Member Profile: John Wedderburn

"Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will."
December 2006

"What's your assessment of what the future holds for the world's primates?" we asked IPPL member and animal rights advocate Dr. John Wedderburn during a recent interview. He responded that Antonio Gramsci's famous phrase - "Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will" - sums up his philosophy of activism: while things look "pretty grim for all primates, including humans," this belief has not prevented him from optimistically working for years to defend animals from human exploitation.

Born and raised in Scotland, John has lived and worked in Hong Kong for the past 33 years. He was converted to veganism by his teenage son 19 years ago. As John tells it, his son "came home on holiday from school in the U.K. when he was 17 and said, "Dad, I'm a vegan.' I said, "Don't be silly, only freaks are vegans. You need meat to be healthy. I know; I'm a doctor.' He said, "Dad, you are wrong!' We argued for the three weeks of his holiday, after which I admitted he was right and I committed myself to becoming vegan."

John then began to investigate animal rights issues and was horrified to discover how poorly humans treat animals. He now places himself firmly in the camp of U.S. animal rights lawyer and author Gary Francione. Francione believes that if we recognize that animals have any moral standing whatsoever, we need to move society away from regarding animals as property - we need to stop exploiting them for human ends, either for food, clothing, experiments, or entertainment. Veganism is the most straightforward personal expression of this commitment, and one with direct consequences for the animals whose lives have been spared from human consumption.

But Dr. John has taken his willful optimism much further than this. He has visited dozens of zoos (particularly in China) and documented conditions for the animals there (see http://www.aapn.org/zoopage.html for his reports). He began his investigations in earnest about 15 years ago, when a patient from his family medicine practice gave him a book on the trees of Hong Kong. On a visit to Hong Kong's Botanical and Zoological Garden, John made a discovery that has shaped the course of his recent life.

"I was totally appalled at what I saw. Yes, there were some magnificent trees, but the whole area was cluttered up with iron and concrete cages filled with wretched animals leading miserable lives. The Curator of the Gardens happened to be an old acquaintance, so I went to see him and told him what I thought of his zoo. He was a classic hoarder and had kept buying pairs of everything he could and building new, inadequate cages for them. But he asked me how many Asian zoos had I visited and then told me that I did not know what I was talking about, that his zoo was the best in Asia. It was true that I had not been to any zoo other than the Edinburgh Zoo where my father used to take me as a child, so the point struck home. I then made it my business to visit every zoo that I could." He found that what he observed in Hong Kong was typical of many Asian zoos, from Beijing to Bali, from Thailand to Taiwan: lovely park-like settings where the animals, in sad contrast, were confined to barren, artificial little enclosures. The verdict 15 years later? "I still think the Hong Kong zoo is appalling!"

He is fortunate that his "day job" has enabled him to travel widely. After selling his family practice clinic in 1990, he started working for a company called International SOS, a medical assistance service that is used by travelers and multinational organizations to transfer hospital patients from country to country. "My work has enabled me to visit many remote places (picking patients up) and many First World countries (delivering patients home). Because of this, I have been able to observe and record many awful things and then network about them with worldwide organizations."

Regrettably, undercover work in China is no longer an option for him, he says. Although foreigners could at one time bluff their way in and out of tricky situations, "the Chinese are now accustomed to us and know the tricks we get up to. Fortunately, there is a new generation of Chinese who are willing to go undercover, and they, of course, are much better at it because they can blend into the background. Unfortunately, there is no tradition of investigative journalism in China, so these young people are true pioneers."

John continues to work on behalf of animals, however, with organizations he has either founded or whose work he supports (like the Hong Kong Vegan Society, EarthCare, the Lamma Animal Welfare Centre, the Asian Animal Protection Network, the Animals Asia Foundation, the Hong Kong SPCA, Laboratory Animal Defenders, and the Hong Kong No Kill City Forum). His commitment to animals reflects a realization that came to him back in the days of his Scottish childhood, when he lived in a lonely part of town with few nearby friends. "My dog was my main companion throughout childhood," remembers John. "When he died at the age of ten (I was 14), my minister told me that no, dogs did not go to heaven because they did not have souls. Well, I knew as a self-evident fact that if I had a soul, my dog had a soul; if my dog did not have a soul, then neither did I - we were the same."