A recent announcement by the Department of Trade and Industry was greeted with some enthusiasm by animal lovers in South Africa, particularly those who signed a petition to oppose the legalisation of Greyhound racing.
Department spokesperson Sidwell Medupe said: “The Department of Trade and Industry has noted continuing media reports indicating that the department has introduced a Bill to legalise and regulate Greyhound Racing.
“The department would like to dismiss these untrue reports and put the matter into perspective. Greyhound Racing remains illegal in South Africa and there is no Bill that has been proposed by the dti”.
Medupe said the policy framework in South Africa prohibits Greyhound Racing and there is no proposal on any table to change the position.
Those who wish to see Greyhound racing made legal present an argument that has been used in defence of everything from drugs and prostitution to smoking and guns, and it can be summarised as such:
“Prohibition doesn’t work because if there is sufficient demand for a service or product, people will use it and they will do so without regulation, which raises many other social ills which would be avoided if the service or product was legalised and regulated”
As a result if this argument, we have legal alcohol and cigarettes, two of the most dangerous and pervasive ills in our society, dangerous because both employ drugs and pervasive because these drugs have come to be socially acceptable. So much for the ‘drug war’ which is more of a defence of vested interests than it is a war against drug addiction. And if you study the history of National Prohibition in the USA, alcohol-related disease reduced significantly during the period in which the ban was in force. Only a small percentage of the population had access and they were connected to gangsters, gambling and prostitution…
We also have horse-racing, which undeniably exploits animals for human gain, unless you truly believe that the horses care about winning races or even know that they have won or lost. It seems hopelessly contradictory to ban Greyhound racing while we regard horse racing and other ‘sports’ using horses, to be socially acceptable. What exactly is the difference? If regulation, then the ban on Greyhound racing is inconsistent with horse racing remaining legal, since Greyhound racing could arguably be regulated.
If it looks like I am presenting a case for legalising Greyhound racing, let me state that I am unequivocally opposed to any form of exploitation of animals and circuses, horse racing, dog fighting, dog racing, show jumping, and a number of others all fall into that category.
Why do I oppose these ‘sports’? I do partly because I think the consequences for the animals are severe, including deprivation, neglect, cruelty and in many cases they are discarded, abandoned and die in barbaric ways once their usefulness to their human masters has run its course. But I also oppose them because, as an advocate of animal rights, I believe they should be given the freedom to live their lives naturally, not to be incarcerated in cages, stables, box cars, and forced to participate in contests which they cannot possibly understand on behalf of people possessing needy egos and lacking the ability to compete themselves.
Dog fighting is illegal for good reason; we do not attempt to regulate it because it’s a practice that reinforces the most primitive and cowardly of human behaviours, using an animal to represent one’s ego.
The argument that if these ‘sports’ are regulated the abuse will be more easily stopped or controlled is nonsense. There are, of course, those who will participate even when such participation is criminal, the so-called ‘underground’ practice of a prohibited sport:
http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Illegal-Greyhound-races-net-millions-20121116
BUT this does not mean that the nett amount of abuse can be controlled if the sport is regulated. If large populations of people are involved in a practice, the larger numbers provide greater opportunity for neglect and abuse and more ways to hide the offences.
Add to this the fact that gambling always accompanies these sports and you add a further social ill to the mix. Gamblers do not benefit from gambling. Casinos make money because in the long term the odds favour the house; it’s like a license to print money. So there is little social benefit unless you think the GDP and employment created by gambling is a social ‘good’. It also makes you wonder about the use of GDP as an economic measure…
Benefit to society is in any case not a justification; all exploitation of animals involves some form of neglect, abuse, and cruelty and brings out the worst in humans.
In the world of companion animals, the Ban Animal Trading group have been protesting various pet shops around the country, with a view to prohibiting the selling of live animals in pet shops, and they have managed to get some large-volume classified publications to impose a self-prohibition of ‘free to good homes’ ads. The intent of the BAT protests is to target the backyard breeders and puppy mills that supply pet shops, and this is another practice that could do with prohibition, partly because of the neglect inherent in mass breeding and partly because the overpopulation of companion animals in SA can be directly attributed to indiscriminate and unregulated breeding. Only people with the requisite qualifications and facilities should be involved in the practice of animal husbandry. All others should be prohibited from doing so in view of the health risks of zoonotic diseases but also because the overpopulation of companion animals has significant social and economic costs, not to mention the concomitant neglect and cruelty to animals.
We need to consider carefully what we reinforce and support in our society when we participate in activities where animals are involved. I always ask myself whether, given a choice, these animals would do these things of their own accord, whether doing so makes them any ‘happier’ than they would be running around free with others of their own species.
Having watched my own dogs at play and observing the level of sheer joy and abandon that simply does not exist when they interact with me, I would argue that the answer, invariably, is no.
Derek du Toit