The Seal Hunt and Mahatma

The one Canadian Senator who replied to the American couple’s outrage over the seal hunt made some valid observations about points of view. While the American couple vowed never to visit Canada until we banned the seal hunt, Senator Hervieux-Payette noted that Americans should consider their own record regarding the killing of Iraqis before complaining about sealers whacking seal cubs on the head with a stick. Bombs are just as lethal as sticks, apparently. Lost in all this was the fact that the millions of seals on the east coast are eating tonnes of fish that we humans might enjoy with our PEI fried potatoes.

If we are worried about the inhumane aspect of the killing of seals, then we should think about how we dispatch the beeves that supply our beefsteak and hamburgers. And if that is not enough to turn you into a vegetarian, then visit the killing sheds that supply your chicken wings. It is a good thing fish have no feelings, or we would be reduced to eating things that grow in the soil.

There is no truth to that story about the shrimps crying out as they were dumped into the boiling water and the resulting distress of the philodendron plant at the screams of these lower life forms. Imagine the plant distress at the bawling of calves or the squawking of a skewered chicken.

Fortunately, we can rationalize all this as our need to eat and clothe ourselves in the skins of animals or plant fibers. Perhaps it is not so easy to rationalize the killing of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, but from the American point of view, it is all part of the war on terror and the burning need of Americans and the coalition of the unwilling to bring democracy and Western civilization to the Middle East.

This brings me finally to Mahatma Gandhi. Robin Williams was featured on Bravo’s Actor’s Studio and doing his imitable routines of everything sacred when he got into making fun of some of the Bollywood film directors and things Indian. But in a brief moment of truth and clarity, he told the story of an American news reporter, who during and interview with Mahatma Gandhi, asked the philosopher what he thought of Western civilization. The Mahatma replied that he thought it would be a good idea. There was some nervous laughter from the audience.

It is this matter of perspective that gets us into hot water on a regular basis. We can hide behind our shabby cloak of respectability and toss stones at the Americans all the while upsetting their perception of our cruelty to animals. We can question the wisdom of their leader and wonder how half the people in America could vote for such a man, while we go merrily along our way putting in power someone supported by much less than half the voting population. I guess that is called democracy but maybe it was similar examples that made Mahatma say that Western civilization might be a good idea. Perhaps Eastern civilization is very satisfactory for the Eastern people.

Maybe the tribal system is not so inferior to a system where the leader of the world’s only superpower calls on the power of his god to help them defeat the other fellow’s god. Or maybe the so-called Western democracy is just a code word for a system of capitalism where we can sell more refrigerators and TV sets to newly enfranchised. There is no question that any nation cannot tolerate acts of terrorism against its people, but maybe if we had stopped along the way and considered what it was that caused this hatred, we might have avoided it.

The economic power of capitalism may have defeated communism in the last century but is there any reason to think that Western democracy will defeat the Eastern philosophies whose roots are even older? I wonder what Mahatma would have advised about the seal hunt. Even a pacifist has to eat sooner or later, but perhaps we could all eat pasta and soup. Or a little crow, now and then.