Inside This Issue

October 2: Compassionate Festivities
Animal Rights Festival Sets Example for Jains

From October 6-8, the Tenth Annual International Compassionate Living Festival held in the Holiday Inn in Raleigh, NC brought together distinguished speakers from different backgrounds, such as Australia and Hawaii, old and young activists, and a compassionate audience. The diversity of topics presented, the literature displayed for public knowledge with the delicious vegan food served during dinner and lunch, not only added to the festive mood, but added a new dimension to the animal rights movement.

Speakers, such as Roberta Kalechofsky, who spoke about the illusions of animal testing and the understanding of the “animal model”, and Michael Klaper, who gave a physician’s view on the necessity for a vegan diet, delivered speeches that broke the boundaries of ignorance on such issues. Amazingly, each speaker was able to keep my attention with their vast amounts of knowledge, different speaking styles, and their ability to present themselves objectively on such emotional issues. Though speaking on a specific issue, every speaker realized the holistic effects that veganism had on humans, animals, and the environment. On a whole, the compassion that streamed from their souls seemed limitless. It was very refreshing to be surrounded by people who sought knowledge not only from the mind, but from the heart.

Likewise, when people found out I was Jain, I saw an excitement in their eyes and soon enough the questions poured in. Almost every person that I came in contact with had a considerable amount of admiration for the faith. The word Ahimsa came up quite often. Though I was flattered by their interest, I could help but think how we always compromise the philosophy of Ahimsa, which in its totality encompasses other philosophies such as Aparigraha, or simplicity. Living in America, many of us try to live the materialistic life style, while adding in a bit of Jain values here and there. Thus, the profound nature of this festival was due to the amount of people who lived simple and compassionate lives (many have made room in their own homes for an animal shelter), and living up to the central Jain philosophies without even knowing it.

My wish is to station these people in front of my friends, family and community to serve as role models as compassionate humans. In reality, I know this can not happen, but I do know that people, both Jain and Non-Jain, have the potential to do the same.

– Lynna Dhanani, Raleigh, NC

Vegetarian Food Fair – San Diego’s Fall Fest ’99

This event is a cornucopia of live music, entertainment and information about healthy living, healthy eating, and healthy alternatives for people, animals, and our planet… a harvest of sights, sounds, and flavors of the season… a cruelty-free feast promoting an Earth-friendly, people-friendly, and animal-friendly lifestyle.

Among the many great things happening that day, John Robbins will be there!

John Robbins, the author of the best-selling Pulitzer prize nominated book Diet for a New America takes us on a journey into the great American food machine. In his early twenties, in an effort to regain his own health, John turned away from the family owned Baskin-Robbins ice-cream business and began extensive research into nutrition and food production. After ten years of investigation and a thorough inside look at the American food production system, John has a whole new story to tell.

In simple and startling words, Robbins connects the dots and reveals his theories on the environmental and personal health consequences of a diet based on animal products. According to him, our current American diet is a recipe for disaster. He strongly recommends plant based (strictly vegetarian) diet as the only solution.

If you like to contribute to this and other future events, please send your checks to address next page.

– Organized by Compassionate Living

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Compassionate Activism
Sangeeta Kumar — Compassionate Living, San Diego, CA

From the depths of our hearts we can hear the cry of countless animals being slaughtered we can feel the hands of starving children reaching out. In our own dwellings we can taste the toxins in the water, and in our own cities we can smell the pollution in the air.The animals, the children and the earth are calling for us.

How will we answer their calls?

There are so many things that you can do to answer this call. The following are some of the things that we here at Compassionate Living are doing to raise awareness in the community.

Educational Program

Teaching kids is one of our favorite projects. This is very rewarding work because many children after our presentation are inspired to make lifestyle changes and go vegetarian!

Ongoing Protests

We often are approached by national and local groups to organize protests on various issues. Usually a month does not go by where we have not organized several protests. These are very important because in one protest we can get on two or three TV stations and get the message out to the public. For example we were interviewed by several TV stations on our protest against animals for experimentation. They gave us some time to talk about why we think it is wrong. That one protest therefore reached over 100,000 people who were not physically there, but saw the report on the news, or newspaper, or heard it on the radio.

What you can do

Here are a few ideas for you to help spread the word for the animals. If you would like some advice please email us at [email protected] or call us at 619-495-1723.

Write Right… alright?

If you see an article against animals in the paper write a letter to the editor to your local paper, make it short and to the point, and your letter has a good chance of being published. You can reach thousands this way!

“Check Out Wildlife Groups. Before you support a “wildlife” or “conservation” group, ask if it supports hunting. Such groups as the National Wildlife Federation, the National Audubon Society, the Sierra Club, the Izaak Walton League, the Wilderness Society, the World Wildlife Fund, and many others are pro-hunting.

“Speak Up. When you see cruelly produced clothing and accessories in stores, please let the clerks and managers know you object to the sale of animal parts.

“Contact Your Newspaper. Ask your local paper to write a story on the advantages of a vegetarian diet or the cruelties of the factory farm, or write a letter to the editor on the subject.

“Act on Principle. When bus driver Bruce Anderson stuck to his vegetarian principles and refused to give riders coupons for free hamburgers, he was fired by the Orange County (California) Transit Authority (OCTA). Anderson was reinstated when he won a lawsuit ruling that all vegetarians and vegans are entitled to protect their beliefs and rights.

“Write Letters to the Editor. Write letters to the editors of your local papers telling them why you won’t attend a circus that forces animals to perform tricks.”

