Say What ?

Does anyone know what this is about ? Is it about the unfair references to animals in figures of speech, or is it really about humans fucking chickens and cattle ?

I'm stumped.

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http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2007/10/19/focus/19189610&sec=focus

Friday October 19, 2007

Crimes against bestiality

COMMENT BY MUSTAFA K. ANUAR

If cats and dogs are a favourite punching bag of humans, then cocks and bulls are not safe either from the machinations of supposedly higher beings.

FRAILTIES and vulnerabilities are very much the stuff humans are made of. So are grit, intellectual prowess and commitment to honourable principles. This is understandable as humans are indeed capable of attaining extremes of qualities.

But what is incomprehensible is that often the weaknesses or dark deeds of humans are associated with animals to the extent that the latter get conveniently demonised, as if to lighten the weight of human sins.

In fact, many a time, the misdeeds that we have performed can even unnerve the animals themselves. In other words, the deviousness of humans far outstretches the sinister capabilities of the inhabitants of the animal kingdom.

Take, for instance, the expression 'There’s more than one way to skin a cat’. It suggests the behaviour of an ambitious person who would contemplate various means to achieve her desired goals.

To attain these objectives, she might hatch various strategies that are hardly ethical in her yearning to get what she wants. She might backstab, or step on the toes of, others.

Yes, the person in this case is a mean machine, but why the need to ‘skin’ an innocent cat? Why do we have to implicate a lovable feline creature in this scheme of things?

And if one were to further pursue the above example, that person’s modus operandi can be so devious, scheming and loathsome that you’d be tempted to even call her a bitch.

In which case it escapes my humble understanding as to why would one incriminate a female dog for the kind of human behaviour that even many of our canine friends would easily pooh-pooh.

It’s granted that life within a canine community can be quite rough at times. There are extreme and dire situations in which dog does eat fellow dog for sheer survival. But they seem inclined to resolve their canine problems within their own community.

They don’t go around instigating, nay canvassing, an entire canine community to kill humans as part of a deliberate and official competition just because certain humans are perceived to be a threat to their collective survival, do they?

Which brings us to yet another befuddling thought: if a country is experiencing a spell of political crises, serious weakening of democratic institutions, a lack of transparency and accountability within its government, and its judiciary is suspect, among other worrying things, why is there a need to say that the country has gone to the dogs?

What have these canine fellows got to do with the above human failings and institutional weaknesses?

It is said the recent street demonstrations by monks in Myanmar, who later suffered the harsh brutality of the military junta, only reveals time and again the ghastly fact that most citizens of that country have been leading a dog’s life.

But surely, this is not a good analogy as dogs at the very least do have the freedom to move about, assemble peacefully although cacophonously, and bark whenever they feel the need to do so. Isn’t that so?

The animal kingdom is again not spared even when it comes to the issue of weather. As you know, these days many cities and towns in our country tend to get their drains clogged or roads flooded causing ugly traffic jams to ensue after a huge downpour.

Prior to that, the weather forecaster on the radio would announce: it will rain cats and dogs in most parts of the western peninsula.

It appears that the blame is conveniently heaped on these poor animals for the perennial problem of mismanagement of our urban land and traffic crawl. If cats and dogs are a favourite punching bag of humans, then cocks and bulls are not safe either from the machinations of supposedly higher beings.

Some politicians, for instance, are bent on applying doublespeak, or at least being economical with the truth, when pressed for straight answers and sincerity.

All this lying, mind you, is done with a poker face at the expense of the gullible rakyat. And yet, the perpetrators are deemed to have told cock and bull stories even when there is no tangible cock or bull in the vicinity. Worse still, the expression can even get strident, as in ‘Don’t give me the bull!’ – even forsaking the partnering cock.

Indeed, the antics and thoughts of certain politicians of late can put us, to put it mildly, on tenterhooks.

Why, some of them appear to have no qualms about abusing political power and the system that they have at their disposal to serve and protect their narrow political and economic interests.

Here is where a number of animals unfortunately come to the fore only to be helplessly demonised: A few shrewd politicians are said to be chameleon enough to eschew basic principles, and quite a number of them have been known to monkey with the system.

Of course, in this very process, many of these politicians seem to have made asses of themselves.

If there’s a lesson to be learnt from these aspects of human behaviour, the demonisation of animals, wittingly or otherwise, by us humans does not necessarily make us any holier or better than the occupants of the animal kingdom.

Indeed, we can’t always be on our, hmm, high horse.

Dr Mustafa K. Anuar teaches at Universiti Sains Malaysia where human vulnerabilities can be a pet subject.