02/11/12 Slaughter is the Greatest Form of Abuse
Animal Friends reaction in a case of animal abuse in Sydney's slaughterhouse
- The video at www.nevidljive-zivotinje.com displays the routine abuse of animals on Croatian farms and in slaughterhouses
In order to function along with everyday suffering and death, slaughterhouse workers have to become desensitized, but they rarely succeed in doing so. Many of them are unaware of what is happening and often don’t even notice when they start to molest the animals even more. Slaughter is a brutal act, unnecessary taking of a living being's life and the most horrible and massive abuse of animals. More than 60 billion animals are raised and slaughtered worldwide every year. Every second a blade of a knife is cutting the throat of some animal that was turned into a biological machine, in spite of the fact that each has a right to live and a purpose. They are usually children, slaughtered before growing up, born in miserable conditions on farms.
No matter the rearing method and caution when stunning the animal before slaughtering, slaughter cannot be humane because these two words are diametrically adverse in their meaning and message. When we put them together, violent taking of life of sentient and conscious beings becomes even more cruel, more hideous. Humans do not need to eat animals and in spite of trying to justify their habit of eating parts of animal corpses, slaughtering of animals is a completely unnecessary act and the biggest and most massive ill-treatment in the world. There is no word to describe the amount of suffering conducted by all slaughterhouses combined, because that word should be heavier than holocaust, genocide and annihilation.
Rivers of blood of innocent beings that flow through this planet replace the clean brooks and seas, as well as the pure hearts of mankind that so much long for peace and non-violence. Pythagoras said: "As long as people massacre animals, they will kill each other." T. A. Edison asserted: "Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages," and George Bernard Shaw confirmed: "While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered animals, how can we expect any ideal conditions on the earth?"
Sydney is not a town with a particulary cruel slaughterhouse, nor should local slaughterhouse workers be viewed as especially barbarous people, despite the horrible molestation of animals that was documented in one of the Sydney's slaughterhouse. Around the world, Croatia included, slaughterhouse workers blunt their knives on innocent animals, thus themselves becoming the vicitims of people who order the parts of animal bodies called meat, and they rarely connect it with slaughterhouses, even with animals.
In order to be shocked by an unbelievable cruely to animals, we do not have to watch the footages from Sydney nor seek the exceptionally cruel deeds of slaughterhouse workers. It is enough to see the standard procedures in Croatia towards the "invisible animals," thus called because the slaughterhouses are hidden far from the public and because we do not even want them to have the walls of glass. The video "Croatian Invisible Animals" depicts what most people do not want to see or don't see with sane eyes, looking for an excuse for their palate satisfaction.
Animal Friends doesn't want to blame anyone but instead, by understanding the situations and people, point to the simple potential to change – changing nutrition and the way of life in favor of non-violence and compassion, ethics, animals, conservation of natural resources, hungry people, protection of the environment, human health and survival. Leonardo da Vinci said: "The time will come when men such as I will look on the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men." Einstein concluded: "It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind," and Gandhi declared: "I feel that spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants. The only way to live is to let live."
