We’re not accustomed to care about suffering if it is not human suffering. The thought of animals being subjected to painful experiments or torture for our benefits doesn’t phase many people because it is simply a means to an end.
But what would you think if this incredible cruelty and suffering were being played out on your own precious Felix and Tinkerbell? Many can justify putting cows, pigs and chickens through slaughter because it becomes food. But how would you feel if those cows, pigs and chickens were replaced by animals close to home – cats and dogs?
Becoming aware of the torture that cats and dogs are subjected to in South Korea might make you think twice about the reality of animal abuse because cats and dogs are something we can sort of relate to.
I’m also sure, however, that just the idea of animals having rights will provoke many stop reading any further, or would send them into a endless heated “human dominion” tirade. But that would get this issue nowhere except too deep into an entanglement of apathy and inertia. I wish to simply focus the attention on the state of the animals in South Korea.
Ghandi once said, “You can judge the moral progress of a nation by its treatment of animals.” The way we live in harmony with other species shows our level of progress – both ethically and morally.
Government officials have given the OK to beat, torment, boil and all around torture cats and dogs because they could potentially pass along the bird flu to humans.
A strand of the H5N1 virus (bird flu) has been found in some farm in a small town just south of the capitol of South Korea, Seoul. Because the virus has killed at least 153 people worldwide, officials are not holding back on cautionary measures.
This means they are conducting, as you read this, a mass slaughter consisting of dogs, cats, mice, pigs, poultry and their eggs.
This slaughter began last Tuesday, even though international health experts have agreed that there is no scientific evidence to hint that cats, dogs or pigs can spread the disease. They have all questioned the slaughter of non-poultry species as means to thwart the bird flu outbreak, but to no avail. South Korean officials have denied that this is unusual, saying that many countries have utilized this method to curtail the spread of the disease to humans.
But with absolutely no proof in support of the slaughter, why must we carry out such cruelty and indiscriminately kill other livestock who have no purpose in the matter? To date, 677 dogs, 300 pigs, countless stray cats and mice, 236,000 poultry and 6 million eggs have been killed. And it doesn’t end there, as the slaughter still continues on.
This situation is a real tragedy on the part of the South Korean government and shows deplorable human character. I start to wonder: Why do people choose to do this?
I suppose I can understand the slaughter of animals here that we eat. And yes, OK, I can see the justification for it, although I don’t agree with it. But when the war is induced upon completely innocent animals, with no basis for even having to kill them, makes our breed look completely barbaric and devoid of any compassion for the world around us. When will we become the moral agents that we claim to be and see suffering for what its worth, regardless of who or what it is waged on?
Celine Dilfer is a senior communications major.
