Islam and Animal Rights: Slaughter of Animals leads to Oppression of People
By Anees Jillani
November 2011
The exploitation and slaughter of animals is seen by many as a model and impetus for the oppression that people inflict on each other. Pakistan has few advocates for animal rights and even fewer animal rights activists. And regardless of their number, most of them are females. One wonders if this is a coincidence; or is it because women by nature are kind-hearted while the men are cruel and born hunters of animals. The movement for animal rights is so novel in Pakistan that few would regard it as an effeminate phenomenon but this is how many regard it in other parts of the world.
Pakistan is a poor country where two-thirds of the populace makes less than two dollars a day. Resultantly, few can afford to eat quality food and thus almost all the poor end up being vegetarians not by choice but by default; the meat is expensive and nowadays even the middle class is heard complaining about the high cost of meat.
This acute poverty, coupled with the patriarchal nature of the society, results in the women seldom getting to eat meat. The men probably never ask the women folk at home to serve them the best portions of the food and meat, but the women at the expense of their own nutritional requirements, possibly by sheer custom, engage in such self-d
Why do the women deprive themselves of the meat portion in favor of the men? Most will say that meat is nutritional and women thus consider the men entitled to it as they do the hard menial work outside the home. But all men do not undertake menial work and the phenomenon is almost universal. privation behavior. The end result is poor health of the girl child and a distorted male to female child ratio; only 47% of the populace consists of females when this ratio is higher in most other countries.
The other plausible explanation is that eating meat is associated with power; people with power always eat meat. Men have power and eating meat, being considered a masculine food, thus becomes their exclusive prerogative. Women, treated as second class citizens, thus eat what is considered second-class food.
The question is as to why meat is associated with the males and power. Meat involves killing of animals and thus symbolizes the patriarchal control of animals. The oppression of animals can be compared with the oppression of women or for that matter of other races, as happened in the case of blacks under slavery.
Most of us believe that objectification of other beings is a necessary part of life, be it animals, women, races or the lower classes. It is for this reason many argue that fighting for animal rights today confronts the same forces of traditions that once the past fights against racism and sexism did. There is a definite connection between the mistreatment of animals and the mistreatment of people.
The exploitation and slaughter of animals is seen by many as a model and impetus for human oppression that we inflict on each other. The enslavement of animals, for example, can be said to lead to human slavery and how the assembly-line slaughter of animals led to the assembly-line slaughter of people.
In this context, an American professor, Charles Patterson in his book ‘Eternal Treblinka’ has compared the abuse of animals with the Holocaust. The industrialized assembly-line for slaughtering animals, according to him, provided the model, in several important ways, for the slaughtering of humans in the Holocaust. He thus on the basis of extensive evidence draws profound connections between animal exploitation and Hitler’s Final Solution.
He is not alone in exploring similar attitudes and methods behind modern society’s treatment of animals and the way humans have often treated each other, most notably during the Holocaust. This parallel may surprise some people, but as contended by Professor Patterson, the exploitation of animals was the model and inspiration for the atrocities people committed against each other; slavery and the Holocaust being but two of the more dramatic examples.
The Polish author Isaac Bashevis Singer who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1978 says in one of his short stories, ‘The Letter Writer,’ that in relation to animals, “all people are Nazis; for the animals it is an eternal Treblinka.”
The fact of the matter is that our society is built on institutionalized violence against animals. As the late AIDS and animal activist Steven Simmons said: “Animals are innocent casualties of the world view that asserts that some lives are more valuable than others, that the powerful are entitled to exploit the powerless, and that the weak must be sacrificed for the greater good.”
There is an element of human arrogance behind animal exploitation which is comparable to the vast array of injustices against humans, whether black slaves, females or the lower castes in the case of India. Some also justify it on the basis of the texts in the holy books like the Holy Quran and the Bible that God has granted the humans “dominion” over the earth. It is sad that while we do not bother with the implementation of many other passages from the holy books, this is one which is practiced day in and out.
Many may disagree with the above postulates and comparisons. But the question is should we not try to find some common ground and some compassion for everyone in this violent system?
The atrocities against humans are not confined to just one time or place. They take place all the time; however, what is intriguing is our blind spot in relation to the mistreatment and disregard for non-human animals. We lament the killing of six million Jews who died during the Nazi era in the concentration camps but what about the billions of animals that are killed by us each year? The mindset is similar: we feel that we are superior to the other and thus can do whatever we like to the “different or inferior” specie.
At the time of committing crimes against other humans, we become oblivious to their pain and suffering, just like we forget in the case of animals that they also feel pain, fear and loneliness. Can’t we recognize that what others go through in the concentration camps and torture cells is what animals go through every day in captivity?
Some may say that although we kill animals we do not hate them. The humans have no ideological or theological conflict with the animals. We just kill to eat. But there are alternatives to eating animals and why aren’t they considered; otherwise, we can also eat other humans but we do not. Is it because we consider animals inferior to us? In that case, some of us may find other races or even the other sex inferior to us.
There are no easy answers to this debate. But the least we all can do is to at least ponder over it. A better understanding of these connections should help make our planet a more humane and livable place for all of us: humans and animals alike. Such thinking may help us recognize, acknowledge, and take responsibility for our horrific treatment of animals. Unfortunately it is unlikely to happen soon but we all at our own level can try to make a beginning and a difference.
Anees Jillani is an advocate of the Supreme Court and a member of the Washington, DC Bar. He has been writing for various publications for more than 20 years and has authored several books.
Source: South Asia
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-culture/islam-animal-rights-slaughter-animals/d/5991