Thoughts on livestock trades

by michaelhodges3

18/03/2014/7:30pm

Today has been a strange day in many ways.  I’ve moved to a different room further down the corridor, in the hope of not being raped by Shahbaz or Shehryar Taseer, and I’ve been staring at a female patient trying to verify her identity.  Also, this morning, I had my scrotum examined by a female locum GP who I’ve never seen before and wasn’t expecting to be there.

Earlier today, I received an email telling me about the horrors of livestock exports from EU to non-EU countries.  It seems to me that this is another one of those issues that has to be approached from a transnational perspective, in the sense that it’s about the exercise of morality within international trade through the exertion of political will.  And, as always within democracies, the exercise of political will rests on winning votes.

The values on which concerns for animal rights and welfare are based don’t fall easily into nationally-defined boundaries, with the exception of countries such as India, where the national narrative is informed by religious traditions which contain an emphasis on respecting non-humans.  Rather, such values can be seen as part of a slow and unsteady trend towards the ‘globalisation’ of norms and moralities.  In the sense that the bearers of such values are frequently members of a young, educated, (often western or western-influenced) middle class. 

There are plenty of middle-class people in plenty of parts of the world who don’t share a particular concern for animal rights, or human rights for that matter.  However, where a trade across national or supra-national boundaries is to be restricted by regulations based on moral concerns, the growth of a ‘globalised’ culture based on a lingua franca of ideas and values (increasingly transmitted via the internet) is very relevant.

I think I’ll leave it there for tonight, because I’m tired and running out of thoughts.

If anyone has any good, practical suggestions as to how I can tackle the spying/stalking, please, please, please get in touch.

Have a nice day.