“Enter Competitions. Enter your vegan recipes into cooking competitions and bake sales, and make it clear that no animal ingredients were used. Dan Handley, a chef at the Virginia Beach Hilton Hotel, won a barbecue cookoff contest with his vegan recipe!”

Compassionate Living 4867 Mercury Street

San Diego, CA 92111-2104

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The Blackest of All the Black Crimes
Slavery * Ethnic Cleansing * Nazi Human Experiments

VIVISECTION

The great Indian pacifist and political leader, Mahatma Gandhi, had a profound influence on my life and on the lives of many other peace-loving people. Through his writings, Gandhi was the first person to challenge me to justify eating meat. His ghost was the first person to whom I had to admit, through my writings, that I could not meet the challenge.

Tom Regan — The AV Magazine, Winter 1998

Anyone guided by the Gandhian principle of Ahimsa — anyone who aspires to live a life that “does the least harm” — in time, must put an end to consuming corpses. In addition to his vegetarian teachings, Gandhi was a staunch anti-vivisectionist, once referring to vivisection as “the blackest of all the black crimes.” When I first read these words, I didn’t give them much thought. It was only some years later that I stopped to ask what Gandhi might mean by this graphic statement and how he could possibly believe what he said.

As for what he means, the words leave little room for doubt. Consider the most evil things in the world. Slavery. Ethnic cleansing. Human experiments conducted by Nazi doctors. All these (and many more, alas) belong in the column headed “Worst Moral Crimes Humans Commit.” But the worst of the worst, according to Gandhi, is not any of those I have listed. The worst of all the worst crimes is: vivisection. I don’t think there is any question but that, when he describes vivisection as “the blackest of all the black crimes,” this is what Gandhi means.

Gandhi was not a foolish man. Far from it. But even people of wisdom sometimes believe foolish things. “Isn’t this a case in point?” I asked myself. I mean “how could any sane, sensible person think that vivi-section is a worse moral crime than slavery or the human experiments conducted by Nazi doctors?” I think I know how Gandhi would answer. First, he would explain that moral crimes belong in the “Worst Moral Crimes Humans Commit” column when committing them is perfectly legal. That’s part of what slavery, ethnic cleansing and vivisection have in common. Where they are practiced, there are no laws prohibiting them.

Still, there are important differences between these great evils. In the case of slavery, for example, while it was legal in most of the United States throughout most of the nation’s history, being a slave owner was not a profession people prepared for by attending colleges or universities, not something for which those who “showed real promise” were rewarded by receiving scholarships or fellowships. And vivisectors do compete for and some of them win, prestigious prizes and awards. How, then, can there be a worse moral crime than vivisection, enmeshed as the practice is in social institutions that not only permit, they train people to commit evil, then reward them for doing it?

I think this gets close to what Gandhi believes. I also think we can get closer by considering the suggestion that vivisectors are just like the Nazi doctors: both trained professionals, both performing morally evil acts that are perfectly legal. If this is true, vivisection is a very bad moral crime. Isn’t that enough? Why go as far as Gandhi and judge it to be the worst of the worst?

Though initially plausible, equating vivisectors and Nazi experimenters overlooks an important difference. Those Nazi doctors who performed experimenters on unconsenting, defenseless human beings, committed an evil no doubt. But unlike what is true of vivisectors, these doctors, after being trained to do good, chose to do evil. Not so in the case of vivisectors. In their case, vivisectors choose to do evil after they have been professionally trained to do it.

Is there a worse moral crime than that? It’s possible that not all anti-vivisectionists will agree in the answer they give. What’s certain is what Gandhi meant and why he believed what he did. Right about so much, is the Mahatma (the great-souled one) right about this, too? Now, there’s a question to ponder — the sort of food for thought even Gandhi would approve of.

Tom Regan is Professor of Philosophy and Head of the Department of Philosophy & Religion at North Carolina State University. President of The Culture & Animals Foundation, his many books include The Case for Animal Rights and The Thee Generation: Reflections on the Coming Revolution.

10 Super Foods You Should Eat

The Center for Science in the Public Interest’s Nutrition Action health letter provides the following list of “superfoods” we all should eat.

[Bay Area Vegetarian News — (415) 273-LIV-1]

1. Sweet Potatoes — Loaded with vitamin A, carotenoids, vitamin C and fiber. (However, the believers in Jainism don’t have to eat this one.)

2. Whole Grain Bread — Higher in fiber and about 12 vitamins and minerals than refined breads.

3. Broccoli — Lots of vitamin C, carotenoids and folic acid.

4. Strawberries — Excellent source of vitamin C.

5. Beans – Inexpensive, low in fat, rich in protein, iron, B-vitamins, folic acid and fiber. Garbanzo, pinto, black, navy, kidney, lentils…. your choice.

6. Cantaloup — A quarter melon provides most people’s entire daily requirement for vitamins A and C.

7. Spinach, Kale, Collards — High in vitamin C, carotenoids, calcium, iron and folic acid.

8. Oranges — Vitamin C, folic acid and fiber.

9. Oatmeal — Whole grain cereal that is fat free, sugar free and inexpensive.

10. Skim or Low-fat Milk — Excellent source of Calcium, vitamins and protein with little or no artery – clogging fat or cholesterol.

