December 25th 2057 – the snow falls silently, the children are happy, the roasted Austrian tastes wonderful

(This post is a submission to the "Love to lead" competition by Toshiba were you have answer questions. The one post that gets the most votes wins a top-notch Laptop. The question this week was "If we could hold conversations with animals, would we all be vegetarians?"

If I win I will donate this Laptop to the NGO AIESEC in Austria. So spread the word!)

It was only 50 years ago when our world changed forever. Even after all these years scientists couldn’t figure out how it happened. What can be read in all history books is still a mystery to all of us – the day when animals started to speak with us.

No scientific report had prepared us for it. No trend-scout could have predicted it. It hit us unexpectedly and changed the course of history completely.

How? Did the groundhog that sat next to you for three years in highschool infect you with sleepiness? Everybody knows how it all went…

August 2007

During the attempt to mate the Albino-Gorilla “Whitaker” – the main attraction of the London-Zoo – with the female gorilla “Babe”, Whitaker manages to escape from his enclosure. He throws one of the keepers trying to stop him down a trench. In an interview with The Sun Bob Hown - the keeper – afterwards states, he clearly heard the gorilla saying “Fuck her yourself, asshole”. The following waves of scornful articles, the public witch-hunting and the dismissal from his job finally leads to the suicide of Bob 4 months later. Whitaker is accidentally shot dead by the police shortly afterwards in front of Gate A of the London Airport.

November 2007

The Russian biologist Anna Kolikova attacks her teamleader of the group for researching on side-effects of the new HugeMacs hamburger on rats with a knife. In the following trial the judge does not accept her argument that the rats told her to kill her teamleader and sends her into a psychiatry for curing her schizophrenia.

May 2008

After more and more stories of talking animals occurred over the past months, Norman Gates – an unemployed carpenter from Wisconsin - posts a video of a dialogue between him and a slater on his blog “The world is a cabinet”. On the video the slater introduces himself as “Jimmy” and talks mostly about food. Due to the bad quality of the video taken by Normans webcam he calls for a real camera team dropping by his place. In expectation of a good shot about a deranged individual the recently launched freak show “Baby Smash” sends a team to his home and makes history with the first media interview with an animal.

September 2008

The mayor of New York City barely manages to prevent mass hysteria after everywhere in New York animals start to talk to humans. The short conversations – at that point of time mainly consisting of insults – set people in a deep state of confusion leading to an almost complete break-down of the normal life in New York.

November 2008

the zoo of Chicago 20 drunk youth beat up keepers and smash doors of enclosures to the cheers of the Penguins they met few hours before that incident in front of a pub. Following their example everywhere in the world groups fiercely start attacking zoos and freeing animals.

February 2009

A poll indicates that over 86% of the Australian Non-Vegetarian people do not want to think of the fact that their daily meal could probably talk to them if it was still alive. 63% are sure that the meat they eat every day is from animals that were not able to speak at all.

January 2011

After several threats the police force put in front of a big slaughterhouse in the outskirts of Peking starts shooting into a big group of people that try to set it on fire. The UN sharply condemns this act of civil violence.

May 2012

The parrot Polly is invited to Americas popular show “Walk the talk” to discuss about animal rights with the governor of Texas as the Texan cow Martha, which was originally invited, suddenly without a trace disappeared a few days before the discussion. It is the first time an animal is invited to a show as an equal participant. Martha publicly accuses the CIA of kidnapping and killing Molly and demands from the governor to confess his knowledge about the incident, to stop Texan ranchers from treating cattle like minerals and to give her a cracker.

January 2013

The speaker of the “Global Order For Animal Treatment” (GOAT) announces that due to the merger with almost all the other young animal-right-movements and organizations GOAT over the last year got over 84 million new members world-wide and therefore became one of the strongest global organizations the world has ever seen. He repeats their demands for a global law for prohibiting eating any animals. The Time magazine titles “Be GOAT or be gone”.

October 2013

Norman Gates book “Me and Jimmy, Jimmy and me – dialogues with a slater” hits the first place of the international bestseller list and stays there for the following two years.

April 2014

The commune of humanimals is founded in Berlin by the political activist group “Sozialistische Deutsche Tierliebhaber” together with two dogs, three crows and an elephant. The commune is meant as a counter-model to the traditional human – pet relationship and wants to promote equality in all ways of living. The conservative media calls the commune a “shelter of hypocritical sodomites”.

