Sunday's rain did not prevent thousands of people, from young families to the elderly, from marching through the streets of Brussels for a "social and anti-fascist" rally.
According to official police numbers, around 4,500 people gathered at Mont des Arts on Sunday afternoon to take part in the march organised by the Belgian Anti-Fascist Coordination (CAB) to protest against the "relentless rise of the far right". The march is the second major demonstration in the capital denouncing the far-right since the Belgian and European elections on 9 June, which saw (far-) right parties winning big.
"Many of us were shocked by the election results, showing far-right breakthroughs at the European level," Sixtine Van Outryve, a spokesperson for the Anti-Fascist Coordination of Belgium (CAB), said.
In the crowd, banners could be spotted reading messages such as "Never again" and "The brown plague is back, do not let yourself be contaminated", while the beat of drums and chants could be heard throughout the procession.
Van Outryve expressed concern about an "alarming" trend towards the normalisation of far-right discourse. "In response to this normalisation of racist and fascist statements by our politicians, let’s loudly and clearly remember ‘never again’, a phrase that seemed so evident after the emergence of last century’s fascist regimes."
The demonstration aims to assert that the rise of the far-right "is not inevitable" and to confront it by building a real alternative that is social, ecological, and democratic. Organisers argued this is the only solution truly capable of addressing the major challenges of today and tomorrow.
