We treat animals in the most cruel and exploitative manner. Underlying such conduct is not only callousness but sadism, to which animals can be subjected without condemnation and punishment.
One does not quite know what the shape of the world will be after
the COVID-19 pandemic is over. The several informed speculations at
hand — including the one that it would eventually be like it was —
may or may not come true. The only thing that is reasonably certain
is that the virus COVID-19 emerged in bats, infected another animal
and, through it, humans… COVID-19 is not the only virus originating
in animals and affecting humans. Other deadly diseases include
Ebola, which belongs to the category of filoviruses or thread
viruses and includes three sub-types of Ebola viruses… Severe Acute
Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), Middle-East Respiratory Syndrome
(MERS), and West Nile Virus have also originated in animals. SARS
coronavirus emerged in China’s Guangdong province in 2002…
The question is, how do these come to infect people? While
transmission modes may differ, the basic circumstance is proximity
to animals who are “hosts” to the viruses concerned. The nature of
this proximity is influenced by the way that most humans regard
animals, which is that they can be treated any way people like —they
can be killed for fun as in the criminal activity that goes by the
name of hunting, for food, savagely hurt in the name of fun —bull
fights in Spain, Jallikattu in parts of South India, or cockfights
and dogfights in many parts of the world. They are made to pull or
carry heavy loads that make them stagger and undergo horrendous
suffering in the name of medical experimentation benefiting humans.
Of course, animals are not the only living beings that humans treat
horribly. We treat the whole of nature, of which animals are a part,
in the most cruel and exploitative manner… Underlying such conduct
is not only callousness but sadism, to which animals can be
subjected without attracting the kind of condemnation and punishment
that similar action towards humans do…
The attitude towards nature described above has been compounded by
the adversarial view of it that emerged during the long struggle for
human survival and progress, which included the establishment of
human settlements and farms for food, the domestication of animals,
use of the latter in wars, controlling of rivers for irrigation and
flood-prevention… This in turn has led to the identification of
progress with mastery over nature. The latter was not the matrix to
live in harmony with but to be destroyed and subordinated at will.
What was forgotten in the process was that humankind emerged from
the cradle of nature, which included all non-human living beings as
well, and has existed in the supportive environment provided by it.
Destruction — even severe damage to the latter — could threaten its
very existence. The devastating effects of climate change, including
extinction of species, and the cyclones and tidal waves that are
increasingly playing havoc, are widely known. Now the abominable
conditions existing in Wuhan’s live animal market have unleashed the
COVID-19 virus on humans. This is unlikely to be the last zoonotic
or natural calamity visiting our world. There will be others, and
perhaps even more catastrophic, if we do not mend our ways.
[Originally published on The Pioneer.]