On 13 February 2025, between 60,000 and 100,000 people took to the streets of Brussels to criticise the agreement of the new Belgian federal government, which intends to attack social gains in the coming months with unprecedented violence towards the most vulnerable. On this occasion, a joint trade union front organised a major national day of demonstrations in defence of public services and purchasing power.
Questions: was anyone at this demonstration concerned about the immoral exploitation of other animals? Was anyone there to make their cries of suffering and agony heard? Was anyone there to oppose the institutional structures of speciesist ideology both intellectually and physically? Someone to make the ontological link between capitalism and the exploitation of the precarious, of which other animals are undoubtedly the symbol and the most objective concrete embodiment?
Sadly, no one! There was an absence in the procession. A huge absence, a shameful absence. Other animals do not exist. They were overlooked because they did not exist. They must be made invisible in order to hide the acts of torture and extermination to which they are subjected. Other animals, although by far the most numerous, were neither invited nor represented, and had no right to speak. Their destiny is to suffer and die in silence, far from disgusted and ashamed eyes.
The L.I.A. has a systemic view of speciesism and therefore considers that anti-speciesism is a political struggle.
Speciesism is an ideology that results from a system of oppression based on institutional (cultural, political and economic) structures that authorise the exploitation of other animals. Anti-speciesism is therefore a political struggle that can only produce accountable results by tackling the structures of oppression from which speciesist ideology results. The issue is therefore necessarily tied up in the democratic, public and political arena.
Anti-speciesism is structurally united and condemns all forms of discrimination and oppression. It makes the historical and materialist link between them all, since the exploitation of some (other animals) is the infinitely transposable model of the exploitation of others (social struggles). It is because a system allows itself to kill sentient beings in a chain that we can then exploit and humiliate others in a chain.
Warm congratulations to the dozen or so citizens who dared to be the political voice of other animals and anti-speciesism in this endless crowd that was bound to contain a certain number of oppressors of other animals. The L.I.A.’s message was very clear: to make the link between oppressions, since the exploitation of some (other animals) is the infinitely transposable model of the exploitation of others (social struggles).
Using a tried and tested method, the L.I.A. therefore organised a static counter-demonstration aimed at taking the national demonstration in reverse. Here are a few examples of the slogans chanted by the activists: ‘For animals, all governments are fascist’; ‘Ecology without veganism = eco-fascism’; ‘Socialism without veganism = exploitation’; ‘Animal struggle = social struggle = convergence of struggles’; ‘We are animals in solidarity with other animals!’; etc.
Quickly surrounded by thousands of people brushing past us on all sides, motionless in the middle of the crowd, the L.I.A. activists brandished their anti-speciesist slogans borrowing the forgotten faces of the oppressed. Firecrackers thrown at our feet, interactions, visibility and photo opportunities, maximum societal impact.
We have shown civil society that speciesism is one of the most absolute moral failures of the human species and that it is morally unjustifiable.
It is with emotion that the other animals and the L.I.A. would like to thank the citizens who took the place of the other animals in the crowd despite the wind, the cold, the fury, the enormous noise, the easy mockery but also the gestures of solidarity. They were splendid, great, resistant to stress and worthy of what a human being can achieve when he or she puts their guts on the line for life and the universal rights of other living beings.
Other animals and a large part of civil society have been watching us and thanks to you, they have been able to realise that speciesism is scandalous exploitation and that perhaps one day a different policy will allow all sentient beings to have the right to fulfil their potential and to share our light, our ideals, our sadness and our joy.