The animal issue

Sunday 28th March 2010

There’s a gulf between people over the subject of animals - not the cute, cuddly ones, the “edible” ones. Until a couple of decades ago it didn’t get a mention, but then it all came out - how animals were being treated on farms and what was going on in abattoirs.
In the early eighties The Animals Film and the book Animal Liberation shocked people. We realised for the first time how much of our food relies on animals and what actually happens to the animals themselves. Slowly this information seeped into public consciousness, then, surprisingly, it came to a standstill. At least it did in Australia. Why? It has been a matter for some discussion on vegan websites and magazines but nowhere else. In the general community there’s a reluctance to face up to animal issues - probably because we feel too guilty to think about it. In private, if there’s any talk of it at all, it’s argued without much intellectual rigour. We like our animal food too much to want to put it down. We’re addicted to it. The matter of eating animals is just usually the butt of jokes.