I had quite a bit of difficultly explaining to my Latin American green friends why I was meeting up with Sea Shepherd this week, 'isn't killing whales like being able to eat cows or sheep', noted one amigo who shall remain nameless.
I am not a moral philosopher and I think these things can blur around the edges however, green politics does involve a rejection of using the rest of nature for our own benefit in an unthinking manner. The rest of creation has moral status. Whales need to be conserved in my book for a start (queue abused from deep and non deep ecologists).
It would be very easy to be vegan in Venezuela, the advocados are the size of a small footballs but vegetarians are few and far between over there...difficult to be a vegetarian and live on protein from the trees over here in the UK but paradoxically there are more vegetarians in Berkshire, I suspect, than in Brazil where the nuts grow.
Obviously a more vegetarian diet makes sense ecologically and healthwise. One of the gains of the permaculture revolution in Cuba was to get people eating better stuff.
Equally the far left to some extent can understand ecology but animal liberation is pretty much off of the agenda of USFI, Morning Star, Labour left, etc as far as I know.
Anyway interested to see some anti-bull fighting sentiment in Venezuela.
This law seems to be backed by supporters of President Hugo Chavez (who does not seem to like bullfighting), and due to his victory in the last elections, is now more likely that this Bill will become an Act. This would undoubtedly put Venezuela 'up there' with Cuba, a political ally, which banned bullfighting a long time ago.
Is an article from the League against Cruel Sports about a piece of possible Ven legislation, will be interested to see if it has progressed.
I certainly by the way would not want to imply the left or Latin America condone cruelty to animals but animal issues do seem less talked about than they should...
5 comments:
This is interesting. On the "number of vegetarians" question perhaps one should ask which place eats more meat per person? I suspect it's Berkshire.
fair point!
and cutting down is good even one is not 100% vegetarian....still surfing to find out what is happening with bull fighting in Venezuela!
Interesting to look abroad, and to see that the Animal Rights movement in the Netherlands is part of the left:
www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article1172
and even opposed the EU constitution:
http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article815
In Britain, however, the animal rights movement has been much less able to ally itself with the left
http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article653
Difficult for us to dictate to other countries (even though I do campaign against bullfighting, seal hunts, whaling, etc.) when we have a Conservative government, possibly due in next, who have pledged to reinstate the shame of hunting with dogs (probably including hare coursing) here in the UK, and we also allow other bloodsports such as shooting living creatures for fun. All very sad.
however its encouraging that in other countries bull fighting is being challenged,
worth letting the Conservatives know that you wont vote for them!
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