Got the article from Phil. Daily Inquirer's site:
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20081008-165166/Great-and-small
Pinoy Kasi
Great and small
I remember that when the our Lady of Remedios Church in Malate, Manila, began to offer a blessing of animals ritual on St. Francis’ Day a few years ago, people found the activity rather novel, if not strange. Over the years, the celebrations have spread to other churches, and shopping centers, now with other side attractions like free rabies vaccinations.
The changes we see in the Philippines are not unique; all throughout the world, as a middle class emerges in developing countries, people begin to look at uses of animals other than just as work animals (whether to plow the fields or to guard the house), pest control (as in the case of cats), or food.
The reasons for this middle-class phenomenon are clear. First, there’s more disposable income to splurge. Second, pets have become status symbols, a way of boasting about new wealth, although sometimes it’s sad because the pets are there for display, but still caged or kept on a short leash.
We still have a long way to go transforming “hayop” (animal, with connotations of the wild) into “alaga” (pet). There is a law that penalizes cruelty to animals, but it has not been easy enforcing it.
Cockfights, dogfights
Our cruelty to animals is often criticized by Westerners, especially the British, but Kathryn Shevelow shows in her book, “For the Love of Animals,” that it also took a long time for the British to move from incredibly cruel treatment of animals to their present-day pampering of pets.
Shevelow writes about widespread maltreatment of animals in seventeenth and eighteenth century England, with descriptions that will make your stomach turn. There was also cockfighting and dogfighting, with much more blood and gore than what we have in the Philippines today. Animals were, simply, considered to be at the bottom of a natural order, and the Bible was frequently cited for passages to “prove” that humans were created to dominate the earth and all its creatures. Christian moralists considered dogs to be filthy, “possessed of vices such as lust and gluttony.” It’s a view, incidentally, which is still strong among many Muslims, who find dogs to be offensive, but again, with a rising middle class in many Muslim countries, including neighboring Indonesia, you will find dogs being pampered.
Many English words which still survive today come close to the way we use “hayop” negatively—insulting a person with terms like “dog” or “bitch,” for example, or using the adjective “bestial” to describe the most undesirable forms of behavior. Curiously, although animals were seen as inferior to humans, they were also held accountable for crimes and tried and punished, sometimes by hanging or burning, just as with humans.
Cities and pets
The animal protection movement in England came about with urbanization. In rural areas, animals like dogs and cats stayed outdoors but in cities, they were allowed into homes, especially small lapdogs. The rich even included their pets in their expensive commissioned family portraits. So, while farm animals were used mainly for work and to be eaten, the city dogs and cats took on a new function of companion animals, to be lavished with affection.
British animal protection advocates came from different sectors. The philosopher, John Locke, believed that humans are born with a blank mind, eventually learning skills, as well as values, from society. He warned that a child, seeing cruelty to animals, would eventually pick up this behavior and carry it with him (boys were believed to be more vulnerable) into adulthood.
Churches became arenas for debates around animal protection. Traditionalists kept invoking a “natural” order where animals were meant to be dominated by humans. When vegetarianism began to spread in England, partly because of the animal protection movement, conservative Christians declared it foreign and pagan. (Yes, I did notice the parallels with current debates in Congress, although not in relation to animal welfare.)
Religious debates on animal protection often centered on the question of an animal soul and after-life. John Wesley, founder of Methodism, believed in an animal after-life, and he used this as a basis to argue that animals had to be treated kindly.
Animal welfare advocates did bring their cause to the legal arena but it was not an easy battle. Bills for animal welfare were repeatedly defeated in the British Parliament during the first quarter of the 19th century. Eventually, an Irishman, Richard Martin, was able to get an “Ill Treatment of Cattle” Bill passed in 1822. Groups like the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals worked hard to have the bill enforced, just as we see today with the Philippines’ Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Law (which we passed only in 1995). As animal protection advocates reported cases of cruelty to other animals, the British law was expanded, in 1835, to include dogs and other domestic animals.
Shevelow believes urbanization was still the major force that transformed British attitudes toward animals. In cities, cruelty to animals was more visible, urban poverty often driving men to unprecedented new forms of abuse to the animals. Word of such abuse spread quickly by mouth and through an emerging press.
Conversely, stories circulated around bestowing animals with human-like qualities. Stories about dogs’ loyalty were particularly popular, such as the famous Greyfriars Bobby that guarded his master’s grave for 14 years. It helped that many artists were ardent animal protectionists, one of the most famous being the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and that famous stanza in his “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” about God creating “all things both great and small” that were meant to be loved. The lines summarized how religious beliefs about animals had been transformed, less debating around souls and emphasizing instead a shared origin. Humans were also seen not so much to dominate nature than to be a steward.
Our views about animals will continue to be influenced by society and culture. Note how the debates in England focused on whether animals had souls or not; in cultures that believe in reincarnation, such debates were irrelevant and kindness to animals was based on the belief that a dog may have been a human in another, and future, life.
Mass media will continue to influence public opinion about animals. Today’s print and broadcast media, with the addition of the Internet, still promote animal welfare as the English were doing two or three centuries ago—publicizing and condemning animal cruelty (like the overworked and abused horse that collapsed and died almost symbolically in front of the Inquirer office) as well as disseminating the many heartwarming stories of how pets bring joy to human lives, on St. Francis’ Day and on all the other days of the year.
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