(We recommend the substitution of a rice, soy or nut milk which, as part of a balanced diet, would offer many of the same benefits without any cholesterol, animal proteins or toxins.) It is refreshingly pleasant to note that all above items are strictly vegetarian (in fact Jain and vegan too, after applying the recommendations)! — Editor Top

WHOSE SCIENCE IS IT ANYWAY?
A Feminist Exploration

We have to begin by asking: what exactly is this idea of “science” that undergirds the methodology of scientific experimentation?

by Carol J. Adams — The AV Magazine, Winter 1998

Lives begin in community. We learn through community. We exist interdependently. Our culture is structured so that learning and even living can occur almost “invisibly.” We can come to see ourselves as born into relationships rather than as atomistic, self-made individuals. This allows for an important shift in beliefs — no longer do we see humans as radically other than nonhuman life forms, no longer erecting a boundary between the presumably “self-made human” and the presumably “nature-made animals.”

Feelings matter. This rather obvious statement has one context in which it is greatly contested: the debate over experimentation on animals. In this context, feelings are thought to get in the way of science. Protesters who object to experimenting on animals for scientific knowledge are often accused of being sentimental — of letting feelings, rather than intellect — determine our positions. The underlying presumption in this charge is that doing science and being sentimental are exclusive of each other.

Feminist philosophy offers a way for us to think about why feelings matter and why doing science and being sentimental are not exclusive of each other. The insights of feminist philosophy into the construction of science as supposedly “objective” and “rational” equips us to critique the use of animals’ bodies for scientific knowledge in a new and exciting way. We have to begin by asking: What exactly is this idea of “science” that undergirds the methodology of scientific experimentation? Science, like the culture of which it is a part, is not a given, something delivered from a mountaintop; science is constructed. Who constructed “Science” as we know it? Whose science is it? Science is not value-free; we just believe it is.

Although it is valorized as the only appropriate way of “doing science,” the methodology of science arises from and has been limited by male experience of previous centuries. Animal experimentation is part of a patriarchal culture in which science, like masculinity, is “tough, rigorous, rational, impersonal, competitive and unemotional” as Sandra Harding describes it in The Science Question in Feminism.

Science “happens” through a subject-object relationship. Domination allows for the construction of “knowledge” based on the observations of the object by the subject. Gender notions infuse the ideas we hold about the way a scientist “discovers” knowledge, by which a “knower” studies an object — the “known.” The relationship that is dictated for this gaining of knowledge is one of distance and separation between the knower and the known. The subject who experiments is radically separate from the object upon whom she or he experiments.

Animal advocates not only face the overwhelming problem of power in this culture in which the tendency is to identify with the knower, the subject who is creating knowledge, rather than the “known,” the material being studied (who are often animals). We also face the problem that what science claims for itself — objectivity — yet a value-free science is not possible. Before we debate the efficacy of “animal models” we need to step back and ask “Whose science are we talking about?” Science arose from a Western patriarchal colonial culture. Attitudes about gender, race, class and nonhuman animals, have everything to do with the way “science” is conceptualized. It has been by and large Euro-American middle-class and upper-class men who have created scientific theorems, ethics and the ground rules for animal experimentation. They have created these out of the perspective by which they approach the world: as subjects surveying an object.

The notion of the objective scientist — one who is and should be a disinterested human observer — is central to modern science. Science has been created in the image of the “man of reason” — nonemotional, rational, separate from and over others. We might come to believe that one can transcend the body, personal and cultural history and thereby acquire “pure knowledge.” As a result, the scientific concept of objectivity remains unexamined and science is thought to be value-free. But knowledge can never be pure and the scientific concept of objectivity is itself a value — a value derived from the dominant perspective on reason, the body, feelings, gender and animals.

We have inherited a Western philosophic tradition that values differences rather than connections: men are different from (and above) women; humans are different from (and above) animals; whites are different from (and above) people of color; the mind is different from (and above) the body. Presumptions of human difference and superiority become intertwined with attitudes toward our own very animal-like bodies, which we must somehow disown to successfully use our minds. Discussions about morality, decision-making, feelings and science occur within this culture of differentiation.

The emphasis on differences between humans and animals established fierce definitions about what constitutes “humanness,” even though we humans are animals too and are not the only animals with social needs or group memories. Yet we are conceptualized as “not animals.” The qualities attributed to humans become the most cherished ones. So, for instance, reasoning is seen as a capacity possessed only by humans and it is valued over other activities. According to this tradition that values separation, the body is an untrustworthy source of knowledge. That which traditionally differentiated humans from animals — qualities such as reason and rationality — have been used to differentiate men from women, whites from people of color and the ruling class from the working class.

In earlier centuries, it was believed that men could transcend their bodies with their minds, but women, like animals, could not. While we have progressed from this theoretical equation of women with animals, we have not eliminated the mind/body dualism that undergirded it. We have simply removed the human species from this debate. Equated with man, reasoning is still seen as a process that occurs when one transcends the body. Suspicious attitudes toward the body are carried over to suspicious attitudes toward feelings: they are untrustworthy, not reliable, not what good science is. We end up with a science constructed after the Western philosophical idea of the “Man of the Reason.” As a result, gender notions are insinuated within the methodology of how a scientist “knows.” This has impoverished our understanding of reasoning, emotion and science. Within the philosophical framework of our culture, hostility exists toward the body and the feelings we experience through our body. This hostility deprives us of knowledge by viewing the body as something that stands in the way of knowledge rather than as an avenue for knowledge. And it excludes ways of learning, restricting how and what we can know. In fact, we can think through the body, not despite it.

