No silly! He’s ung like an elephant see! My David couldn’t walk proper for a month after that job he couldn’t!

“Can we expect a tradition that has been taught for generations to simply change because we think it’s terrible and cruel?”

What about Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Mali, and countless other African countries (and a few in South America, Europe, and even North America as well) where female genital mutilation is practiced? What about families that sell off their female children, sometimes as slaves or worse, to be able to feed the rest of their family?

Can we “expect” them to change? Not really. Not any more than we could expect early Americans to decide of their own accord to let all their slaves free and figure out another way to keep their farms and households running; not any more than we can expect the Western world to stop farming chickens and cows and live a vegetarian diet; not any more than we can expect the planet to stop manufacturing plastic and zillions of other products that are damaging the environment and contributing to global warming.

Entertaining elephants allow people from Thailand to feed their families; buying meat allows people who work in meat factories to have jobs to feed their own families; etc.

We can’t declare that cultures just “stop” doing what they’re used to doing over the ages. It’s a multi-faceted problem, and I certainly don’t hold any of the “right” answers or even know what I’m talking about, really. I just want to put ideas out there.

Why is the elephant entertainment industry a huge form of revenue for these villagers? Because people pay to see this entertainment; because they’re unaware, perhaps, of how the animals are being treated.

But then, do we just inform the world? Tell all tourists to boycott elephant shows in Thailand, forcing the Thai people to come up with another way to earn a living by cutting off their first one? That isn’t really any more fair then the American government suddenly making it illegal to eat chicken or beef. Hundreds of thousands of people would be without jobs, in both cases.

As Rufus said, if we told the Thai people to stop doing what they were doing because its cruel, they’d probably laugh at us. Education isn’t enough, and boycotting isn’t enough. Perhaps we need a combined effort? Similarly teach people different ways of doing things, earning a living, but also *provide* them, make sure they’re in place.

Again, I don’t really know much about anything, but isn’t that one of the reasons why there’s so much tension in the middle east and other places right now now? There’s soldiers there trying to stop the violence, but *why* is there violence? People lack water, they lack food, they lack resources and enough ways to earn a living. Nothing breeds violence quicker than that. It’s not Islamic extremism, in the end - its lack of food, water, a life. Young boys grow up there without a purpose, and with no *means* of obtaining one. That makes them easy targets for those bent on war - it gives these young men a purpose, something to do, something they feel will help their current situation or that of their loved ones.

In some cases, as with female genital mutilation, it is part of their culture and not necessarily a way to earn a living. (Except for indirectly, as in cases where females who go without this “procedure” are shunned by their society and cannot marry and therefore live unsupported and in poverty). So what do we do then? Almost everyone in the “western” world agrees that this is “wrong”. But yet, it is a deeply entrenched part of many cultures, and who are we to say “hey, their culture is wrong”? We certainly don’t see India invading America and wiping out the farming and eating of cows, even though the animal is sacred to them and certainly they must think what we’re doing is wrong.

Which brings up the question… when is it really right to intervene, and when isn’t it? Should each country, each culture do what they like, and everyone else should keep their nose out of it? But what is a country, really, except an arbitrary line drawn on a map? Cultures are less arbitrary, but cultures change. 50 years ago it was acceptable to whack schoolchildren on the head or arms or wherever else, with long sticks or rulers or canes. Nobody (well, almost nobody) would tolerate that kind of thing now, in an American or European school. So, cultures change. Just because something is part of someone’s culture doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily something worth preserving.

So what to do? I invite discussion, especially from people who know a lot more about all of this than I do… I’m an idealistic flower smeller, who believes that everyone, and every thing, has the right to be happy, period. Elephants and females and Americans and Thai people alike. Sometimes I fear there is no place in the world for *every* thing to be happy, and that worries me.

If we say that maybe its okay for elephants to suffer if the villagers need the money, can we also say it was okay for slaves to suffer because their ‘owners’ needed the money? or that it’s okay for a family with three hungry boys and one hungry girl to sell off the girl as a sex-slave so that at least the three boys will be fed? is it okay to raise animals in tiny cages, in horrible conditions, only to be killed for food, because the western world would lose an aspect of its culture if it could no longer have “traditional turkey thanksgiving” or Friday steak-night? The cod-fish (and countless others) is over-fished and quickly becoming endangered. Should we deprive Portuguese people of cod-fish, and their traditional Christmas-Eve codfish dinner, even though its an integral part of their culture, even though its one of the few ties that North American Portuguese people have to their home country, a part of their culture that they so value and try to pass on to their children?

Where do we draw the line? There isn’t really an answer… but eventually, in each of these cases and in all the others, someone is going to have to sit down and draw a relatively arbitrary one, and the only thing we can base it on with good conscience, in my own personal opinion, is… well, based on the opinions of as many human beings as possible.

Sorry for rambling, but it’s all been going around and around in my head since this morning and I had to put it down somewhere.

Such a shame - man harnessing nature for his own amusement AGAIN.

It’ll be Urban Pagan and his dancing bears, next.