In the Romandie (also called French-speaking Switzerland, with a population of 2 million) Virginia Markus is the best-known pioneer of the Anti speciesists, a radical animal protection movement.
Especially her actions cause a stir: In March, she and 18 of her co-workers freed 18 kids from a slaughterhouse near Rolle (VD), having previously recorded the conditions in a slaughterhouse with hidden cameras and occupied appropriate facilities. There are several criminal cases against her.

Virginia Markus

On 3.08.2018 she gave a very good interview in the “Neue Zürchner Zeitung”. I only translated the main points of this interview because it is quite long, but you can read the whole thing from the link.

https://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/fuer-tiere-wuerde-ich-auch-ins-gefaengnis-gehen-ld.1408633

NZZ: You chose the radical form. When did you eat your last piece of meat?

Markus: When I was 18, my former geography teacher showed me the effects of meat consumption on the environment. That opened my eyes. The decision to live vegetarian was easy, because I was always surrounded by animals. It was harder to give up my beloved cheese six years later. But I had to do it because I realized that if I only consume dairy products, I’m indirectly responsible for the deaths of animals.

NZZ: In what way?

Markus: Many people feel that a cow is constantly giving milk. It is not so. She has to give birth to a calf regularly, which will soon end up on the slaughter if it is male. And if she does not produce enough milk, the cow is also slaughtered. That is irresponsible for me. The decision not to eat any more animal products was a liberation for me: at last I could live in harmony with my values.
By consuming animal products, one is jointly responsible for murdering an animal.

NZZ: Do you – ethically speaking – make no distinction between animals and humans?

Markus: No! as far as their will to live is concerned. An animal that suffers is like a person who suffers. Which of course does not mean that there are no physiological and cognitive differences.

NZZ: In nature, there are also differences and a hierarchy: A cat hunts the mouse – and we humans keep us the livestock.

Markus: A cat acts by instinct, she can not think the consequences of her actions. Fortunately, we can do that. There are no people born with the instinct to kill.
I do not deny that it can give pleasure to eat meat. But that does not justify doing it – it implies sacrifice. By consuming animal products, one is jointly responsible for murdering an animal.
In other areas of life, nobody also questions that one must put own pleasure back, if it is to the detriment of others. Why not with the food?

NZZ: They not only hide cameras, they also block roads to slaughterhouses and even liberate animals. Four criminal cases are currently pending against you. Why should not the law apply to you?
Markus: Only in this way can we sustainably influence public opinion. Civil disobedience is only a remedy for us when all others are exhausted. We force the society, so to speak, not to close its eyes.
Our first big goal is that cows, calves and other fattening animals in Switzerland are as well protected as cats and dogs. Still, animals do not have the same rights as humans. So in our opinion, more radical methods are needed to combat this malady.

I am insulted on all possible channels, someone has already bitten me the tires. To some extent, I can even understand the anger of many people. However, I am not insecure by such reactions, as well as by judicial decisions. For the protection of the animals I would go to jail.

Last question: what has become of the liberated kids?
Markus: I can only reveal so much: 17 of the 18 rescued animals still live. They had to be elaborately maintained, meanwhile they are all well again.

My best regards, Venus

Source:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/pig-animal-cruelty-red-tractor-rosebury-farm-dunstable-inspectors-ban-a8470011.html

Farm banned by Red Tractor for pig cruelty supplies meat to major wholesalers

‘The sound of piglets’ heads being smashed against the wall, the cries of agony as their tiny teeth are clipped, and the terrified squeals of pigs being forced onto the slaughter truck with electric shocks could all be straight out of a horror film’

A farm where workers inflicted a string of torments on animals is a supplier to one of Britain’s biggest abattoirs that sells meat to major wholesalers.

It also sells pigs to a local butcher – prompting campaigners to say the footage proves it is a myth that locally bred meat means higher welfare.

Video taken at the Bedfordshire farm revealed a litany of abuse that broke welfare regulations including:

• A worker swinging a tiny piglet by one leg and smashing its head against a wall
• Piglets teeth being clipped off without pain relief
• Pigs being illegally and repeatedly shocked with an electric prod in their sides and neck
• A piglet left frothing at the mouth on a pile of corpses
• Dozens of dead piglets littering the floor of the farrowing (birthing) shed as well as live piglets trapped in crates with dead siblings
• Pigs crammed into barren pens so small they are forced to lie on each other in the heatwave
• At least one creature suffering from a tumour or hernia

Animal-welfare investigators uncovered the breaches of regulations at Rosebury Farm in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, which had passed five Red Tractor inspections this year including one last month – all of which the farm had been alerted to in advance.

