Letters in
the Independent in Ireland Urge Compassionate Diet; UPC thanks
newspaper. To read and contribute a Comment, please visit:
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/fowl-not-fair-in-your-festive-meal-1253175.html
The Irish Independent, Ireland
Wednesday, December 26 2007
Fowl not fair in your festive meal
Sunday December 23 2007
Sir
-- The annual seasonal slaughter of turkeys and pigs is coming to an
end as I write. This period of intense killing would be bad enough had
the animals been afforded a decent life, but most have lived awful
lives, in windowless sheds, processed like factory units (which they
are), and had their lives brutally taken from them when they were still
mere babes.
The tragedy is not in how we kill them; it is that we
deem it acceptable and necessary to kill them at all. It is a shocking
act, an act that most of us cannot even contemplate committing, yet we
are more than happy to eat the end product.
Few people would be
capable of spending a day in a slaughterhouse, at the coalface so to
speak, killing one animal after another, an entire day spent killing
the innocent. The unpleasant tasks we cannot bring ourselves to carry
out, we allow others to do for us. No one really thinks about the
slaughterhouse, the absolute terror of the animal, the ugly act of
killing, the butchery that follows. It is all out of sight. We do not
know; we do not want to know.
Was not the message and example of
Christ a compassionate one? How many nuns, priests, bishops and deans
will sit down to a meal this Christmas that doesn't have as its
centrepiece a dead animal, raised and slaughtered in such a manner as
to compromise their lifelong dedication to compassion? Not many.
The
hypocrisy surrounding our relationship with animals is deeply embedded.
We are capable of becoming emotionally involved with our pet dog while
at the same time we tacitly support the inhumane treatment of farm
animals in a daily act of condonement: eating them. Yet, our pet dog is
capable of suffering in the same manner as that of a pig, chicken or
turkey were it to be subjected to a life comparable to that of an
intensively-farmed animal.
Gerry Boland,
Animals in Crisis
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Thank you for Gerry Boland's moving and expressive call upon us to deepen our spiritual lives to include the animals who sit imprisoned in darkness and squalor awaiting their deaths in order that we may entomb their sad bodies in our own. I have maintained a sanctuary for chickens, turkeys, and ducks rescued from farming operations since 1987 and it is an unfailing joy to see them, as I see them today, following the December sun as it moves about the yard in order that they may absorb its healing brightness and warmth. I hope that 2008 will witness a growth throughout the world in social justice commitments that include the beautiful birds and other animals who share this earth with us. I hope we will witness a World Peace Diet begin to take hold as an integral part of our commitment to ending Global Warming and living more caringly. So thank you again for publishing Gerry Boland's letter. I am heartened by his impassioned protest against the ugly act of terrorizing and killing animals. We have it within ourselves to do better, so let us do it.
Posted by Karen Davis | 24.12.07, 18:28 GMT