Rabbit Advocacy Animal Matters

Peace on Earth, but for whom?

December 21, 2013 Patricia Tallman, Vancouver Sun

Most people desire peace for everyone - family, friends, community, country, and nations of the earth. But if only people are included, peace on earth will remain a dream.

Why? Because as Albert Schweitzer, the French philosopher, physician, musician, and winner of the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize pointed out: "Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace."

Strong words. In his Nobel Peace Prize address, Dr. Schweitzer said: "The human spirit is not dead. ... It has come to believe that compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind."

It is apropos to talk about peace at this particular time of year - whether you celebrate Christmas religiously, spiritually, or commercially - the message of peace permeates all religions and cultures.

In Schweitzer's Philosophy of Civilization, he wrote: "We must fight against the spirit of unconscious cruelty with which we treat the animals. Animals suffer as much as we do. True humanity does not allow us to impose such sufferings on them. It is our duty to make the whole world recognize it."

Peace - not just for humans but for all animals who share earth with us. "Thou shalt not kill" means not killing all creatures, not just humans.

We would be foolish to expect that we can achieve global peace while participating in the suffering, enslavement, and killing of sentient beings every time we eat. The mindless and widely accepted practice of bringing life into this world, only to abuse, exploit, and kill it at less than five per cent of its life span for our own satisfaction is reprehensible.

As with the abolition of slavery, women's oppression, racism, and discrimination based on sexual orientation, religion, or gender, some people are championing the abolition of discrimination based on species, or speciesism.

If activists focused only on improving slavery conditions for blacks, would happy slavery make it more palatable for the slaves? Not likely. It was only through abolition of slavery that it became no longer socially or morally acceptable by mainstream society.

Hence, using animals "nicely," or "humanely" detracts energy and focus from the only meaningful cause from the animals' perspective - abolition of their exploitation. It has never been our right to use animals for our gustatory pleasure, fashion vanity, experimental testing, and entertainment, just as we have no right to use marginalized humans for any purpose. It is every creature's birthright to live without exploitation by humans.

When people become defensive about their right to eat, harvest, hunt, and kill animals, it exhibits an underlying conflict between their innate moral code (that it's wrong to harm or kill unnecessarily) and their habituated unconscious practice of dining on dead carcasses and using animal parts. If humans have evolved intellectually, why don't our actions reflect our evolution as moral beings? The fact that we dominate other species merely demonstrates our moral inferiority.

Incremental changes of improved welfare for farmed animals, as well as humane and local meat movements, though marginally helpful, are not sustainable answers. Most importantly, they are not the moral resolution animals need. Animal welfare reforms inhibit the abolition revolution by assuaging people's guilty conscience. Baby steps of Meatless Mondays are just that - good initiators for the seismic shift in thinking required by the masses to re-examine our moral obligation. If we subscribe to the fact that animals matter morally - and the scientific community has proclaimed their sentience - then we need a completely different conversation - away from improved exploitation to abolition. We need to eliminate the property status of animals, as we once did with slaves and women, to rectify this social injustice.

Global population is forecast to reach nine billion by 2050. When scientists at the Stockholm International Water Institute recommend that animalbased foods should be limited to five per cent of total calories to ensure enough water for agriculture, we need a drastic paradigm shift in what we eat - not who we eat.

Animals are sentient beings, they are not food for humans. Our food should come from the ground, not the wombs of other creatures. Before condemning bear bile farms in Asia, we should scrutinize our own obsession with dairy farms for cows' mammary secretions.

It is paradoxical when people of faith who espouse respect for life pray for peace at Christmas, yet sit down to dine on baby animals killed by other people.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: "You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity." Saying grace before a meal does not absolve one from the egregious suffering and death of these animals.

There is no gentle way to tell meat-eaters who they are eating. The emotional discomfort people feel pales in comparison to the fright, pain, suffering, misery, injustice, and the final walk of desolation on the conveyor belt to meet their death by the 70 billion farmed land animals worldwide each year. It's impossible to fathom the enormity of this indifference. But we can think of one turkey, one pig, or one cow. To you, it's a meal. To her, it's her life. Is a turkey's 15-year or a cow's 25-year life an equitable exchange for a few minutes of dining enjoyment when equally or more flavourful options are available? Perhaps it is time we examine our actions and align them with our faith and intrinsic values.

Take this opportunity to elevate our social conscience by heeding "Thou shalt not kill," and initiate a meaningful discussion for the animals. Peace - to all beings.

"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages." - Thomas A. Edison.

"We have enslaved the rest of the animal creation, and have treated our distant cousins in fur and feathers so badly that beyond doubt, if they were able to formulate a religion, they would depict the Devil in human form." - William Ralph Inge.

"The assumption that animals are without rights and the illusion that our treatment of them has no moral significance is a positively outrageous example of Western crudity and barbarity. Universal compassion is the only guarantee of morality." - Arthur Schopenhauer.

Patricia Tallman is an environmental policy consultant and founder of the Langley Herbivores, a community group that promotes a plant-based diet.