The science that would arise from an acknowledgment that we are all situated bodies existing in relationship would begin at a radically different place. No one would object that we have feelings about what happens in scientific experiments; this would be a given. Of course, we all have feelings and, of course, appropriate emotions can contribute to knowledge! Once that became a given, perhaps there would be no debate about animal experimentation at all, because once we honor emotions and the bodies from which they arise, all bodies might be cherished. We would not see some bodies as objects for experimentation because we would know — know fully — that there are no objects and no objectivity.

Carol J. Adams is the author of The Sexual Politics of Meat. She explores the ideas of feminist philosophy and ecofeminism in her more recent Neither Man nor Beast: Feminism and the Defense of Animals.

website: www.triroc.com/caroladams/

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Inside the Turkey Butchery
Behind the Scenes of a Festivity
Laura A. Moretti — Farm Sanctuary News, Fall 1998
P.O. Box 150 * Watkins Glen, NY 14891-0150 * 1-607-583-2225 * www.farmsanctuary.org

If I had been looking for home-grown peaches or rolled oats, I would have had the help of the entire community, but finding a turkey farm was another matter. On a trip from fellow activists, I learned there was one right in the heart of northern California’s picturesque wine country — but no one, not even activists, could tell me exactly where.

“Turkey farm?” the woman behind a deli counter mused. “Just what is a turkey farm?”

“A place where turkeys are grown for, like, Thanksgiving,” I told her.

I could see the flash in her eyes: turkeys came from the supermarket — and those could be found anywhere, so what was my complaint?

The animal feed supply stores didn’t help much, either, but I’m certain it was because they didn’t want to. The process of animal rearing is a well-kept secret — and for good reason. If most Americans knew how the animals were treated and killed to adorn their dining tables, they’d have second thoughts about eating them — and that isn’t good for an industry that makes its billions off the bodies of slaughtered animals.

Half a billion turkeys are raised in the United States each year. They’re killed at the rate of 1.4 million birds a day, 58,000 an hour, nearly 1,000 per minute, 16 a second — and yet I couldn’t find a live one anywhere in sight. And it wasn’t for lack of trying.

I drove miles and miles of scenic and not-so-scenic back roads. I crept up the driveways of many a ranch. I talked to numerous grain and fruit and grape farmers. I peeked into seemingly abandoned warehouses. But I couldn’t find even a feather.

They say a watched pot never boils. I had just given up looking when the birds, it seemed, flocked to me. On a return road trip from Calistoga to Santa Rosa — and on a highway, mind you, that I frequently traveled — I was enjoying the late night drive, the way the moonlight cast black shadows across the asphalt, when the smell of putrefying flesh suddenly invaded my nostrils.

My first thought was I had just passed road kill. Having lived in the northeast where such odors are common because road kill is so common, and having lived in La Paz, Bolivia, where the rotting carcasses of dogs and livestock could be found all along the river banks and roadways, I knew that smell all too well. It was the overpowering smell of something dead. It’s not like the awful odor of rotting cantaloup. Or moldy kidney beans. It’s the unmistakable smell of death and decay.

This time it didn’t pass. It stayed with me on that lone country road around every bend and dip — for miles. It was the strangest thing because I was the only one on the highway. I was driving through pristine wilderness. Had I happened upon road kill, I would have left the odor with the carcass on that black, moonlit asphalt behind me. Perhaps, then, I had picked up something on the tries. The smell was strong, strong enough for me to believe it would be in my clothes and in my hair until I bathed — the way the smell of blood in a slaughterhouse has often stayed with me.

It’s a steep drop into the Santa Rosa valley from Calistoga Road. Where it leveled is where the answer lay. Just pulling off the road ahead of me into a gravel parkway, was a huge livestock truck — packed full of white, living turkeys, stacked like dead sardines in a tin can, four-levels high in putrid-smelling crates, on their way to slaughter.

I wasn’t prepared for the emotion I felt. The truck had been ahead of me all along, unseen by the bends in the highway. To see so many birds, trucked in ways most Americans would outlaw if they were parakeets or macaws, wreaking of death even before they had died, broke my heart.

The turkey farm on Calistoga Road was nearly empty when I arrived there later that week. Its product had been sent to market. Harvested — like so much corn. But, unlike grain farms, I wasn’t welcome at this one. What the turkey farmers — and the pig and cow and chicken farmers — don’t want you to know is that animal agriculture is a cruel and bloody business, and its cruelties begin long before the animals are born or hatched.

Genetically altered, turkeys, for example, are forced to grow twice as fast and twice as large as any wild turkey. They are so breast-heavy, in fact, they cannot fly. They can’t even mate. Every neatly packaged turkey in America’s supermarkets was brought into this world by grown men who have milked male turkeys for their semen and wrestled turkey hens in order to open their legs and their vents to inseminate them.

Turkeys have the ends of their beaks and their toes clipped — without anesthesia — in order to prevent them from injuring each other in the tightly packed warehouses in which they are raised. Inside these factories, packed by the hundreds with no more than three square feet per bird, they die from heat prostration, infectious disease, and cancer. Turkeys also suffer from heart disease — caused by their bodies trying to keep pace with their excessive rate of growth. They die, often and simply, from heart attacks.

After being trucked to slaughter, turkeys are pulled from the creates into which they’ve been crammed for transport, and hung upside down by their legs onto a rotating rail. Their heads are submerged in an electrified water bath which immobilizes them for the killing blade. They can still feel pain and many of them emerge from stunning fully conscious. If the blade misses killing them, the birds are also fully conscious when they are submerged in scalding, boiling water. The industry calls these birds “red skins” — and it happens to millions of them because turkeys are not federally protected.

The ironic part is that, after all this cruelty and killing, death and dying, Americans have symbolized the carcass of this domestically mutilated and mutated bird with a national day of gratitude.

