Double standards on animal slaughtering!

What on earth was the purpose of the TNL program on “animal slaughtering” on Wednesday 26 December 2007 night?  This question becomes more relevant especially because it was televised at a time when the country is bleeding due to the devastating ethnic war which has brought nothing but misery to people from every community though politicians, their side kicks and other merchants of death flourish on this human misery.

 

Almost three decades of ethnic fighting has created hatred and discord among communities and has virtually turned this paradise isle into a hell hole. Sri Lanka today is ranked as one of the worst killing fields the world has known.  Under the circumstance it is common knowledge that animal slaughtering, especially slaughtering cows, remains a very sensitive issue among certain sections of the Sinhalese   Buddhist community. In this highly charged communal environment raising this issue is bound to generate hatred and exacerbate the divisions within communities.   

 

Thus the inevitable question is why a television network would raise such an issue which could pit Sinhalese against Muslims. The need of the hour is for TV stations to use their powerful medium of communication to bring about peace and harmony in the country. Perhaps TNL could lead the way? 

 

A Muslim was asked during this programme for his comments on animal slaughtering as if only they slaughter animals. No such question was posed to any non-Muslim who too slaughter not only cows but goats, sheep and pigs. Immediately after a Muslim explained on the phone what the Holy Quran stated about the treatment of animals slaughter came a gory video film showing the extremely cruel manner a cow was slaughtered.  

 

Deliberately or otherwise this video clip, appeared to have been produced especially for the programme, indirectly implied that that this is the manner the Muslims slaughter animals and thus conveyed a distorted and dangerous image to the non-Muslim viewers.   

 

 

Contrary to the cruel images depicted on TNL, Muslims do not slaughter animals in such a manner. Instead Islam has clearly and specifically stated the method to be adopted and the type of knives to be used in slaughtering animals causing the minimum possible pain. The severing of the carotid artery which the method involves causes the animal to die a rather painless death as this particular artery supplies blood to the brain and its severing causes a natural anesthesia. It has been proved time and again that the Islamic method of slaughter is the most humane method of slaughtering compared to other methods such as stun gun for cattle commonly followed in the so-called civilized west.

 

Also slaughtering animals for food is not something done by all and sundry as only Muslims who have been trained in the field and strictly abide by the rules laid down in Islam when taking the lives of animal for food, are permitted to carry out the slaughter.  

  

Every time the topic of animal slaughtering crops up the spotlight is turned on the Muslims who are projected as villains as if the entire non Muslim population in the country and the world were harmless pure vegetarians. Here the issue is the mindset conditioned over centuries against Islam and Muslims.

 

There are around 55 Muslim countries in the world and all of them slaughter animals for the consumption of their people. No Muslim country slaughters animal as an industry for exports   unlike the so-called civilized west that kills them for controlling market prices and for pleasure. Like Muslims Jews also slaughter animals for consumption.

 

The entire Christian world eats meat and some of these special meat items constitute an extremely indispensable part of their special traditional Christmas dish. Christian world starting from United States, Canada,  United Kingdom, France,  Holland, Scandinavia and other  countries in Europe, from Australia to New Zealand  slaughters millions of cows, goats, and pigs year in and year out for export and domestic consumption. To these countries meat industries and meat exports which provide jobs for millions constitute an extremely important part of their national economies involving billions in export earnings.

 

It is also well known practice in the U.S to cull millions of cattle, chicken or other livestock for the simple purpose of controlling market prices whenever there is over-production that does not suffice for market needs. These countries prefer to destroy their surplus animals rather than sell them for a lesser price. Further in countries like UK, we often hear of millions of cattle being culled simply because one or two cows contract the harmless hoof and mouth disease which could be treated by a simple medical solution. This needless killing is simply done for the purpose of restoring confidence in their meat industry.

 

 

 

Do the animal lovers in the Island know the type of methods used by these meat exporting countries to slaughter animals? The meat from these countries are prepared and packed in different forms and sold in almost every super market chain all over the world including Sri Lanka. Despite religious beliefs even local television networks display, in their colorful advertisements, a wide variety of tempting sausages and other items enjoyed by happy families.

 

One also comes across the practice of killing animals for pure pleasure such as bird shooting in the US, fox hunting in the UK and bull fighting in Spain. To this must be added the terrible experiments on animals that go on in many laboratories across the world. Such barbarities needless to say are unheard of in the Muslim world as Islam clearly prohibits the killing of animals except for food or in self-defense.

 

Did the TNL ever produce   a program on this meat industry in the non Muslims countries?  NO!  Did any animal lover in this country object to the large scale slaughter of animals in these meat exporting countries. No!  Did any of them write to these countries asking them not to slaughter but be kind to animals?  No!  Did any of them raise this issue with diplomatic missions of these countries? NO.  In fact the Island’s animal lovers have not even thought about it so far.

 

They restrict their compassion only to local animals and that too only to cows as if other animals such as goats and pigs were without life. Once again it is the conditioned mindset moulded against Muslims who are easy prey in the local media, especially in the absence of an organized Muslim media that might put across their views to educate the masses on the Muslim bashing that we see too often in the media.

 

Meanwhile starting from Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, South Korea, North Korea to Peoples Republic of China and Japan are all predominantly Buddhist countries. Are the people of these countries vegetarians? Instead millions of all kinds of animals, especially pigs, are slaughtered on a daily basis for the consumption of people there. In Thailand various types of animals are slaughtered and consumed with relish while people in some countries in the Far East eat the monkey brain as a fabulous delicacy as other vital parts of rare animals.  

 

Here in  Sri Lanka  which is a multi national, multi religious , multi linguistic , multi racial, and multi cultural country despite the unrealistic claim of Jathika Hela  Urumaya ,a  political outfit  with a racist ideology which has  all potentials to take the country back to the dark ages,  to sole ownership ,slaughtering cows has been an issue of concern. But this issue needs to be sorted out certainly not by politicians who ruined this country but by enlightened and not racist religious and civil society   in a peaceful manner

 

After all this is a human problem based on individual urge, liking and disliking. Irrespective of religious beliefs human beings in general eat meat, take liquor, smoke, and gamble, commit adultery, crime and the like. How can    one legislate against these individual desires and pleasures?

 

In fact this is not the first time the TNL has produced such a program as this has been an on going issue   for a long .Earlier they had televised programmes worse than the one shown recently depicting the torture and agony caused to the animal before it dies.

 

Did the TNL ever produce even a five minute documentary on the sufferings of Muslims, more than 70 percent of whom live below the poverty line, northern Muslims languishing for more than 17 years in refugee camps in and around Puttalam or the plight of Muthur Muslims who were made refugees in their own homes destroyed by the LTTE-Government aerial bombings?

 

One should not forget that we live at a time when the Muslims all over the world are demonized as terrorists harassed, persecuted, tortured and killed under a ferocious global campaign unleashed by the United States President George Bush together with Europe and Israel. Sri Lankan Muslims can’t be exceptions.  

 

It is therefore not unreasonable when Muslims suspect that unnecessary programmes on animal slaughtering are nothing but an extension of the Jewish engineered Anglo – American media campaign against Islam and Muslims. The pressing need of the island today is to seek means to end the ethnic war and stop the slaughter of human beings before we think of animals.