Personal Philosophy of an Animal Lover

(I have for some time been an advocate for the principle “Let the Punishment fit the Crime” wih regard to crimes against te animal community. Hannelie Carstens, our new offline Spokesperson wrote this provocative essay, and it goes to the very core of the Hopeful Initiative – animalman)

The problem with living as a human being in the reference frame of planet earth is that while being equipped with a mind that has access to both the past and the future, one can live in the present only.

The best thing about being trapped in a human body while living on earth is the opportunity to experience the privilege of developing a relationship and communicating with an animal. This has been my saving grace during my sojourn in this body in this place in space and time.

The worst thing about being trapped in a human body while living on earth is seeing and hearing the things that human beings do

to one another, to animals and to plants, and not being able to do anything about it personally. I find myself particularly appalled by acts of intentional cruelty and neglect to domestic animals because of their lack of power or self-determination in this world.

As a being trapped in a body at a lower level of life, an animal is dependent solely on the instincts and abilities inherent to its species. Unfortunately for them, the human inhabitants of our planet have grown ever more disrespectful of nature in general and of animal life in particular, and the cruelty and abuse that has resulted from that disrespect places all animals, wild and domestic alike, at risk of survival. Domestic animals who (this choice of word is intentional) are dependent on human care are worst off in these times of universal and blatant disregard of animal rights.

If I could have one wish, it would be to be allowed to hear cases of cruelty or neglect to animals and to determine the punishment to go with it. There are a few cases in particular that I would like to cite here as examples:

1. The two policemen of the dog unit in Pretoria who systematically beat a rottweiler to death in while “training” him and who were let off with no punishment whatsoever because “damage to police property” could not be proved. I would like to have them both put on choke chains, gagged and walking on all fours, and then given instructions to do tasks in a foreign language that they do not understand, and upon failure to perform said tasks have them beaten using the same instruments of torture they had used, varying from a sjambok to an iron pipe until they also lie down and die, bloodied and broken.
2. The Krugersdorp family who left their Jack Russell who had been badly injured by a car accident without medical care and went off to work as usual. I would like to have them run over by a car, breaking one of each of their legs and then leave them bleeding and without access to any means of communication until they also start chewing off their limbs in desperation and until the wounds are so infected with maggots that the limbs have to be amputated.
3. The Pretoria man who tied his Jack Russell to his car with a rope and dragged him down the street. I would like to have him tied by his neck to the back bumper of a car and to drag him along in exactly the same way he had done with his “pet”.
4. And lastly, but perhaps most importantly to have all those people who abandon their pets when going off on holiday or moving to another city, abandoned in similar fashion, without access to food or water and with no means of communication, left to starve slowly to death.

While realising that this is futile conjecture, and that I will be slammed for emotional venting, I am writing down these thoughts that haunt me when I cannot sleep at night, in the hope that someone out there will read them and be jumpstarted into action to do something (anything!) to put in place the desperately needed legislation for the proper protection of animal rights in our country.

Hannelie Carstens

Hopeful Spokesperson