Get in the Holiday Spirit!
Party Till The Turkeys Come Home

Help your local animal rights group or vegetarian society host a vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner. Whether it’s potluck or catered, you’re sure to make vegetarian advocates happy for the holidays (and educate their friends and family too!). Call or write us for our Vegetarian Thanksgiving Resource brochure with mail-order videos, books, photographs, literature, recipes, and other materials to help you provide “food for thought” for the Thanksgiving holiday.

And remember… `tis the season for holiday dinner parties! So don’t let the holidays go by without showing your friends and family how delicious and nutritious Thanksgiving dinner can be.

Turkeys in the News

Let your local newspapers know that you are starting a new Thanksgiving tradition by adopting a turkey! Call your paper, ask for the features editor, and then inform him or her that you have a unique Thanksgiving story — you’re participating in a national ADOPT-A-TURKEY Project because you wanted to save a turkey, rather than serve a turkey this year!

Of course, it helps to have a photograph of your adopted turkey, and we can also provide sample press releases and information literature. Our ADOPT-A-TURKEY Project Coordinator is happy to help — just call (607) 583-2225, ext. 69.

And don’t forget to write a letter to the editor too! It’s a great way to educate people about the compelling health, environmental, and ethical reasons to have a vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner. Feel free to write or call us for a sample Thanksgiving theme “letter to the editor.”

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Abraham’s Choice Dr Ranjit Konkar — Compassionate Friend, Monsoon-Winter 1997 —

Beauty Without Cruelty India

Bakr-Id is the day for commemorating the spirit of sacrifice. The memory is of the courage displayed by the Prophet Abraham centuries ago in being willing to sacrifice to God the life of his only child upon being commanded by God to do so to demonstrate his dedication to Him. Upon seeing the unshaken resolve he displays in obeying God’s word, it is said that God, very pleased with his dedication, intervenes through his angel just as Abraham is about to take his child’s life and relieves him of the burden by asking him not to go ahead. He then causes a ram (a kind of sheep) to appear near the sacrificial alter. Abraham sacrifices the ram instead to complete the ritual. Today, this act of courage is sought to be remembered by millions of households the world over by taking the life of a goat or a sheep or even larger animals on that day.

On this occasion, I wish to raise the issue of the ethics of animal sacrifice. This is no way directed only toward the observers of Bakr-Id — majority religion, Hinduism has a far greater incidence of this practice of killing animals for religious purposes than the other religions. Therefore, we all have something to ask ourselves in this regard.

What is Sacrifice?

Sacrifice should mean the giving up of something that belongs to oneself. Does my child’s life belong to me? Does the life of any animal belong to me? That life is wholly and solely owned by the being (human or non-human) that is its holder. Religious thought goes a step further and doesn’t grant ownership of the life even to its holder — the holder is merely the custodian of that life and cannot decide to shed it when he/she desires, by committing suicide. Legal thought has made suicide a punishable offence on that very basis. God, the creator, is the only entity given universal ownership of all life. Only God can take life, just like only God can create life.

Seen in this light, it should seem outrageous that one can consider the taking of another’s life as one’s own sacrifice. When we are trained to think, on one hand, that the taking of even our own life is a social and moral crime, how do we allow ourselves to not only take the life of another being but call it our sacrifice, on top of that? Would Abraham have looked favorably upon our wilful destruction of life? Would Goddess Kali or Lord Shiva, if they could take form and communicate with us, condone the barbaric bloodshed taking place in their names?

The Danger of Rituals

The ritual, mechanistic repetition of a historic act in order to display one’s reverence for the act or for its original perpetrator is fundamentally an act fraught with dangerous possibilities. Suppose that God had not intervened to substitute a ram for Abraham’s child, and that instead accepted his sacrifice and decided to reward him later by bringing his child back to life. Would the followers of Abraham then have dared to commemorate that act by sacrificing their children, knowing fully well that they can’t bring them back to life? A less shocking and offensive analogy too is worth pondering over: imagine that God has substituted not a ram but tree in place of Abraham’s son. Would we then, to commemorate the great sacrifice, be cutting down trees on this day? In these days of environmental consciousness, this would produce a public outrage. Why, then, is animal life, which is so much higher than plant life, in feeling pain and in possessing six senses versus the plants’ one, held so cheaply? Why do we think nothing of slitting the throat of a fully conscious and frightened animal like goat when cutting down a tree is socially castigable? And harming a human being is unthinkable? Do these animals deserve no mercy from us? They put their trust in us only to find that we deceive them and belie their trust by taking their life. Is this how we, the supposedly superior species, should behave?

How many of us who so willingly sacrifice a goat’s life, whether at Kali’s feet or in Abraham’s memory, would make actual sacrifices of one’s possessions when called upon to do so? Is it that sacrificing the goat’s life equips us in any way with a greater moral readiness to do so? If not, then why this disrespect towards the life of another, the life that is held so dear by its owner? How can we take away what we cannot give back?

If we think that by killing a goat, we are replaying the situation that Abraham found himself in, we are mistaken. Not one of us can claim that God has asked us to sacrifice our dearest possession to Him. Even if we can, then can we, with any self-respect, claim that the goat that we purchase in the market for so many rupees and paise is our dearest possession? Would any of us dare to do what Abraham showed courage to do? What is this fascination with replaying historical events anyway?

