Australia and ‘it’

609:

Here in Australia people seem blasé about animals – they’re not yet conscious of them as sentient beings. They eat them, race them, wear them, vivisect them, just as in every other country in the world. But here there’s a germ of something hopeful and I think it can be traced back to our respect for equality (albeit only amongst humans). In regard to the great egalitarian dream, humans living amongst humans as equals, Australia has a lot to teach the rest of the world. Now, if that could broaden to include animals, well then, we’d be in a prime position to be true leaders in the coming age.

            A central value here, which is very twenty-first century, is the egalitarian ‘fair-go’ principle. Australian people have that strongly in the culture. And it puts us in an ideal position to understand the wrongness in speciesism. Once we realise that, then from there we can assimilate, by becoming more ‘consciousness of animals’.

Australians are explorers. We’re curious to try new things – then why should we not then explore a more peaceful lifestyle. It seems right up our street. I see Australians as being the deep-down, most friendliest bunch of people you could wish for. Be that’s as maybe, all I want to say is - it appears things are changing. We can see the changes in some ways … we can see how fast some things are moving.

But there’s one glitch. Our change is slowed down by pessimistic predictions of doom. Amongst Animal Rights people you’ll hear them tell you about certain friends who’ve become vegan this year, (great!) and then, “but millions haven’t”. We almost insist on seeing things gloomily. And that doesn’t encourage others to shift, let alone to feel optimistic 

To avoid gloom, we probably need to insist on the inevitability of a good outcome. Now that isn’t so hard is it? Of course we need to initiate things, like when we’re cooking a meal, dreaming-up things, manipulating ingredients from scratch, all that sort of creativity. The more creative we are the more optimistic we’ll be.

Is it like when you’re vegan, and you’re building, creating and trying to make things satisfying. By narrowing our choices we are forced to be more creative with what is available to us, and therefore to build something new.