Undamning Denmark … (08/08/15)
I recently sent the following email to every sitting member of the Danish Parliament, in the hopes of awakening enough latent decency to have them halt to repulsively barbaric practice of the Faroe Islands whale hunts, where every year close to 1000 highly intelligent & emotionally sophisticated pilot whales are herded onto beachheads and ruthlessly murdered … This abjectly cruel practice serves no purpose other than the preservation of a long-since outmoded facet of Faroese culture — one that should post haste go the same way as the enslavement of Africans in the United States and the genocide of Jews in Europe.
And because I could do nothing for the whales from afar other than write this email, that is what I did … Yes, direct action in or own communities (sharing vegan literature, protesting slaughterhouses & meat counters & fish markets & zoos & circuses, plastering stickers on cruelty-infested products etc) IS indeed always the better choice when it comes to righting wrongs and standing up for justice for our animal cousins, AND every act counts nonetheless.
As such , please feel free to join me in reminding the Danish government that the year is 2015 — and that cruelty towards the sentient is no longer en vogue; “cultural heritage” be damned … It only takes a minute or two to cut & paste the body of my letter into an email (and maybe add a word or two of your own), to cut & paste the email addresses of the Danish Parliament members, and then to hit “Send”.
Peace to ALL … S
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To the sitting members of the Danish Parliament:
Several of my ancient forefathers were Danes, and up until recently I felt more than an inkling of pride at being even distantly related by blood to your admirably progressive nation … AND YET recently I became aware of a practice — still at least indirectly supported by each & every one of you — that is so backwardly barbaric and so outlandishly cruel that this small measure of personal pride has been almost overnight transformed into a wave of cultural shame.
I refer, of course, to the ongoing brutal & inexcusable slaughter of pilot whales on the Faroe Islands.
How can it be that such a repulsive practice can still be sanctioned in this day & age? How can it be that you — the governmental representatives for the generally kind & caring people of Denmark, can still allow such bestial barbarity to persist under cover of the Danish flag? How can you allow your own Danish Royal Navy to not only reuse to stop this diabolical practice, but to actually actively ensure that it succeeds? … For shame!!!!
Yes, I realize that the Faroese people have been essentially a self-governing folk since 1948, AND YET the Danish government still holds the authority over them regarding matters of Justice to this very day … And rest assured that this indeed is a grave matter that is shouting for Justice. For it is indeed patently unjust — indeed, downright cruel, if not outright evil — to forcibly take the life of an innocent sentient being that does not want to die, and this, no matter how quickly or “humanely” said killing is done.
And that is precisely what is happening even as we speak … The Faroe whale hunts continue — with hundreds of highly intelligent and emotionally sophisticated cetaceans already having lost their lives (over 250 on July 24th alone), and with hundreds more scheduled for extermination in the near future.
The Faroese people claim that this malicious massacre is a sacred part of their culture, and yet to this claim I say — so was the enslavement of Africans in Europe & the Americas; so was the attempted (and almost successful) genocide of the Native Americans by early U.S. settlers, and so was the termination of over 6 million Jewish lives by the Nazis in & around World War II … That a culture accepts a form of cruelty as “normal” makes its evil no less wrong, and as such claiming “heritage” as a defense to acts of cruelty makes not a single soul participating therein one iota less culpable.
And this is especially true for all of you, for YOU — each & every one of you — have the ability to see that Justice is done; not only for the peaceful protestors who have been wrongfully accused and imprisoned for their efforts to stop the aforementioned madness, but also for the whales themselves — magnificent creatures who deserve the same measure of respect & decency that you or any member of your own family also deserves.
Evil is evil & injustice is injustice, my Friends … and both must be openly condemned & courageous abolished for any society to lay consistent claim to being truly compassionate or even truly civilized.
Let it finally be so in Denmark.
Sincerely yours,
Scaughdt Iam
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