Questioning Abraham’s Choice

At this point, let me commit the blasphemy of questioning the propriety of Abraham’s actions. I hope rational minds will not condemn me for doing so. If the relevant section of the Bible (Genesis 22:01-22:13, reproduced below) is read carefully then one sees nowhere that God asked Abraham to sacrifice a ram instead. He just relieves Abraham of his command to sacrifice his child (Genesis 22:12). It is Abraham’s own choice to go ahead and kill the ram (Genesis 22:13). Why was that justified? It is not that some sacrifice or the other had to be performed. Was it right of Abraham then to unnecessarily take the ram’s life?

One is reminded of the story of Yudhishthira and the dog, in Yudhishthira’s last days, in the epic Mahabharata. The Pandavas renounce their kingdom and the worldly life to spend the twilight of their lives roaming around in the forest. Sahadeva, Nakula, Arjuna, and finally Bheema fall dead one by one. A dog joins Yudhishthira to keep him company in his wanderings. At the gates of heaven, Yudhishthira is asked to enter but without the dog, who is not allowed inside. Yudhishthira refuses the offer to enter alone, his conscience not allowing him to accept the prize of heaven at the cost of abandoning his faithful companion. Seeing his fidelity even to such a mute and non-human companion, and his sacrifice in refusing what a lifetime of walking the right path had earned him, God is pleased and reveals the true identity of the dog — it is none other than Dharma, come to subject Yudhishthira to his final test of character. Yudhishthira is allowed inside.

How devoutly it is to be wished that Abraham would have replied similarly. I do not think that the all-merciful and just God would have found his refusal objectionable at all. Millions of innocent animals the world over would have been spared the slaying at the hands of man; children would have been more sensitized to the sanctity of life; and less blood would have been split in the name of religion.

For my own part, I must say that if anyone were to ask me to sacrifice another’s life to prove my dedication to God, I would refuse. I would commit the sin of not proving my dedication to God sooner than committing the sin of taking away another’s life and thus showing total disrespect to the giver of life Himself. My children’s lives may be more dear to me than my own, but they are not mine to take away. I should give up my life to protect theirs, not take theirs away to demonstrate my devotion to anybody, even God. There I differ with Abraham in the choice he made five thousand years ago — I would consider it a transgression of my privileges if I were to agree to offer my son’s life. However, Abraham’s choice was different and presumably dictated by his times.

The Golden Principle

At the risk of sounding like an atheist, I would like to propound the stand that the true test of the rightness of one’s actions is in probing deep into our own

consciences for approval rather than reposing belief in what God supposedly want us to do. No surer guide to morally right actions exists than the Golden Principle: Do not do to others that which you would not like done to you. One can never go wrong with this lamp showing the way.

Consider the following hypothetical situation: the earth is invaded by an alien species from another planet, a species that is far superior to us in physical and mental capabilities. They decide to use us for their food, their leather, their religious sacrifices, their entertainment, etc.: all the things that we do to our less-evolved animal brethren on this planet. How would we face that day? We would be begging for mercy from them, pleading with them to see reason and logic, the very things that we refuse to grant to our own animals. How can we do to others what we would not like done to us?

Need of the Age

Five millennia have passed since the time of Abraham. Sacrificing animals might have been a socially acceptable practice then. But does it mean that it must be practiced in this day and age? The practice of performing animal sacrifices to atone our sins (never justifiable, in my opinion) was asked to be stopped by Jesus Christ, since he had come to this world to sacrifice his own life for our sins. Christians do not celebrate Abraham’s deed with animal sacrifices today. Can other communities not follow their example? After all, Christ is as much a prophet to Muslims and Jews as to Christians, hence his message should be considered with as much sanctity.

Every society or civilization has its deformities. The remnants of casteism, sexism, class-distinctions are still very much with us. But does it mean that we do not try to shed these blemishes? Similarly, should we not rise above our discriminatory attitude towards the rest of the sentient world also, and include animals in our circle of compassion? We should stop considering them commodities for us to treat as we like, to butcher them for our taste, to sacrifice them for our religious ends, to hunt them for our pleasure. Let us strive to constantly live up to the adjective for kindness that is named after our species: humane.

Excerpt from: BOOK 1: GENESIS

22:01 And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.

22:02 And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

22:03 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering, and rose up, and went unto the place which God had told him.

22:04 Then on the third day Abraham lifted up his eyes, and saw the place afar off.

22:05 And Abraham said unto his young men, Abide ye here with the ass; and I and the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you.

22:06 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid it upon Isaac his son; and took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together.

22:07 And Isaac spoke unto Abraham his father, and said, My father: and he said, Here am I, my son. And he said, Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?

22:08 And Abraham said, My son. God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.

22:09 And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there, and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood.

22:10 And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.

22:11 And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.

22:12 And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.

22:13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a ticket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

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Is Your Mithai Vegetarian?
Maya Mukhi — Compassionate Friend, Monsoon-Winter 1997 — Beauty Without Cruelty India

If you look beyond the glitter of varkh, into the sheds where it is produced, and at the lives that are sacrificed to make this possible, you’d think twice before buying that box of mithai topped with the precious foil!

Silver foil, or varkh, as it is generally known in India, adds glitter to mithai, supari, paan and fruit, and is used in Ayurvedic medicines and on deities in many Jain temples. The silver-topped mithai is even served as prasad in temples and on auspicious and religious occasions. Varkh is also used in flavored syrups as in kesar syrup.

Several years ago, as suggested by BWC, Indian Airlines instructed their caterers to stop the use of varkh on mithai served on board their flights. Today, many BWC members ask for mithai without varkh, having realized the cruelty involved in its preparation.

