By Wayne Pacelle on May 18, 2011
Through the years, I’ve heard many flimsy arguments from the apologists for animal abuse, and among the most persistent has been an appeal to cultural prerogative or tradition – in short, that the conduct in question is an expression of the “culture” of a particular nationality, community, ethnicity or race, and therefore, it should somehow be treated as sacrosanct. The bullfighters in Spain invoke culture as a defense for the staged stabbing or slaughter of a bull in arenas often packed full of non-Spaniards on vacation in the country. Or in Louisiana, the last state to outlaw animal fighting, cockfighters claimed that these staged slashing derbies, with knives attached to the birds’ legs to augment the bloodletting, are a Cajun tradition, even though the forebears of today’s Acadians seemed to have little to do with this ancient form of animal combat.
In March, The New York Times reported on the latest instance in which the values of animal protection and cultural identity appear at odds – the debate in California over the consumption of shark-fin soup. There, a broad coalition, including The Humane Society of the United States, is backing legislation to outlaw the possession, sale and trade of shark fins, which are the central ingredient in the soup that bears the same name.
There is a small minority within the Chinese-American community who have claimed the legislation to be a sort of thinly veiled cultural attack, and they want to preserve their right to see sharks caught, their fins slashed off, and their bodies dumped back in the ocean, so that the fanciers of this appetizer – a symbol of wealth and prestige – can eat their shark-fin soup in peace. To hell with the fact that up to 73 million sharks are killed across the globe each year for this soup. They want to eat the soup most describe as lacking flavor, and if so many sharks have to suffer and die for it, then so be it.
It seems that their recklessly selfish argument is, however, not quite as popular within the Asian and Asian-American communities as The New York Times piece may suggest. The author of the shark protection bill is California State Assembly Member Paul Fong, D-Cupertino, one of only a handful of Chinese-American lawmakers in the state legislature. He’s called the killing of sharks for their fins “a horrific scene.” Humane advocate Judy Ki also proudly claims an Asian lineage, but she offers a similar message: “Asian-Pacific Americans that want to enjoy premium quality seafood have many sustainable alternatives to shark fin. Those who are profiting from the slaughter of sharks solely for their fins are misusing race and culture to defend the industry.” A cohort of Asian chefs has also joined the campaign, along with a raft of scientists, animal welfare advocates, environmentalists, and commercial and recreational fishermen aware of the terrible animal welfare and ocean health implications of shark finning.
There are also similar shark-protection bills in Oregon and Washington state. The Washington legislation is sponsored by State Senate Majority Assistant Whip Kevin Ranker, D-San Juan Island, and has passed the Natural Resources & Marine Waters Committee that he chairs. If these bills are passed, it will be a major advance for the global campaign to protect tens of millions of sharks from the cruel deaths they now endure. Among other Pacific Rim states and territories, Hawaii and the Northern Marianas have already adopted similar prohibitions, and a similar bill awaits the Guam governor’s signature. And President Obama, who grew up in the Pacific Rim, signed legislation in January to ban landing sharks without their fins attached.
Culture is never a compelling defense for cruelty, especially when the cruelty is so dispensable and where alternatives abound. Animal protection is not the domain of any culture or community, but rather, it is a universal value. Good people of every background honor the notions of mercy and decency to other creatures. Stopping the killing of sharks for fins won’t diminish the proud culture of China or any other Asian nation. It will enhance it, since the presence of cruelty erodes the fabric of any civil society and mars the history books for any people who’ve ever elected to tolerate the vile mistreatment of helpless creatures.
Photo credit: JPhilipson
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By Dr. Will Tuttle on August 25, 2009
Continued from Part I: The History of Animal Rights…
With the Renaissance and subsequent Enlightenment in the 16th to 18th centuries, the influence of the church waned as reason and modern science began to ascend, but unfortunately, this was not good news for animals, and signaled the beginning of a much more ferocious exploitation of them for scientific experimentation, as well as for entertainment, clothing, products, and, of course, food. While there had been some modicum of respect for and protection of animals as God’s creatures under the old order, under the new materialism, they were reduced to mere resources and commodities in the clutches of a surging industrialism and population expansion of omnivorous humans that continues unabated to this day, and is threatening all animals, and indeed all of nature and even humanity itself, with destruction and perhaps complete annihilation.