• Read more

Footage of wounded pigs raises questions over Red Tractor scheme

But an unannounced inspection took place lafter the activists, from Animal Equality, disclosed the footage. The farm was then suspended.

The activists’ evidence showed how when piglets were slammed against a wall one continued to kick for at least 10 seconds, suggesting it died in extreme pain.

Last month The Independent revealed how animals at a farm that had been inspected and authorised by Red Tractor officials were found to be suffering from painful, infected injuries.

The practice of using an electric prod is restricted to “extreme circumstances only” under law. At Rosebury Farm in Dunstable workers were filmed using an electric prod to load pigs onto a lorry heading to an abattoir.

The investigators trailed one lorry load of pigs from the farm to Cheale Meats in Essex, a slaughterhouse that supplies the biggest wholesalers in the UK. It is believed meat from Cheale ends up in major supermarkets.

Another lorry went from the farm to Evans & Son, a “traditional” butchers in Bedfordshire that boasts of selling only local meat.

Many consumers mistakenly believe that buying meat from a local butcher or farmers’ market means the animals had a better life.Toni Shephard

Dr Toni Shephard, executive director of Animal Equality, said the investigation showed it was not true that local butchers or farmers’ markets guaranteed better welfare.

She said: “The sound of piglets’ heads being smashed against the wall, the cries of agony as their tiny teeth are clipped, and the terrified squeals of pigs being forced onto the slaughter truck with electric shocks could all be straight out of a horror film.

“Yet these harrowing scenes are from the much romanticised local, family farm producing British pork under the Red Tractor label.

“It’s time consumers were told the truth – labels and certificates do not prevent animals from suffering in the meat industry, but choosing from the ever-increasing selection of meat-free options will.”

I have finally had the chance to catch up on some reading I have wanted to do for a long time.

I have looked at attitudes and methods behind modern society’s treatment of animals and (linked to) the way humans have often treated each other, most notably during the Holocaust. With regard animals, especially those who suffer in intensive / factory farms now days, all people are considered Nazis – for the animals it is an ‘Eternal Treblinka’.

To be honest, I found the reading hard to swallow /read in most cases – the emergence of human beings as the ‘master species’ and their domination over the rest of the inhabitants of the earth.  The way in which man has dominated and caused suffering of his fellow human beings was just ‘sickly’.  I am giving a few examples below.

You then have to ask as mans self opinionated view as the master species has allowed him to cause the untold suffering to many animals – especially those in the factory farm systems.  Was this learnt from the Nazi system where they viewed themselves as the master race – having total control and domination over the Jews for example ?

Did the Nazi treatment of Jews establish the modern factory farm system ? – did the Nazis ‘control’ over the Jews in the extermination camps set a precedence that has now moved into mans domination and control of animals in intensive systems ? – was the keeping, control and extermination of the Jews by the Nazis a ‘system’ which has now moved species from human suffering during WW2 to that of animal suffering in this modern age ?

 A few examples of mans inhumanity to other man is as follows:

‘The great chain of being’ – created by Aristotle’s teacher Plato; who formulated the belief of the Greeks that they ranked higher than non Greeks, women, slaves and of course, animals.  Plato had a full range of human beings in ranked hierarchically, from the immortal gods at the top, down through humans, to animals, plants, and with stones and dust at the very bottom.

Medieval Christendom translated Plato’s image into a ladder which had Christian God at the top, and European Christians on the highest rung of the ladder, which included the animal species.  This positioning granted them a divine mandate as God’s overseers and stewards to ‘rule’ over the rest of the ladder below.

By the time civilisations emerged from the river valleys of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and China, the exploitation of captive animals for food, milk, hides and labour was firmly entrenched in the religions.  The Judeo-Christian tradition sanctified the notion that the world had been created for the sake of the human species. 

According to Genesis, God created the beats of the earth and the cattle according to their kinds; and everything that creeps upon the earth. God then made man in his image and gave him dominion over the fish of the sea; and over the birds of the air; over the cattle and all the earth. Philip Kapleau writes that some historians and environmentalists think that these fateful words of the Bible have determined the destructive course of Western civilisations for over 2,000 years.  Ian McHarg writes that if you wanted to find one text which will explain all the destruction and all the despoliation accomplished by Western man for at least 2,000 years; then you do not have to look any further than this ghastly, calamitous text.

To be continued – Mark.