According to a feature article in Business India, an astounding 275 tonnes of silver are beaten annually into foil for mithais and chyavanprash! That is a whopping 275,000 kg.! (At the present market rate that would cost a phenomenal Rs 165 crore).

Just how is varkh made and what is it that makes its preparation and consumption so sinful?

Varkh is not derived from an animal source. However, a crucial material of animal origin, ox-gut, is used in its manufacture. This ox-gut is obtained from the slaughterhouse.

In the bylanes of the villages of Ahmedabad and other cities, amidst filthy surroundings, placed between layers of ox-gut, small thin strips of silver are hammered to produce the glittering foil.

The intestine (ox-gut), smeared with blood and mucus, is pulled out from the slaughtered animal by the butcher for the specific purpose. It is then taken away to be cleaned and used in the manufacture of varkh.

The gut of an average cow, measuring 35 feet in length and 3 inches in diameter, is cut open into a piece measuring 420″ x 10″. From this, strips of 9″ x 11″ are cut to give approximately 60 pieces of ox-gut, which are then piled one onto another and bound to form a book of 171 leaves. Next, small thin strips of silver are placed between the sheets and the book slipped into a leather pouch (an animal product again). Artisans then hammer these bundles continuously for a day to produce extremely thin foils of silver of 3″ x 5″. The leather and ox-gut, being supple, can withstand the intense manual hammering for up to 8 hours a day till such time as the silver is beaten to the desired thickness. When ready, the foil is carefully lifted from between the leaves of ox-gut and placed between sheets of paper to be sold to the mithaiwallas. A booklet of 160 foils weighs approximately 10 gm and costs about Rs 200.

An average middle class Indian family of four consuming approximately 100 kg of mithai per year for forty years consumes silver foil produced with the gut of 3 cows and one-tenth of a cowhide!

India is not the only country where foil is made by such methods. In Germany, small specialized enterprises produce gold-leaf, which is beaten down to 1/10,000 mm thickness, for decorative and technical purposes by similar methods. The gold foil is used by the Jews for as much the same purpose, namely for food preparations, as it is in India.

In India the 275 tonnes of silver that are beaten annually into varkh utilize intestines of 516,000 cows and calf leather of 17,200 animals each year. Therefore, BWC hopes that someone, somewhere will develop through research an alternative process for the making of varkh without using ox-gut.

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Meat and Leather — Two Sides of the Same Coin
Compassionate Friend, Spring 1998 — Beauty Without Cruelty India

Goat meat or mutton, despite its poor quality, is the most popular meat in India. 95% of raising goats and sheep continues to be on traditional lines. These animals are owned by landless farmers who migrate from place to place with their herds which feed off mainly wasteland grass, also garbage. 60% of the animals, numbering over 16 million — one-third of which are kids, die due to untreated diseases and the remaining 40% are slaughtered for their meat and skins. Ailing animals or those below optimum weight and age are sold in the market to middlemen for slaughter and are subjected to the same cruelties as other slaughter animals. Lambs and young goats are also slaughtered for meat. Goat hair and the fleece of sheep is used by the wool industry; and goats’ horns are commonly utilized for making buttons.

Sensing financial reward in raising goats intensively, several company have decided to turn the unorganized shepherd-centered activity into an industrial-scale business. We request readers not to invest in the so-called lucrative goat livestock ventures. Without sufficient patronage such projects will not be taken up or flourish.

The Central Institute for Research on Goats has organized seminars for making this ‘poor mans’s cow’ into ‘rich man’s kamdhenu’ in spite of the mortality rate in farms being almost double than what it is in free-grazing conditions. Under new technology plans, training will be imparted for higher productivity, crossbreeds and broiler goats (like broiler chickens) will be created, and eventually goat producers’ co-operatives will be established. If we do not protest now, ‘goatery’ in our country will follow in the footsteps of poultry and we will see the setting up of a National Goat Development Board.

The Nimbakar Agricultural Research Institute, Phaltan in Maharashtra, has imported South African Boer goats with whose semen Indian goats are artificially inseminated. The result is a creature with a goat’s head and a cow’s body — the aim being to ‘grow’ more meat.

Those who care do not eat meat, nor use leather. Footwear is the most common application for leather. It is also the only use of leather that is often defined as a need by vegetarians. The average leather footwear utilizes several animals’ skins: tough cattle hide for the sole, thinner and differently tanned and processed calf leather for the upper, still thinner goat skin for the inside lining and machine pressed leather fining made into a leather board for giving appropriate strength and flexibility placed in between the outer and inner soles.

Leather, hide and skin are also used in garments, belts, gloves, handbags, wallets, purses, watch and other straps, linings, trimmings. Most of it is from slaughtered cows and bulls although 20% of the world’s goat skin is from India. About eighteen square feet of leather is obtained from an average sized cow or bull in India. For example, a leather jacket is made from approximately ten square feet representing 55% hide of a single cow or bull and if also lined with leather, the skin of two medium-sized goats; and a leather briefcase from five and a half square feet representing 30% hide of a single cow or bull together with the entire skin of approximately three small goats used for the inside lining and the compartments.

If ever you are tempted to eat meat or use leather, remember Dr Albert Schweitzer’s words:”I am life, which wills to live, in the midst of life, which wills to live.”

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WHAT CAN WE DO?
By Hope Sawyer Buyukmihci — The AV, January 1994

When I talk with children they know what I mean. Most of them have not yet become indoctrinated with the virus of superstition: Wild animals are dangerous; wild animals are varmints or game; toads are ugly; snakes are slimy. Children are ready to love every living creature, and to take action on all fronts to see that justice is done. Children gladly cooperate in projects to help animals. What makes them change?

