Casualties of war — worth the price?
An Episcoveglist member said the following “article ran locally under a photo of a scared white dog cowering with a lion cub, protected by a zoo worker”:
“Baghdad Zoo in Tatters After Looting”, 5/5/03, by Louis Meixler, AP
I hope the well-meaning world of humanitarians will not find it necessary to restock the zoo with more animals, when Iraq is put back together. The world does not need another zoo.
It is not necessary, or desirable, to supply a new generation of non-human captives, ripped away from their mothers in the wild (perhaps after shooting the mothers to make it an easier job), or transported long distances from across continents, just to become confined in cages and “habitats” of negligable size, compared to the range of their natural habitat — only to live out their lives in boredom, put on display as exhibits for the entertainment or curiosity of human animals — even in the best of circumstances, which this obviously is not.
While looking around the AKUT website, I found two articles in English. The following excerpt from one of them substantiates the view of many animal advocates regarding the inhumane degradation of captives-on-display, in an unbelievably horrific way. I hope you can relate to it, being put into human terms:
“In Frankfurt you will find the very famous Zoo with all its captives. My grandma used to visit Frankfurt Zoo in order to look at the socalled Native Exhibitions. Indians, Innuit, Chinese and African people were displayed and could be watched going about their daily chores of cooking or raising their kids. Human exhibitions of this kind are now illegal. But the animals still suffer in their tiny cages, deprived of an adequate way of life.”
– from the “Compassion and Commitment - how to end the suffering of our fellow creatures” lecture given by the Rev. Christa Blanke
If you are able to read German, please take some time to peruse http://www.dike.de/akut, which pertains to Church and Animals — “Aktion Kirche und Tiere”.
But, here are two more pages on the AKUT site that are written in English:
“Church and Animals: An Urgent Issue”, which was given as a lecture to students at the Heidelberg Seminary of Interpreters, by the Rev. Michael Blanke on June 15, 1992 (It’s still an urgent issue in 2003!); and
The Glauberg Confession.
Here is an auto-translated version of The Glauberg Confession, which has a different spin. It is also followed by an explanation behind the confession. And if you go to this page, you may be able to navigate the whole website in “auto-translated” English. (Please keep in mind that this is mechanically translated by the “little people who live inside your computer”, without thought to context, grammar, sentence structure, etc.)