..lie down and pretend you're dead.
I should not even be posting this blog because it concerns a very emotional issue that affects every member of my family--and because I was upset by an incident of cruelty.I have to post my thoughts, though, because I get upset and have to get some of my anger out. You see, we are animal lovers and we accept no half measures when it comes to animal welfare. We do not condone zoos, dolphinariums or animal vivisection for the sake of medicine. Sorry, we know some experiments have helped mankind but we object to thesmoking Beagle dogs and rabbits trying out cosmetics on our behalf. My family (our children,too), feel so strongly about animal cruelty and the welfare of any animal that any act against an animal is greeted with anger and sympathy for the animal concerned.
There's a twist to this story in that we have travelled all over Africa and, because we have, we should expect to see examples of cruelty of man against animal. And we have--boy, we have. But that is not to say that we have to accept it. Instead, we grieve when sheep are driven across a river in Lesotho and beaten so hard (because the current was strong), that their backs turned red. We grieved when a puppy was stoned to death in Angola because it was unwanted. We grieve in South Africa when horses are starved so badly that they are skin and bone. We grieve now in Egypt, during the heatwave this week, as donkeys and horses are near to collapse because they have not been watered. We grieve even more when those animals are whipped and prodded to carry on. We know donkeys and horses are collapsing everywhere in this heat but we do not want to think too much about it.
I'm looking for a water trough to put up next to my villa but I know Egyptians will shake their heads. No matter, I am going to try.
Pope Benedict visited Auschwitz last week and he said, I quote " God, why did you not listen?"
I ask a similar question." Dear God are you protecting your animals?" I know, of course, that He cannot because He expects us to protect them on His behalf. But , unfortunately we don't. I'm not going to condemn man for animal behaviour--after all circumstances alter chances--but man, the ultimate animal, causes so much pain when he abuses harmless creatures.