A phrase I read somewhere, sometime, has
haunted me: “Nature, in all its beauty and its violence.......!” I
have the National Geographic TV Channel to thank for enabling
me to grasp the in-depth reality of it. Once again, seeing is
believing!
I watch bits and pieces of the various programmes, at times
with horror and revulsion, at times with wonder and fascination.
The mystery of life’s suffering surpasses human understanding.
No formula of philosophy or religion will ever explain it. It’s
the cruelty and fear inherent in the food chain that gets to
me, as I see predators stalk and kill their prey. Have you noticed
how the predators seem to embody in countenance the more questionable
characteristics of human nature? The arrogance of the lion. The
cunning calculation of the tiger or leopard. The meanness of
the jackal. The sinister stealth of the serpent.
Their vegetarian victims, on the other hand, so often show in
their faces, gentleness and innocence. The deer, the zebra, the
cattle, the sheep. Never have I felt so persuaded to become vegetarian,
as I ponder what seems inescapable. As we tuck into steak or
bacon, chicken or lamb, the human being, at least in this regard,
is essentially no different from the savage predator. Only the
degree of sophistication with which the victim is killed and
eaten separates us. I find my conscience begin to sit up and
take notice!
But there is, too, the loveliness of
life and the wonder of it. The animals could teach us a thing
or two about community.
See the zebras - or indeed any flock, herd, shoal or whatever
- as they care for one another and protect their young as they
form them to be independent and self-reliant. With the chimpanzees,
it’s like Sally O’Brien and the way she’d look
at you! Every species knows how to be united, both in care of
the group and in repelling the aggressor, the true enemy. If
only the human face could see itself as one species, yet alone
the human family!
Still, to get back to where I started.
If you’d told me
a year ago that I’d soon be seriously toying with turning
vegetarian, I might have told you to get lost!
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