Hypocrisy hard to swallow
Choose an EU nation and there's almost certainly a bloody stain on its flag
By MICHAEL PLATT
Calgary Sun
31st May 2009
As disgusting as it was to watch, Gov.-Gen. Michaelle Jean's snack of raw-and-bloody seal ventricle was a heart-warming moment for those of us sick and tired of European hypocrisy over Canada's seal hunt.
Any foreign politician slamming Canada's traditional seal harvest as barbaric, while approving the consumption of roast beef and foie gras by the bucketful, is either woefully ignorant or a two-faced fraud looking for votes.
Our heroic Governor General, by eating raw seal heart, did more to support a traditional source of food and income for Canada's northern communities than a thousand angry speeches could ever manage.
Not that the critics will listen.
The European Parliament, which earlier this month voted to ban the import of seal products from Canada, is filled with politicians willing to point fingers, while ignoring the cruelty under their own upturned noses.
Choose a European nation, and there's almost certainly a bloody stain on its flag, often worse than a hunt that's no more barbaric than what takes place in countless European slaughterhouses on a daily basis.
Behold, the hypocrisy of the European Union.
Let's start with France, and that fois gras their gourmands are so proud of, despite the hideous method used to produce it.
The French slurp back more than 19,000 tonnes of what translates to "fat liver" every year -- it's a pasty meat produced by force-feeding birds through a tube until their internal organs are bloated.
Cruel describes what the French do to geese and ducks, but it barely touches the savage blood sports enjoyed by European countries like Spain and Portugal, which also condemn Canada's seal hunt.
There, in front of leering audiences, bullfighting takes place -- if you can consider the slow and sadistic blood-letting of a frightened animal a fight, instead of a slaughter.
Perhaps Canada should hold the seal hunt inside a stadium, call it a sport and sell tickets.
Claiming the kill as a game would be sure to impress EU countries like Ireland, France and Italy, where fun pursuits like fox hunting and hare coursing take place.
In each case, the terrified target animal is chased by dogs, until it caught and torn to pieces.
Canada, take note.
Let dogs run down and rip apart the seals, instead of the traditional swift dispatch with a club: apparently, it's not cruel to kill animals when a pedigreed hound is involved.
Or Canada could call the seal-slaughter a "trophy hunt," thereby getting the Teutonic European countries on side with the fur harvest.
Austria, last year, boasted 1,053,000 animals stalked and shot, including deer, birds and wild boars, while German hunters continue to flock to Canada with rifles and skinning knives, all in the name of recreation.
Bulgaria might be applauded for finally banning dancing bears, but that country's animal cruelty laws are non-existent.
They oppose clubbing seals, but shrug over the brutal abuse of dogs and cats at home.
Greece, at least, ends the suffering of its domestic strays with mass poisoning, or so it's been reported by animal rights activists who've watched cats dying by the dozen.
Great Britain, having banned the fox hunt, is still no utopia of righteousness when it comes to animals.
The Royal Guard, including the soldiers outside of Buckingham Palace, still wear bearskin hats, each requiring the death of a Canadian black bear.
Norway must be mentioned for the annual harpooning of more than a thousand mike whales, which suffer painful and fear-ridden deaths at the end of a barbed spear.
Saving the most gruesome example for last, we have Denmark, a truly rotten place when it comes to cruelty.
Every year, Denmark's Faroe Islanders use motorboats to herd nearly 2,000 dolphins into a shallow bay.
There, hunters wade out and attack the animals with metal hooks, while using knives to skin the still-living dolphins, which thrash about the blood-red bay in dying terror.
Add in the meat-consuming culture which dominates Europe, and what you have is a group of countries soaked in blood and ignorance.
Canada's Governor General won't change a thing by nibbling raw seal heart as a symbol of support, but she will make such sanctimonious hypocrisy a little easier for Canadians to stomach.
MICHAEL.PLATT@SUNMEDIA.CA 