For Animals.

Transcript:

None of us can choose the body we are born into. We didn’t choose to be human, just like a  cow doesn’t choose to be a cow, a fish doesn’t choose to be a fish and an insect doesn’t choose to be an insect. But just like all humans deserve to be safe, happy, and healthy, so does every animal.  Because, like us, they are all sentient individuals. They all feel, they all value their lives just as much as we value ours. ALL of us deserve, at the most basic level, the right to live and to be free from harm, regardless of the arbitrary fact that we are different species.

The suffering animals’ experience is so horrific, there are no words I can say that will do it justice. Even when we think we must have seen it all, we discover yet more cruelty being inflicted upon them. And when the world feels like one big slaughterhouse,  it can be hard to find any source of hope. Those of us here empathise naturally with animals. Causing them harm is unthinkable to us. But for many people their empathy for other animals is buried, and the way they view them is through a human supremacist and speciesist lens.  It’s so easy for people to go along with what is considered normal and not question how animals are treated. That’s until people like us come along and point it out. It’s not so easy then. This is where I find a source of hope. Everyone has the capacity to empathise with animals, they just need to be put back in touch with that empathy. And we have the power to do this. We can make people stop and rethink their attitudes towards animals. Just by outreaching, advocating, and educating, we can shatter that human supremacist, speciesism lens and open people’s eyes so that they view animals as the sentient individuals they are. That is our key to creating change and it’s that that gives me hope that a different world for animals is possible. 

But it’s up to us to make that happen. We must not ever be silent. Because silence gives consent, it permits the atrocities to continue. When we say nothing, what we are really saying is “this is all okay”. As the famous quote goes, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor”. We must always look at it from the victims’ perspective, and the victims never appreciate us remaining silent. So, while animals face horrendous treatment every day,  we must stand up every day and say to all the individuals paying for their suffering and to the industries inflicting their suffering and to society as a whole for causing this utter cruelty to animals, that THIS IS NOT OKAY! This is not okay at all. Animals do not deserve this! They are NOT numbers, they are NOT units of production, they are NOT mere commodities. They are individuals and their lives MATTER.

While we can all go home today, to the comfort of our homes, to our soft warm beds, for animals there is no reprieve from their suffering. While we take our safety and freedom for granted, they will never know what it is like to be safe, or to be free. There is no escape for them. Right now a frightened newborn chick is falling into a macerator. Right now a mother cow walks, defeated, her baby stolen, to have her milk taken by machines instead. Right now, a chicken lies on their back, their body aching, lungs straining, slowly dying, unable to stand. Right now a fish, terrified and panicking, slowly suffocates on the deck of a fishing boat. Right now animals, crammed into trucks, scared and exhausted, are heading towards a distant slaughterhouse. For animals, they don’t understand what is happening to them, or why, all they know is their own pain and fear. We can put their suffering out of our minds, but it does not stop it from happening. The only thing that can stop it is our activism. 

So, we must be relentless.

We will not let society diminish the magnitude of our activism.  Because you don’t judge an injustice by how society reacts to it, you judge it by considering the victims of the injustice. And so the magnitude of our activism must. be. massive. We will utilise every single opportunity and every single avenue. We will be RELENTLESS. And we will refuse to be disheartened by the enormity of what we are tackling, because we have truth on our side, we have compassion on our side, and no matter what, we will always keep going and eventually we will win!