Intentando contar el mundo

A mural in Dharamshala (Himachal Pradesh, India) There are few topics nowadays capable of setting people on edge as much as veganism in the social media. If you ask meat-eaters if non-humans deserve to have rights, most would probably say "Yes" and would genuinely prefer animals not to suffer. However, when veganism comes up in a conversation, it's another thing: It irritates many people because it's considered radical and extreme as it forces us to question the way we live and what we consume. There are some who react almost allergically to the word "veganism" and wouldn't eat a product labelled as vegan even though they already eat fruits and vegetables, among others. Surprisingly to me, some of the harshest criticism comes from those who I expected to be allies in this struggle against oppression: a certain sector of the political left, which despite actively engaging in the fight against sexism, classism, racism and homophobia rejects antispecie...

Last week two friends invited me to the screening of Dominion , an Australian documentary about the exploitation of non-human animals at the hands of humans representing several different industries. The screening took place in Nau Bostik , a former factory and today a cultural centre in the neighbourhood of La Sagrera in Barcelona. It had been years since I watched another similar film with such explicit images, the famous Earthlings , but when I arrived at the Nau I was completely unaware of this similarity. What made me feel slightly suspicious of a deeply disturbing content was one of the organisers who distributed tissues in case anyone felt like crying. Later I discovered that many of us actually needed them... The film shows images mostly from Australian farms, however, having seen numerous documentaries and videos from multiple countries, I can safely assure you that the extreme cruelty filmed by the activists is not from isolated cases in a single country. Dominion is divi...