'
'Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.' Mark Twain
‘For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was
more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New
York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in
the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed
that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.’
Douglas Adams
'Unlike humans, animals do not breed beyond what
the land can sustain' Laura King
'Respect animals more than people. We're the ones
messing up the world, not them.' Anon
'A dog is the only thing on earth that loves you
more than he loves himself' Josh Billings
'Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's
soul remains unawakened' Anatole France
'The greatness of a nation and its moral progress
can be judged by the way its animals are treated.' Mahatma Gandhi
'Why be mean to animals when they treat you better
than people?' Anon
'The question is not, Can they reason? nor Can they
talk?'
but Can they suffer? Jeremy Bentham
'We patronise the animals for their incompleteness,
for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein
we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a
world older and more complete than ours, they are more finished and complete,
gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by
voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings;
they are other Nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time,
fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.' Henry Beston
'I think I could turn and live with the animals,
they are so placid and self contained;
I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition;
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for
their sins;
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to
God;
Not one is dissatisfied-not one is demented with
the mania of owning things;
Not one kneels to another, nor his kind that lived
thousands of years ago;
Not one is responsible or industrious over the
whole earth.' Walt Whitman
'Any person who is cruel to animals is a threat to
humans' Anon
'When humans act with cruelty, we characterize them
as 'animals' yet the only animal that displays cruelty is humanity.'
Anthony Williams
Inspired by a like-minded friend, I was going to
write an essay about 'speciesism' but then realised that most of what I had to
say about animals could be found in the form of peppy and pithy quotes,
even if I had to write one myself.
There might just be one more to be written for the
biblical-minded among you. When the bible gives us 'dominion' over the animals,
does that mean 'guardianship' or 'tyranny'? Without wishing to be critical of
the big G, I've always felt it's a real shame this was left open to the
interpretation and humanity of a flawed and often self-serving man.
I start off this blog with a clip from Johnny
Morris's Animal Magic TV programme, a staple of my early childhood, but now
condemned by the PC brigade (who else?) for its 'anthropomorphism', even though
dubbing the animals with Johnny's silly voices was used with the best of
intentions to evoke empathy and understanding in young children. Plus who's to
say Johnny was that far off the mark in guessing what the animals were
thinking? He had after all devoted his life to working with animals and trying
to communicate with them. We now have people who define themselves as 'animal
communicators' or 'horse whisperers' etc - badges Johnny would never have
dreamed of claiming for himself.
On the subject of animals with human
characteristics, anyone who's ever owned a pet knows how much they like to 'join
in' with human elements of life and how you can even take a chicken into your
home and it will develop its own characteristics and 'personality' as
individual as that of any human being of your acquaintance. We all exchange
knowing smiles at tales of how a pet can tell the time when you're coming home,
recognise the engine of your car as you turn in, know what time it is for food,
walks or play, know when you are upset and need a comforting nuzzle or a
companion on your bed all day long to stroke when you are ill. Animals don't
care how you look, how successful you are (as long as you keep the food supply
coming), what age you are, what car you own, what your marital status is
(though a secondary fan in the house is always a good thing!) or any of the other
triviata that your fellow humans may judge you for. They care only about their
relationship with you. A late poet friend of mine wrote a lovely poem about
what a hero he was to his dog (reproduced further down).
I find it sad in the extreme that we have had to
battle on several occasions in our so-called civilised 21st Century society to
retain the legal protection status of 'sentient beings' for animals, paltry as
that protection is when translated into real life. How brainless would a human
being have to be not to recognise the difference between an animal and a sack
of flour? Not to recognise that animals can feel fear, suffering and pain as
much as any human being can, irrespective of whether they can read Shakespeare,
complete a crossword or drive a car.
We also know the following about animals that we
didn't necessarily know in the past:
- That sadists and serial killers often start their career on animals
and then move onto human beings. Therefore any animal cruelty detected in
children needs to be nipped in the bud. I suggest animal appreciation and
care classes need to be compulsory in every school, not least when so many
homes break up nowadays and the pets are often the first to suffer or be
abandoned, leading to even more misery on the childrens' part, who have
enough to contend with in dealing with their parents' break up.
