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Jul. 28th, 2010 08:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
askygoneonfire In happy making (and by that I mean I was so happy I cried*) news today, Catalonia has voted to outlaw bull fighting.
When my two best friends and I went to visit their grandparents in Southern Spain in 2001 one of the activities their grandparents suggested as a good night's entertainment was going to a bull fight. The massive stadium dominated the central town (Alicante, thanks for asking) and filled me with horror. I looked at it and all I could imagine was the blood which saturated the foundations.
I don't often talk about my views on animal rights or my staunch vegetarianism because I know most people are alienated the moment you say "every life is equal".
I've been a pescatarian since I was 8 - I told my Mum I wasn't going to eat meat any more and that was that, no amount of argument or blackmail could change my mind, happily my Mum knew me well enough to know I didn't make such decisions lightly and I was absolutely serious. I think she was further convinced by the fact I knew what meat was - unlike city kids I have met since - I grew up next to a farm and often accompanied my brother to work there, playing with cayed (caid?) lambs, herding sheep and cattle. I used to sit out on trips to the zoo as a kid when I saw animals I didn't think looked happy - nobody ever told me they weren't happy, and the conditions in London Zoo were standard for the world at that time, but as now, I have always been particularly...sensitive to those things. When I was 11 I became a vegetarian and by the time I was 14 I'd cut out gelatine and rennet.
It matters to me absolutely that this is how I live my life. I strongly feel that the entire world should follow the same principle. Animal cruelty of any kind is simply inexcusable and incomprehensible to me, I can't think of any other viewpoint which I fail so completely to understand even one iota of as those who think badger/bear-baiting, cock/dog-fighting is entertaining; that bear bile farming is in any way justifiable; that whales and dolphins should be kept in small tanks (I still haven't been able to watch the footage of the False Killer Whale jumping from its tank in Japan or the Donkey attached to a parachute and flown over the sea FOR HALF AN HOUR, in Russia. I know I will never be able to bring myself to look either; my anger at humanity is too unmanageable, too consuming, and most frustrating of all, too impotent) the list goes on and on. And THAT is probably the most appalling part - for every month of human existence 100 people have imagined a thousand more horrific ways to torture animals. What a terrible species to be a part of.
* Other animal rights news that has made me cry includes the Vietnamese government committing to phase out bear bile farming in 2005 as a result of the WSPA campaign; the UK fox hunting ban and the European Union veal crate ban in 2007.
When my two best friends and I went to visit their grandparents in Southern Spain in 2001 one of the activities their grandparents suggested as a good night's entertainment was going to a bull fight. The massive stadium dominated the central town (Alicante, thanks for asking) and filled me with horror. I looked at it and all I could imagine was the blood which saturated the foundations.
I don't often talk about my views on animal rights or my staunch vegetarianism because I know most people are alienated the moment you say "every life is equal".
I've been a pescatarian since I was 8 - I told my Mum I wasn't going to eat meat any more and that was that, no amount of argument or blackmail could change my mind, happily my Mum knew me well enough to know I didn't make such decisions lightly and I was absolutely serious. I think she was further convinced by the fact I knew what meat was - unlike city kids I have met since - I grew up next to a farm and often accompanied my brother to work there, playing with cayed (caid?) lambs, herding sheep and cattle. I used to sit out on trips to the zoo as a kid when I saw animals I didn't think looked happy - nobody ever told me they weren't happy, and the conditions in London Zoo were standard for the world at that time, but as now, I have always been particularly...sensitive to those things. When I was 11 I became a vegetarian and by the time I was 14 I'd cut out gelatine and rennet.
It matters to me absolutely that this is how I live my life. I strongly feel that the entire world should follow the same principle. Animal cruelty of any kind is simply inexcusable and incomprehensible to me, I can't think of any other viewpoint which I fail so completely to understand even one iota of as those who think badger/bear-baiting, cock/dog-fighting is entertaining; that bear bile farming is in any way justifiable; that whales and dolphins should be kept in small tanks (I still haven't been able to watch the footage of the False Killer Whale jumping from its tank in Japan or the Donkey attached to a parachute and flown over the sea FOR HALF AN HOUR, in Russia. I know I will never be able to bring myself to look either; my anger at humanity is too unmanageable, too consuming, and most frustrating of all, too impotent) the list goes on and on. And THAT is probably the most appalling part - for every month of human existence 100 people have imagined a thousand more horrific ways to torture animals. What a terrible species to be a part of.
* Other animal rights news that has made me cry includes the Vietnamese government committing to phase out bear bile farming in 2005 as a result of the WSPA campaign; the UK fox hunting ban and the European Union veal crate ban in 2007.
