Measures for controling this disease are shocking and barbaric ; healthy pigs are collected with trucks and tossed in big holes in the ground and buried alive. How many ? According to the Huffington Post a staggering 1.4 million pigs are buried alive.
I wasn't aware of this epic and sickening drama (as far as i know it's not in the mainstream media) until i did read a post in the Bangkok Post about the subject, by Eric Bahrt.
Eric Bahrt, in a brilliant and effective post, and only three sentences long, asked for the "dear readers" to take action.
To read about such a sickening and massive animal cruelties it might make a person (like you or me who cares about animals) feel sick, sad, frustrated and ultimately with a paralising feeling that we are powerles to stop such cruelties.
To stop negative feelings take control over us and make us paralise and turn us into cynic tv watching potato chips eating zombies, it's best to take some action. To do something makes us feel better, and the more people really DO something, the faster animal cruelty will be stopped.
I always have a small problem that i want to do TOO MUCH and usually that fails and makes me feel...like shit. I would like to organise a big demo and invite the press, bla bla bla, but usually such an idea strands because cant find other people to join, don't have enough time myself, etc.
So actually to do something SMALL that doesnt take too much, is the best, because we actually can do it, learn from it, and next time we feel confident in doing again something.
Anyway, Eric is a perfect example how to get the most out of your personal time and energy. All he does is write an email and send it to the Bangkok Post. When they publish it, many thousands of people will read it !
I didn't want to read such terrible news and do nothing, so at night i Googled and made a list of all the Korean embassies i could find. I did send them a short (polite) email. About 20 emails bounced back because they outdated. I removed these outdated emails from the list, and the next day i did send these 70 email addresses to about 8 of my Peta friends and asked them to send an email to protest against the bury of pigs alive.
For me, writing one email and sending it to 70 embassies, well, that's a good balance. If some of my Peta friends also did send an email (would take 3 minutes to copy and paste the addresses, write a few lines, and push the "send" button...) than i think our time has been spend in a productive way.
Occasionaly i write, sometimes to shops who sell fur, magazines who publish articles about animal cruel foods like Fois Gras, etc. From experience i know that just one person writing, can make a diference.
I hope to organise myself better this year and start a more regular writing "campaign".
Oh, by the way, my writings are usually about Thailand, Thai shops , Thai magazines, etc.
Thanks everybody who joined Eric and did email to the embassies.
Posts
today i did get a response from the South Korean embassy in Moroco :
ReplyDeleteDear Herwin,
I would like to appreciate your much concern on the issue in the Republic of Korea and to hold your opinion in high regard.
As you may recognize it through the mass media, serveral areas in Korea are under the affection of the foot & mouth disease that is fatal to hoofed animals like cattle, pig. It is also known as an epidemic disease to spread very quickly and easily to a neigboring area.
An relevent Authority in Korea is endeavoring its best to prevent the disease from spreading to other animals with best proper methods, thus letting other ones be in a safety.
In this respect, I would like to seek for your well understanding about such a somewhat difficult situation in Korea.
With best wishes.
Consul of Korean Embassy in Rabat.
Foot and Mouth is not fatal to animals.
ReplyDeleteIt is the cost of treatment and weight loss that are reasons why the animals are slaughtered.