July 2014

The plan of the commune to throw a big pile of elephant-shit on the Vice-president of the US during his visit in Berlin fails as the dogs are caught on the street and brought to an animal shelter. After a fierce debate about the responsibility for this failure the commune dissolves. La Chevaliere – the elephant (whose original name was “pfffroot”) - later in her biography writes that “most of them in fact were latent sodomites. Their disability to satisfy a strong lady lead to so much inner frustration and tension that it was impossible to carry on like that”.

December 2017

The unofficial speaker of the pigs Chrkchrk chhh is summoned to the European Food Safety Authority in Parma to speak about his demands for providing better meat in return. With brilliant negotiation skills he manages to push trough European directives improving living conditions for pigs significantly. Three years later after intense coaching by Chrkchrk the cows reach the same agreement with the EFSA.

March 2020

Chrkchrk chhh – already a world-wide star - publicly announces the foundation of the International Animals Association IAA – an umbrella organization for the company Animal International (AI), the Den for Non-Animal Affairs (DNAA) and all the smaller movements like the Animal Liberation Army (ALA). The lion Ronald Cumberstone is elected first president of IAA.

December 2021

The president of McDonalds International reports a sharp drop in the consummation of burgers with meat. He prescribes the company a rigid change of strategy. ¾ of the traditional menus are cut down and replaced with Vegetarian food.

May 2023

The rising numbers of incidents were German shepherd dogs publicly lacerate humans and feast upon their innards leads to the passing of the “Gesetz zum Schutz vor Tieren” (Law for protection from animals) or short “Tierschutzgesetz”. It will serve as a template for many similar laws worldwide.

January 2024

The radical group “Black Panther” gets outlawed by the US senate and its members set on the FBI list of the top ten most wanted criminals. The leader of the Black Panthers sends out a video message were he talks about his vision to open a “slaughterhouse for humans”.

April 2026

The United Nations agree on creating a bigger animal reservation in the jungle of Kongo. The speaker of the IAA demands an own state and the acknowledgement of animals as equal to humans, which is denied.

May 2028

On the 14^th of May, the IAA declares the independence of their reservation and founds the new state “Gaia”. It claims a significantly bigger area than the original reservation had.

July 2028

UN troops arrive in Gaia to restore order between the several African armies and the Gaians, which already started claiming more land.

January 2031

The UN “Animal resolution” declared animals falling under the human rights and human jurisdiction. The rights name is changed to “human and animal rights”. The declaration is ratified by 180 members (excluding e.g. China and the US).

March 2032

The first dolphin-therapy program is launched in Turkey. The innovative method of exposing traumatized dolphins to human babies proofs to be a resounding success with broad media coverage.

May 2033

Lifestyle magazines promote the newest top-notch luxury – restaurants for humans in Gaia with “special menus”.

July 2033

The EU sends an investigation team to Africa to research why the flood of refugees from there decreased so much over the last couple of months, though still raging civil wars.

October 2035

The company Food from animal trusts (FAT) a spin-off from Animal International focusing on producing and exporting delicacies is included in the Stock Exchange Index of the Wall Street. The company has branches in 42 countries around the world.

November 2037

After the revelation of a mass production of human meat by FAT and several other Gaian companies, the EU demands immediate stopping of all production. After a short shock-period cooks and meat-lovers all around the world start protesting against the EU proposal. A mass demonstration outside the European parliament screams chants like “Let us eat or we eat you” , “We ate them long enough! Eating humans is not tough!”.

February 2038

The global ethics commission opts for a general freedom in choice of food with one vote in majority. “We did not think the Koala would vote for this…” a frustrated enemy of the “Food-freedom proposal” is quoted later.

November 2048

Both turkey and Austrian are the most popular dish for Christmas due to their soft yet tasty meat. Austria advances to the country with the highest income per person world-wide.

Yes… the ways of history are sometimes inscrutable. Who would have thought about all these things happening within 50 years. And how barbaric these people were 50 years ago not allowing the individual to choose what it wants to eat and what not.

Oh…

The door-bell is ringing. That should be the Grmpfgrmpfs from next door. Well, thank you for your attention my strange visitor. Where are you from again…? Vienna… hm… I… see…

Probably you want to drop by next year to join us for Christmas?