- Child abusers are known for targeting jobs and careers which will
expose them to children and most of these areas are now well-monitored
requiring DBS checks. Likewise a lot of animal abuse has been exposed in
abbatoirs, vivisection labs and chicken plants so a similar monitoring
scheme needs to be introduced with lifelong animal ownership/working bans
imposed on those found guilty. All animal slaughter facilities need to be
covered with CCTV with more inspectors on the ground making unannounced
inspections.
- When people's lives get busy or tough, animals are often the first to
suffer.
- Far too much meat is imported leading to live export cruelty. Those
who eat meat need to insist on locally sourced and ethically-produced meat
with a checkable provenance. This will also benefit their health as well
as animals as cheap meat contains high levels of adrenaline, chemicals and
even cancers which have been cut out as part of the preparation process.
When animals live in a high-stress environment and are subjected to short
and brutal lives, all the stress will remain at cellular level in the meat
to be consumed by the human or pet it is processed and purchased for,
increasing cancer and other risks.
- I would like to see a ban on all cartoon animals advertising their
meat or animal products in advertising. If ever there was an abuse of
anthropomorphism, this is it at its most obscene, yet strangely no one seems
to be doing anything about it. Turkeys do not vote for Christmas as they
say.
- There are effective alternatives to animal experiments which may
hasten medical progress but as long as the heads of pharma companies are
allowed to lobby and influence governments and the law, these will not
come to pass as they have had these cruel practices written into law,
irrespective of efficacy and side effects to humans.
- Many animal experiments are both cruel and pointless and many companies
copy the same experiments for product development rather than sharing data
for 'commercial reasons.'
So now that most groups of human beings have been
recognised and granted legal rights and protections accordingly it is high time
it was the turn of the animals in my view. They give us so much, yet take so
little and they utterly rely on us for a voice and enforcement of what few
rights they have. What protection they have is woefully inadequate to
guarantee them even the basics of food, shelter and a life free of fear and
pain.
Ode To My Dog by Brinsley Sheridan
To my dog I am no mortal man, no failed frail human being.
To my dog, I am all powerful, all-knowing and all-seeing.
I’m the centre of his universe, his raison d’etre, his quest,
My words he does not challenge, my will he does not test.
I’m his Mozart, and his Sartre, his Rodin, his Van Gogh,
His Herman Hess, His William S, his Tolostoy and Nabokov.
I’m his Buddha, his Confucius, his Marx, his Mao Tse Tung,
His Rousseau and his Russell, his Adler, Freud and Jung.
My simple tricks with stones and sticks outshine Houdini’s guile,
I summon him with Caruso’s voice and Mona Lisa’s smile.
I unravelled relativity while holing out the ninth,
Penned War and Peace and, with idle ease, designed the Pharoah’s plinth.
I’m his Steve McQueen in ‘Bullet’, his Bogart in ‘Casablanca’,
More debonair than Fred Astaire, and a better disco dancer.
I’m his Rolling Stones, his Beatles, his REM, his Crowded House,
His Superman, his Batman, but never Mickey Mouse.
He trusts me without question, that to me, it seems,
I’m all my childhood heroes, and all my adult dreams.
World Day for the End of Speciesism
OFFICIAL ANIMAL RIGHTS MARCH DAY
Date: August 25, 2018
Place: All over the world
More Information: See
the list of events and list of marches
The goal of the World Day for the End of Speciesism
is to denounce the unjust ideology that makes the barbarity of raising and
killing billions of animals for our pleasure—a needed change. Join a march
to take a stand against the injustice being done to animals, which
has become one of the most important social debates of our
time. Our relationship with animals is based on speciesism. By
analogy with racism and sexism, speciesism refers to an ideology that considers
the lives and interests of animals as insignificant just because they are of
a different species. Speciesism is untenable because
humans are not the only ones to feel emotions and suffer and therefore we have
to respect the lives and interests of the other sentient beings who share this
planet with us.
Perhaps it is the grey skies overhead, or perhaps it was coming across these when clearing out my spare room the other night, but feeling a bit uninspired today...
