Human nature in microcosm

558a

We have two opposing views in our society - there are vegans who see all the cruelty and barbarity in human nature and are trying to correct it, and we have those who accept or turn a blind eye to the inherent cruelty in human nature. As a vegan I’d say that the worst, most routine cruelty is practised against animals. But vegans are so few in number that no one is yet listening to us. Non-vegans are so vast in number that even the rampant cruelty against animals is okayed by them; they agree to ignore it, knowing that no one can touch them. No wonder vegans feel so impotent.

            A couple of nights ago, we saw on TV, here in Australia, footage of the most outrageous treatment of animals anyone has ever seen. Workers, at a Pakistan meatworks, using their mobile phones, recorded the massacre of thousands of sheep (exported from Australia), and not just a massacre but the half-killing of the animals and their being thrown alive and wounded into a pit. One animal was later pulled from the pit and ‘brought back to life’, just to prove that what the viewer could see, the twitching and shallow movements of some of these bodies, meant that they had been thrown into the pit alive. There was blood everywhere. Panic was obvious. There was no audio but the noise of thousands of terrorised animals forced to watch the massacre could be guessed at.

            I’ve no doubt the men attacking these sheep were ordered to dispose of as many animals as possible before anyone could witness what was going on. Thank god for mobile phones with cameras. It was all filmed and shown to Australian television audiences. The lucrative trade in the live export of animals won’t be stopped because the Australian government is too weak and unprincipled to stop it.

            We know this sort of barbaric treatment of animals happens, and we know it’s bound to happen again. And it reflects that part of our human nature which must have what it wants, at any cost. In modern abattoirs the killing and terrorising of animals isn’t as obviously barbaric as the massacre in Pakistan but it takes place nevertheless. Animals experience terror as they go for execution. We say they are killed humanely.. When we enjoy our lamb cutlets we think of it as ‘happy meat’, believing what we are told - “The animals do not suffer”. But this is just our human nature, allowing the fridge to be filled with bits of animals’ bodies without our feeling bad about it. Animal Rights is a fascinating subject if only because what we do to animals, whether ‘cleanly’ in the modern slaughterhouses or ‘uncleanly’ at meatworks in Pakistan, shows the worst of human nature in microcosm. We gather together and agree that nothing should be said about attacking innocent animals, so that we can fill our fridges with meat and eggs and milk. The animals from which these products are taken each die horrible deaths.

            This is why, when I see inside people’s fridges, I know they have tacitly agreed to go along with the worst part of their nature to ensure the supply of their favourite foods. They go along with the cruelty and barbarism of the animal industries who supply them.