One humane education teacher told me sadly, “We can’t have a group of humane minded children until we have humane teachers.” If the teacher (or parent) is not humane, he soon inoculates the young with his own illness, symptoms of which are a deviation from the children’s natural compassion and a hardening of the arteries of love. Wounds occur, and are covered over by scabs of hostility or indifference, under which the infection spreads throughout the whole character.

Humane education is the tried and true remedy, but prevention is better than cure. Let’s not leave the work to professional teachers alone. Let’s volunteer with our local humane society to help reach more people; offer our services to schools and churches; and write letters to newspapers to alert readers to animal problems and solutions. Let’s get a supply of the humane education materials now collecting dust on shelves, and see that it circulates in our particular area.

The question most asked of me by children is: What can I do to help?

I don’t know the answer. The above suggestions are ideas that can be put into action with each person’s unique talents and individual flare. What must be done is dictated by time and materials available and by the specific situation in which one finds one’s self. I do know that there is momentum in action, and if we make a first step, others will follow, and a path will open up.

Humane education is a work that must be done in faith, and carried forward with no thought of reward save the work itself. It is challenge of the highest order, and meeting challenge head-on is one of life’s greatest delights.

There is heartache, but it does not compare with the heartache of doing nothing. There are more failures than successes, but still we will try — and try again. We will work on, though all seems hopeless. And once in a while someone whose life we have influenced without even knowing it will rise up and call us blessed.

What can we do?

All that we can… on and on and on. No person can do more.

Charlotte Baker Montgomery, author of children’s books and a leader in humane education work in her area of Texas, says: “The more I see of life, the more I realize the value of persistence. It is the person who keeps hammering away who wins. You see this in politics. The lobbies for race tracks and liquor-by-the-drink keep coming back after every defeat, exerting constant pressure, and finally they open a crack, and they keep on pushing, the crack widens, and at last the public begins to wonder, ‘Well, what’s so bad about it, anyway?’ It works the same for better causes, too.”

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The Vegan Sourcebook Author: Joanne Stepaniak, M.S. Ed. Publisher: Lowell House, Los Angeles, CA

A Review by Stanley M. Sapon, Ph.D.

Professor Emeritus of Psycholinguistics — University of Rochester (NY) — Director, the Maimonides Project

Joanne Stepaniak has produced an extraordinarily ambitious work that sends a fresh, invigorating breath of life to the vegan movement, a work that stands as a milestone in the history of efforts to inform, support, strengthen, and light the way for those who have already committed to a vegan lifestyle, as well as for those who stand near the threshold. It is a “sourcebook” in the literal sense of the word — not a dry, encyclopedic compilation of facts, but a spiritually refreshing exploration of the sources of veganism, as well as an immensely useful compendium of resources …ideas, strategies, and solutions.

 This is a happy book — a book on veganism that makes no attempt to scare us with nightmare visions of heart attacks, strokes, cancer or mad cow disease. It points the way to veganism through love and understanding, not fear. It characterizes veganism as “living with conscience, conviction and compassion,” and talks about why and how to live and grow and thrive as a vegan, and feel good about yourself. It shows how, in a culture that often seems either unknowing, uncaring, uninterested, or sometimes downright hostile, you can have a sense of personal achievement, influence and effectiveness.

After 20 years as a vegan, I felt that there was little about the vegan lifestyle I had neither confronted nor thought about. Yet I found The Vegan Sourcebook to be a “page-turner” … absorbing, thought provoking, enlightening and, literally, fascinating.

The author has done a superb job of illumination, making visible a broad spectrum of all the whys and wherefores of vegan living. She makes it beautifully clear that a vegan lifestyle is a joyful, rewarding and fulfilling way of life, and not at all an ongoing penance of self-denial. And she succeeds brilliantly in dispelling the myths that vegans consider themselves a morally superior lot — “holier than thou” — or that veganism is a case of vegetarianism carried to extreme, immoderate lengths.

Virginia Messina, the widely known and respected nutritionist, addresses the needs of a healthy, well-nourished vegan. Her chapter on nutritional benefits of veganism maintains the level of balance and scrupulous accuracy for which she is noted. She provides a welcome antidote to the exaggerated and extravagant promises of “Instant Health” all-too-commonly claimed for a vegan diet.

The pages on food continue with nutrition-charts, a new vegan pyramid for menu planning, a week of sample meals (plus menus for toddlers, preschoolers and teens), all crowned by an exciting assortment of Joanne Stepaniak’s recipes (61 of them!) for breakfast, snacks, lunch, dinner and desserts.

Stepaniak keeps the compass on course, reminding us that although a plant-based diet is an essential part of veganism, it certainly is not the only defining property. One of the most vital themes she develops is that although vegan living may be patently concerned with what goes into one’s mouth, it is equally concerned with what comes out of one’s mouth. If we were to treat every animal in the world with gentle regard and respect, but address our fellow humans with anger, contempt or violence, we would deny vegan principles. The core of vegan values involves not only what we eat, but a global view of our behavior — the way we think, feel and speak, the way we respond to a whole spectrum of issues that touches our mind, our conscience and our spirit.

The Vegan Sourcebook is outstanding in its forthrightness; it uncompromisingly identifies the power of compassion as the driving force of a vegan lifestyle. Our choice of foods does not determine or direct our ethical values. Our ethical values determine and direct our choice of foods.

January – March

April – September

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