- Maialen Sagues is a member of anti-specialist group Nor. The investigation focused on the slaughterhouses in Euskal Herria, and among them, they met the Laudio slaughterhouse, where they were witnesses. During the UPV/EHU investigation, Bengoa talked about its finding.
What is Nor antispecista?
Nor is a communicative group that aims to coordinate all the anti-specialist agents of Euskal Herria and that is born with that vocation. We have focused mainly on research work, one of the first work of the group was the study on slaughterhouses in Euskal Herria.
We advocate the release of animals, but being aware that in the capitalist system it is not possible to liberate this commodity. We understand it as part of an integral struggle.
What is the reality that you have found within the slaughterhouses in Euskal Herria?
The investigation was carried out in ten slaughterhouses in the Basque Country, including Laudio. We also took pictures of the area and collected the testimonies of the workers.
One of the slaughterhouses is a very harsh scenario. They function as assembly chains of a large factory. In fact, Henry Ford inspired the slaughterhouses in the production system of his car factories.
Animals get very stressed, it takes many hours for them to die. And, contrary to widespread belief, animals are aware that they must die. It's very hard.
In addition, slaughterhouses often use exaggerating machines for the stunning of animals, but it is very common that this arrangement fails; indeed, it fails systematically, as some slaughterhouse workers have acknowledged. Therefore, these beings are aware of what will happen to them until the last second and suffer painful mortalities.
In the Basque Country and in the slaughterhouses of some 100,000,000 animals are slaughtered every year, it is barbaric.
Large slaughterhouses of this kind will cause further damage, will it not?
Yes, they're very polluting places. But industrial farms still further pollute our environment: large amounts of water are used, large hectares of forest are cut off to plant soy and other foods that will be the food of these animals...
The slaughterhouse in Laudio promotes the philosophy of zero kilometres, do you not think that going against slaughterhouses can be contrary to agriculture and rural sovereignty?
No, they can be compatible, I don't think they're contradictory ideas. We too are in favour of sovereignty, of growth, but that sovereignty must be free from animal exploitation.
Specism is also in the dwellings, and that needs to be changed radically. You have to go to the little one, transform it gradually.