Major angry rant coming up. I'm sorry, but every time I try to write about something more important, I get way too carried away and end up like a pubertal 13-year-old with hormonal issues. Once again, I apologize in advance.
I by the way usually let these angry rants be public for maybe a month, before I switch them to friends only.
So. I think one of the greatest things you can learn in life, is the value of personal insight (and love, I adore
Moulin Rouge). Whether you are a communist or a nazi - or preferably something moderate inbetween -, whatever your opinions are and whatever your views on society and life are, being true to yourself, knowing yourself and your standings is, to me, essential.
As many people who know me are aware of, I find hypocrisy or double standards immensely repulsing. Hypocrisy is one of, if not
the one, issue I am daily annoyed with. It's everywhere, and fair enough, it's human and natural and so on. At least when you are 14 years old and struggle with finding yourself. But when you have passed my age and present ludacris statements, I sometimes feel like bashing your face.
Boycott the Olympic Games in Beijing 2008, the Chinese torture and eat dogs.
No, I am not a supporter of animal torture. I do, however, have enough mind to understand and have insight to another culture's habits, perhaps/obviously because my parents are Chinese (I have never eaten dog, though, and never witnessed anyone in my family do so, either). What about the Norwegian whaling industry? What about sheep, cattle or hens? This is pure racism (or specism, which
fairyvomit now have taught me). If you care about animals in the first place, you care about
animals (Similar to my point that if you call yourself a humanitarian, you care about
human beings, all of them, not only some)
. There are so many people out there who lash out towards the Chinese for torturing and eating dogs. It's great to have opinions and to value animal lives. I am myself not the greatest fan of the Chinese government (I have that much insight to criticize my own kin, unlike a few other people), but however, look at yourselves before you criticize others. According to PETA, chicken and hens are number one on the list of the most tortured animals in the world. Boycott Norway, I say.
I think human beings prioritize those who are closest to us, be it family or species. We put ourselves before animals. Fair enough. But I believe we should only do this out of necessity. For me, eating meat is necessary for my own vital well-being. Sports hunting, on the other hand. Yuck.
A few years ago, I read a news article about a Norwegian hunter who was furious and wanted to have wolves removed from the Norwegian forest because a wolf had molested the hunter's hunting dog and killed him while they were out in the woods
One thing this hunter does, is to put himself and his dog above wolves. Racism, yet again. And then he has the nerve to say, indirectly, that wolves are not allowed to hunt, while he himself is. I fully understand his view, the dog was close to him. Dogs are close to many human beings, it's a cultural and traditional thing. But I think it is nonetheless hypocritical. If you are allowed to hunt, so are the wolves. Personally, I find hunting - and fishing, for that matter - extremely disgusting and unnecessary. I have a deep, if not naïve, wish that we human beings are constantly undergoing evolution mentally thus distinguishing us from animals in some way or the other.
Lord of the Flies and hunting are a few examples showing how my wish isn't going to be fulfilled in a while. One day you show off how good a person you are, the next you show off how many animal lives you've taken this weekend. I feel like vomiting.
And then, the issue which sparked off the idea of this angry rant-entry:
Guillermo Vargas caused immense controversy when he exhibited an emaciated dog in an art gallery in Nicaragua last year.
Media blew this up to proportions, saying he had caught the dog from the street, tied him to the wall in the gallery and neglected to feed him, eventually causing his death. (The director of the gallery, on the other hand, stated the dog was only tied up three hours a day, fed and that it eventually escaped). Thousands of angry people around the world have reacted to this and demanded this so-called artist to be stopped, criticizing his animal cruelty and questioning whether it can be called or not. Of course it is art. Art causes reaction, and clearly this exhibition has. (Drawings/paintings of cute bunny rabbits or other cute/nice stuff (by adults, mind you) is
not art, in my opinion). I don't know what Vargas's (Yes, you morons, it's spelled like this whatever your English teacher might say. Bridget Jones's Diary) personal views or intentions are, but if I have understood it correctly, he wanted to show people's hypocrisy and double standards. According to him, nobody tried to feed the dog, release it, call the police or do anything for the dog in the gallery. They just watched the starving dog and moved on. The immense reactions world-wide following this is what highlights people's hypocrisy. Suddenly everyone have sympathy for the dog and anger towards Vargas. Suddenly everyone signs petitions online while in their comfortable homes sitting in front of their computers, thinking they're doing something good and important and feeling good about themselves. Why? He did nothing but move the dog from the street and into a gallery, which resulted in reactions. This is a great deal more than what you and I would have done for the dog. Would you have fed the dog if you saw it on the street? Would you take it to an animal shelter? Would you call the police? Or would you simply sigh and think "poor dog", then move on with your shopping/travelling - your life? In my opinion, he helped the dog more than any one of us did. He highlighted the dog's conditions and caused reactions. He highlighted the issue of thousands of stray dogs in the streets of many cities in the world, and most importantly, people's apathy towards these. That is, people's apathy until someone shoves the problem in their faces e.g. over the Internet and they suddenly become all Mr./Ms. Against-animal-cruelty, pointing fingers, crying "Monster!" and wishing the artist to die. Does that make them any better?
Will you act on stray dogs in the street? Or will you just continue with your life? I know I will do the latter. I would not have fed the dog. I would not have helped it in any way. I would merely sigh and think "poor dog" and continued on with my life. Then again, I'm not an animal person. I don't run screaming with joy towards every animal I see, but on the other hand, I don't do this to human beings I don't know either.
No, I do not think animals deserve harm at all. I think animals deserve the best treatment if possible. And I think animals should be able to move as freely as possible, even household pets. Few/no people are able to know how animals feel and think, but I know I wouldn't have wanted to be locked up in a cage all day with maybe one hour of free movement. I don't think it's particularly nice to keep animals locked up in cages at all.
Update June 11:
I found some enlightening quotes from the
TSR board:
"Vargas took the emaciated dog off the streets, where it would have died, and brought it into the public domain to demostrate how many stray dogs in latin america etc are starving to death every day. Is this any different to western charities using images of malnourished african children to encourage donations? It is still using a powerful image to create public sentiment."
"The artist has demonstrated a very valid point about the hypocrisy of human nature, as has this thread. The burning desire most people feel to be considered 'self-righteous' causes them to jump onto the next 'moral' bandwagon in an instance without even researching the facts.
If you care for the thousands of animals starving every day like you claim you do, why are you focusing on the one? Even when an exhibition like this has highlighted the plight of millions of dogs on the street, most people have still turned their attentions away from it, focusing instead on this one example. It's so easy to sit at a computer and type your name into an online petition and declare your "utter outrage," but that is in no way constructive.
This happens in South America and most would have been ignorant to this issue had it not been for Guillermo Vargas' well publicised exhibition. Guillermo Vargas has done much more for the dogs than anybody here has and I can't understand why you want to take away the voice that these animals have found in this artist. There aren't many ways that anybody in the UK can help these animals and sadly there's not a lot we can do. However, we could always focus our attentions and efforts where we can help, like with the people currently living homeless on our streets, or third world charities, but hey, we'll sign a petition and make a lot of noise because isn't it just so much easier to create a fuss about an issue that's occuring thousands of miles away from you and that you can't possibly have any responsibility for? You're the same people who if you were actually in South America right now, would probably be turning a blind eye to stray dogs, but hey, we're in the UK and nobody can prove that, so we'll say that we care and claim the moral highground even though we turn our eyes away from the homeless situation here..."Yesterday, I read an article about the Norwegian government considering to forbid begging due to the many complaints by the people of Oslo.
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