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| Dogs cooked alive in China |
Today’s economic giant China has places where dogs are baked alive. For any civilized individual, it would be hard to find the right words for this practice, for it is so terrifyingly wrong that the worst term one could think of would be too tame to express this horror of horrors.
The practice of cooking dogs while they are alive is being reported occasionally in China. Last year, Green Prophet published a story on stray dogs being cooked alive in Eastern China. The post had photos of a small homeless puppy being lured toward a woman who was shown in the next photo to be holding the dog by its neck in tongs and cooking it over fire.
A post in the Data Lounge noted that this kind of cooking, which obviously is extremely cruel, dates back thousands of years in Chinese history – a kind of culinary tradition. The Eastern Chinese city of Kengkou is particularly infamous for this, as the photos of the story making the news were taken from there. But the practice exists, as a sore on the burdened existence of insensitive human hunger.
The writer of the Data Lounge Post rightly noted that while in places where consuming dogs for food is taboo, such practice indeed sounds cruel. Yet, when thought over in the context of all the animal bloodshed and cruelty to animals in the west and other parts of the world, it will become a bit difficult to condemn the Chinese alone for what they do to dogs. In a world where a living, breathing animal, capable of feeling pain and emotions and as much part of our natural scene as any human, how can we overlook what happens to cattle, pigs, poultry, and other animals and still say that we condemn cruelty to animals in China.
In this global drama of senseless slaughter, animals are conveniently made “source of protein” to justify the massacre. Burning dogs alive for food in China is again a reminder that we need to stop now – even now if we could – because life is rotting in our furnace of ignorance.
Folks who are outraged about the practice of cooking dogs alive are urged to request President Obama to raise the issue with China. or to sign one of the petitions available that ask people to publicly raise an outcry against the heinous practice of cooking dogs alive.
In a world where humanitarian issues are important, how man treats his animals is an important criteria in the manner in which one looks at life. While some believe eating dogs is a usual cultural practice, and therefore China, one of these places, might continue its traditions; it is possible to find an enlightened way to serve one's appetite and not indulge in the kind of cruelty practiced against dogs.
