Press Release
HERITAGE BRAAI DAY = SUPPORT FOR OPPRESSION AND SUFFERING
PRESS RELEASE: 22 SEPTEMBER 2008“As often as Herman had witnessed the slaughter of animals and fish, he always had the same thought: in their behaviour toward creatures, all men were Nazis. The smugness with which man could do with other species as he pleased exemplified the most extreme racist theories, the principle that might is right."Animal Rights Africa is appalled that the National Heritage Council and Archbishop Tutu are promoting Braai Day as a way of celebrating our heritage. Tutu is the patron of Braai4Heritage and apparently when asked what are vegetarians supposed to do on National Braai Day later this month he replied "They can stand and watch". The practice of the ‘braai’ represented in many countries around the globe, barbeque in America, “barbi” in Australia, etc, has long been a cultural and social tradition primarily associated with camaraderie. Unfortunately, this ritual is also associated with the cruel and unnecessary slaughter of animals.
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Archbishop Tutu, South Africa’s iconic figure and one of the world’s greatest “moral” voices epitomises the values of tolerance, compassion and empathy. As such, it is saddening and regrettable that he has chosen to support oppression and suffering in this way.
“I cannot count the number of times I have listened to human rights activists protest against exploitation and injustice, while devouring the tortured and dismembered carcass of a cow, chicken, pig, or other sentient being. They denounce domination and oppression and even preach for peace as they consume the fleshy fragments of the most oppressed beings on the planet. They are completely missing the most portentous connections of our time - the hideous chains linking animal exploitation, human exploitation, and environmental degradation” says ARA spokesperson Steve Smit.
By far the largest number of animals currently being used and abused by people are those raised and slaughtered for food. Almost 60 billion land-based animals are killed each year globally by the meat industry, and they’re raised and killed in ways that would horrify any compassionate person. This figure does not include the animals torn from the oceans and rivers.
It is irrefutable that the process of slaughtering an animal – as well as pre-slaughter suffering such as confinement, mutilation, transport and tethering - is an excruciatingly terrifying and agonizing experience. Chickens are crammed by the tens of thousands at a time into vast sheds, where they suffer from crippling leg deformities, hock burns from the ammonia filled litter they stand in for the 6 short weeks of their lives, and where they are unable to practice any of their natural behaviour, such as dust bathing, rooting for food or making nests.
Cattle are branded, castrated and dehorned without any pain relief and they are kept on barren feedlots. Dairy cows are separated from their babies only a few days after they are born, the male calves often slaughtered at birth or else spending their lives in tiny crates, where they are kept immobilised and anaemic so they can be slaughtered for veal. Their mothers endure a constant cycle of impregnation and birth, and after 4 or 5 years are so worn out that they too are kicked and prodded down the ramp to slaughter.
Other animals are intelligent, feeling beings, not objects, brute things, machines or slaves. Like us they too have agency and their own cultures, traditions and heritage. We have an obligation to work toward the improvement of the quality of life of all the earth’s inhabitants, both human and other animals. There is also an inextricable link between our treatment and slaughter of other animals and our treatment and slaughter of human beings. What we need is inclusive justice where the interests of animals and human beings will be considered.
Killing animals for food has serious environmental implications. Currently there is a huge amount of focus on an urgent threat: the great food recession which is sweeping the world. There are food crises in 37 countries. The truth is though that there is plenty of food. It is just not reaching human stomachs.
- According to the United Nations 760 million tons of grain is being used annually to feed animals in factory farms - this could cover the global food deficit 14 times.
- Cows eat about 8kg of grain or feed-meal for every kilogramme of flesh they produce.
- Raising animals for food, reports the United Nations, generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined.
- Producing a single hamburger uses enough fossil fuel to drive a small car 32 kilometres and enough water for 17 showers.
- Animals raised for food produces 80 million tons of excrement each year. This excrement, swimming with parasites, antibiotics and pesticides, befouls our air, pollutes our water and destroys our topsoil.
- Raising animals for food consumes more than half of all the water used in the world.
- It takes 11,365 litres of water to produce half a kilogram of meat.
- Rain forests are being destroyed at a rate of 323,748 square kilometres per year to create space to raise animals for food.
- For every fast-food burger, 5 square metres of rain forest land must be razed.
- Twenty times more land is required to feed a meat-eater than to feed a vegan.
South Africans need to awaken their sensibilities and capacity for compassion, mercy and empathy toward other animals killed by the billions annually for our gratuitous consumption. In celebrating our heritage on 24 September, let us our history of domination and suffering allow us the freedom to be mindful of retaining social rituals that truly inspire respectful camaraderie and discard those that reinforce oppression.
Contact :
Steve Smit (Durban) 082 659 4711
Michele Pickover (Johannesburg) 082 253 2124
E.mail :
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