Yesterday the second World Day for the End of Speciesism was held, with marches that took place in several locations in the world calling to end speciesism.

Unfortunately what seemed on the face of it as a more radical version of advocacy (especially in light of the rise of consumer oriented approaches, and the notorious reductionism trend) was found to be not much more than more of the same.
As usual, activists are asking humans to stop consuming animal derived products, and “urge parliaments and the courts to create and enforce a new legal status for animals that stops them from being considered as property and recognising them as sentient beings whose interests must be protected by the law”.
As we broadly explained in the posts Non-Violence Approach and Reclaiming the Power We Should Have Never Given to Humans, the mere position of asking the abusers to stop abusing is in itself speciesist. It’s perpetuating the speciesist reality in which one species makes all the calls for all the other species, especially when the case is of systemically exploiting them. The self-evident frame of thought is that it is humans’ decision how to treat the rest of the species. And when humans leave the conversation about their abuse and choose to keep abusing, as most humans do, that’s what will happen. Merely asking them to stop abusing is letting them continue to torture.
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