Monday 15 April 2013

Animal Guilt Still Alive! Is Human Conscience too?


It so happened that a few days back my dad was watching a documentary on Animal Planet about a lioness in a zoo who had given birth to a bunch of cubs recently. The flesh tearing carnivorous mammal had attacked a deer or buffalo female who was expecting. The prey gave birth to its offspring while she was being attacked. The lioness out of guilt of turning an innocent new born animal into an orphan took it along and cared for it for several years. Fed it, nourished it, and blessed it with motherly love. The deer’s (or buffalo’s) kid now plays with the cubs.

The deer’s kid got a home. Did a human orphan ever? We’ve killed people, rendered them shelterless, fatherless and hopeless in this world at the mercy of other barbarians, who if won’t kill them will take full advantage of them, turn them into beggars who will be drugged throughout their lives, barter them off for good like they’re objects, pull out their organs and sell them off to make money or rape the orphan shelterless girl who later would be accused of Zina and sentenced to stoning. And most of us even while not killing them are playing a part in this injustice. When we choose to not even condemn such things, we let these barbarians continue with their inhumane acts and let them butcher our people. Is our conscience dead? Are we any better than those murderers? Perhaps! But we certainly are worse off than a carnivorous flesh devouring lioness, who will shadow an animal that its cubs and itself can most certainly feast on, but chooses not to.