A message to all of us: what happens as resources run out!
The Northern Territory Government has announced an emergency cull as the outback community of Docker River comes under siege from thousands of marauding feral camels… in the past few weeks, camels have invaded the town in search of water…. helicopters will herd the camels 15 kilometres outside the community where they will be shot and left to decay.
DO ANIMALS SUFFER?
koala shuffles into the newspapers
burned helpless clinging to humans
for water, just a little water
anguished cries fill the internet
little boy caught on camera
his small body washing onto lonely shore
of an island off Italy
anguished cries filled the internet
thousand of sheep packed into ships
bound for the middle east
starving, crushed
anguished cries filled the internet
whales hauled up a japanese ramp
in the southern ocean
after grenade detonation in the head
cut up and “used for science”
anguished cries filled the internet
jaques derrida asks,
building on jeremy bentham
do animals suffer?
that was before the internet
our civilisation rests
on the foundation of
“no they do not”
not like we do
we are separate from
the animal in us
and thus them… animals
if animals suffer
then we do too
as animals
we are joined with animals
in suffering
what do we each do
with our suffering?
do we empathise
with an image or a statistic
480 million animals burned?
anguished cries on the Internet
or…
can we each identify with one animal
and thus identify with 480 million animals?
what animal could that be?
only one …
the animal that is already me
no more pain is felt when a million suffer than when one suffers… c. s lewis
