21st November, Bern, Switzerland.
According to local media, multiple windows of two butcher shops in Bern were smashed the same night Bell slaughterhouse was blockaded. A shop owner explained that they had already been targeted with spray paint in the past. The claim of responsibility was published later.
“During the night of Wednesday, November 21, we attacked the Meinen butcher shop in Mattenhof and the Lehmann butcher shop in Länggasse, Bern. With the broken windows and the slogans left behind, we want to make our anger at the slaughter of animals visible.
Every day, animals are bred, humiliated, tortured, beaten and killed at the will of humans. Animals have been degenerated into a commodity in the capitalist system, and end up as overproduction in the containers of Coop, Migros, Denner and Co. at the end of the day. Smaller companies, such as the local butchers, are also part of this exploitative apparatus. They often like to advertise ‘animal-friendly organic production’ from the farm. However, the word ‘organic’ is just another label in which the conditions for the animals hardly differ from other farms.
In recent months, similar actions in western Switzerland and in France have made headlines. With eyes filled with tears, owners of butcher shops gave interviews in which they complained of the ‘injustice’ of such actions. Some animal rights activists also spoke of the ‘damage’ of such actions to the whole animal protection movement. But in one movement there are always different theoretical and practical tendencies that can complement each other. What is important, however, is a clear positioning against all racist, anti-Semitic and otherwise discriminatory positions, as well as the connection of the various emancipatory struggles against all oppression and exploitation of humans and animals.
We are therefore in solidarity with the actions in western Switzerland and France, because some paint and broken windows are nothing in comparison to the suffering of the animals, which they have to experience every day. At the same time, we want to fight and combat any discriminatory actions and positions.
It will not be the last broken windows –
No one is free until everyone is free”
