessity）：必然的事物存在，非必然的不应存在。我就想：那么，制造不必要的痛苦就不可能是合乎伦理的，它就是不应该发生的。我们能做一件事，不代表我们就应该去做。
And that explains a lot of behaviors to me. Wild animals behave differently than we do because they have to do things differently than we do. as vegans we’re all told all the time oh well lions kill other animals i’m like yes because they have to if they don’t do it they die we don’t go and sit at a restaurant and think if i don’t eat this right now i’m going to die like we have options and we should that’s why we should choose the most ethical option which is the one that causes the least amount of suffering yeah but so So he was not perfect by any means. I also disagree with him about being rational all the time. I think he missed a very human experience, that of falling in love, which is one of the most irrational things you can ever do. But it brings a lot of happiness. So I disagree with him on that. But yeah, I like his worldview in the sense of like, is way more objective than other philosophers. I can almost make links between scientific knowledge and ethical knowledge directly.
这也解释了很多行为。野生动物和我们行为不同，是因为它们必须那样做。作为 vegan，我们总被人说”那狮子也杀其他动物啊”——是的，因为牠们必须这么做，不这么做就会死。我们坐在餐厅里不会想”如果我现在不吃这个我就会死”——我们是有选择的，既然有选择，我们就应该选择最合乎伦理的、造成最少痛苦的那个。当然，斯宾诺莎也不是完美的。我也不同意他关于始终理性的观点。我觉得他忽略了一种非常人性的体验——坠入爱河——那是一个人能做的最不理性的事情之一，但它带来巨大的幸福。所以在这一点上我不赞同他。但总体来说，我喜欢他的世界观，比其他哲学家更客观，几乎可以在科学知识和伦理知识之间直接建立联系。
Q: And so I like that. I’m still a learner of Spinoza’s philosophy, but I really like the affective dimension as well. Even though you said he also had a very strong focus on being rational, but then the power of merely existing, you know, the sad and joy. He really opened my mind when it comes to what kind of power induce joy and sad. And that is something that a lot of the political philosophers don’t like to talk about, the emotions in the power. But anyway, we can have another discussion about all these philosophy. I wonder if you could give us maybe your Instagram handle or any other places where people can follow your work, look at your investigations, etc.
Q：我也很喜欢这一点。我还在学习斯宾诺莎的哲学，但我特别喜欢他关于情动的维度。虽然你说他强调理性，但他关于存在本身的力量——关于喜悦和悲伤——真的打开了我的视野。他让我思考什么样的权力/力量会带来喜悦、什么样的会带来悲伤。而这恰恰是很多政治哲学家不愿意谈的东西——权力中的情感。不过我们可以另外找时间聊哲学。你能告诉我们你的 Instagram 账号或者其他可以关注你的地方吗？让大家可以看到你的研究和调查。
Fernando: Yes, I have an Instagram account and my handle is, it’s in Spanish, and it’s Soy Espinozista, which means I’m a Spinozist in Spanish. That’s how you can find me. And I have a link there to, I have a blog on Medium, which is the same username. I don’t write a lot, but I write like very short things sometimes. and I have copies of articles that I’ve published in other places linked there. And yeah, those are the two main ways to find me.
Fernando：有，我的 Instagram 账号是西班牙语的，叫 Soy Espinozista，意思是”我是斯宾诺莎主义者”。你们可以通过这个找到我。那里还有一个链接到我在 Medium 上的博客，用户名也是一样的。我不常写东西，但偶尔会写一些短文，还有我在其他地方发表的文章的链接。这两个是找到我的主要方式。
Q: And what are you working on now, these days?
Q：你最近在做什么？
Fernando: Right now, I’m not working on anything new. I’ve been thinking about doing some like wheels that are shorter and more concise about these links between war and animal rights, especially in Colombia and in other places. But I haven’t gotten around to it yet. I don’t work in activism. I have a regular job, so this is just my free time. It takes me a while to put something together.
Fernando：目前没有在做什么新的项目。我一直在想写一些更短更精炼的文章，关于战争和动物权利之间的联系，尤其是在哥伦比亚和其他地方。但还没抽出时间来。我不是全职做行动主义的，我有一份普通的工作，这些都是用业余时间在做，所以进展比较慢。
Q: Thank you. Thank you, Fernando, for sharing all this with us. And I know it’s not easy to revisit some of these stories, And I really hope that people listening will sit with discomfort and think about what animal ethics or animal liberation means in the middle of human oppression and human violence. Thank you.
Q：谢谢你，Fernando，跟我们分享了这一切。我知道重新回忆这些经历并不容易。我真的希望听众们能接受这种不舒适的感觉，去思考一下：在人类压迫和人类暴力之中，动物伦理和动物解放意味着什么。谢谢。
Fernando: I will thank you for having me. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.
Fernando：谢谢你的邀请，我真的很感谢你抽出时间来跟我聊这些。
参考文献
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Fernando 的写作：soyspinozista.medium.com
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Instagram: Soy Espinozista
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Andrea Padilla （安德烈亚·帕迪利亚）——播客中提到的推动哥伦比亚政治家，曾任 Anima Naturalis（一个总部位于西班牙、在哥伦比亚设有分部的组织）的发言人。她是一位动物权利倡导者，除了提出严惩虐待动物者的法案，也推动了哥伦比亚的 Empathy Law 《同情心法》（强制要求学校进行对待动物的同情心教育）
