In China, Dogs Are Found In Every Wok of Life
By Tim Murray
News item: Thousands of dogs are slaughtered at annual meat festival, “…where every year animals are kept dozens to a cage before being electrocuted, burned and skinned while alive and conscious.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/11689773/Thousands-of-dogs-and-cats-slaughtered-at-China-festival-despite-government-promises-to-crack-down.html
This delightful practice, if imported to Canada, would undoubtedly make our society more “vibrant”. Canada was such a boring place when the dominant British population founded the SPCA on the model of the RSPCA in their home country. Now that we are blessed with a large and growing Chinese population, we can hopefully expect that they too will copy many of the quaint traditions that exist in their home country. Surely it would be worthy of a grant.
Empathy and compassion for animals is a “white” thing you know. It’s another relic of Western ‘privilege’ that must be uprooted and cast aside to make way for other cultural perspectives, which of course are as legitimate as ours. (Canadian axiom: All cultures are created equal).
Perhaps, if the SPCA is to survive the purge, Canadians of European origin can be removed from its board and replaced by Afghani tribesmen, Somali villagers, and Islamists from Pakistan, Syria and Saudi Arabia, and other “New Canadians” with a solid reputation in caring for animals. After all, it is imperative that any nation which is proud to call itself “multicultural” be “inclusive”, and that every government agency or governing body reflect in its composition the community that it serves. According to the Anti-Racist Research Council, Afghanis and Somalis continue to be under-represented in the SPCA, a fact that can only be a result of systemic racism and an aversion to dog-fighting.
The Chinese too seemed to have been neglected in SPCA recruiting efforts, which indicates that Canada, specifically British Columbia, continues to struggle with its legacy of anti-Asian racism. Despite years of intensive indoctrination in the nation’s classrooms, many Canadians appear to be unaware that not too long ago, Chinese Shi-Tzus and Pugs, as well as Indian Pariahs and Spitz, were barred from entry into this country. In 1916, in fact, a ship of rescue dogs from India was even turned away by Vancouver Port Authorities, and it was not until recently that both Parliament and the Provincial Legislature acknowledged this shameful episode in our history and made a formal apology. Compensation is also apparently in the offing.
Reflecting upon this development, an unnamed Chinese-Canadian History Professor at the University of British Columbia gleefully predicted that English Setters, Scots Terriers and Irish Wolf-Hounds are on their way out, “Soon be relegated to the dustbin of this province’s history.”
I think we would do well to look to the Chinese for direction in these matters. . Since they have been in the civilization business for Millennia, it must be assumed that their values, beliefs and traditions are the result of the accumulated wisdom of 8,000 years. To think that our ways are a match for theirs, or that somehow our relatively kind attitude toward dogs and cats evidence a higher level of consciousness and ethics, is the height of ethnocentric arrogance. What you perceive to be wanton cruelty is, from an Asian or Afghani perspective, just the value-judgment of a white hegemonist afflicted by ‘colorism’. So remove your lens and check your privilege!
Seriously, the Chinese know a lot more about dogs than we do. The Chinese love dogs—so much so that in China dogs are found in every wok of life.
Tim Murray
June 28, 2016