The cross-currents of intercultural dialog have always served to help people question the official story of their culture, and in the 19th and 20th centuries, we saw this happen in the striking rebirth of vegetarianism and animal protection, inspired to a great degree by the rediscovery of Eastern thought in Europe and North America. With the translation of ancient Buddhist and Jain sutras, as well as the Upanishads, Vedas, Tao Te Ching, and other Indian and Chinese texts, as well as the discovery of vast populations thriving on essentially plant-based diets, more people in the West began to question the routine violence toward animals that characterized their culture. The word vegetarian was coined in 1850 to replace the old word Pythagorean, and experimenting with and promoting vegetarianism became popular with many influential writers such as Shelley, Byron, Shaw, Schiller, Schopenhauer, Emerson, Alcott, Besant, Blavatsky, Tolstoy, and Gandhi, among others. There was also a Christian strand as well, with several church leaders such as William Cowherd in England and his protégé in America, William Metcalfe, advocating compassion for animals, with some, like Ellen White of the Seventh Day Adventists and Charles and Myrtle Fillmore of Unity School of Christianity advocating a the main tenets of veganism forty years before the word was invented. They were aided in this by the pioneering work of early vegetarian proponents like Graham, Post, and Kellogg who raised consciousness about the health benefits of plant-based eating, as well as the animal cruelty involved, and also by the efforts of the first animal protection societies such as the RSPCA, ASPCA, and the Humane Society.
In 1944 Donald Watson in England strengthened the foundation for the modern animal rights movement by coining the word vegan and founding the Vegan Society in London, directly challenging the official story and the underlying core of our culture. He defined veganism as “a philosophy and way of life which seeks to exclude, as far as possible and practical, all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing, or any other purpose.” Thus the vegan movement was born as a continuing manifestation of the ancient and universal wisdom teaching of ahimsa, and is at the heart of today’s animal rights movement.
In the decades since, there have been many books and studies written, many organizations and periodicals founded, many documentaries filmed and websites created as part of humanity’s effort to reduce our violence toward animals. Veganism and animal rights issues are becoming increasingly mainstream as a result of all these efforts, and the momentum continues to build in spite of enormous resistance by all the institutions in our culture, and in spite of the difficulties in responding to pervasive cultural hostility and the complexity of the issues involved. For example, it is increasingly clear today that our violence toward animals is a primary driving force behind environmental devastation, physical and psychological illness, war, hunger, inequity, and social violence, besides being ethically wrong. Groups and individuals align themselves with and promote the animal rights agenda for varying combinations of these factors, depending on their predilections, and so there are a number of competing perspectives.
We live at a time of immense and growing crisis that gives us unprecedented opportunities. The old complacency is being stripped away by the multidimensional crisis facing our culture. More and more people are realizing that the only viable future for humanity is a vegan future. Rather than negotiating with the suppliers of animal cruelty, we can see from the wisdom of those who have gone before us that the real power we have is in reducing the demand for animal foods and products by raising consciousness and educating and encouraging people to reduce and eliminate animal-sourced foods and products. Thankfully, we see this happening today with the proliferation of both secular national, international, regional, and grass-roots groups and efforts to spread vegan ideals and practices, and also, increasingly, religious and spiritual groups and efforts that are similarly doing this.
This is the way forward. The idea of ahimsa and the idea of veganism are so powerful because they resonate with the core of our true nature as beings of love, awareness, creativity, sensitivity, and compassion. Donald Watson and the other sages that have gone before us have planted a seed deep into the core of the obsolete story that has mired and encrusted our culture and that threatens to destroy all life on this planet. As we each water that seed and plant our own seeds, a new garden of compassion will grow that will inevitably break the bonds of violence that enslave all of us. People will realize that as we have enslaved animals, we have enslaved ourselves.
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