Innocent Cruelty: The Poverty of Our Culture of Animal Treatment

Dr. Seyyed Hassan Eslami: Now, as I review the brilliant record! of my childhood and adolescence, I see that it includes the experience of killing, or participating in the killing of, at least two or three snakes, a cat, several sparrows and pigeons, ten to twenty lizards, spiders, scorpions, and countless other insects. Some of these killings were unintentional and sudden, and occasionally perhaps out of necessity. But the majority of them were conscious and born of an effort to entertain myself, considered a kind of pastime.

Of course, do not jump to the conclusion that I was a cruel person. No, apparently in those days, when there was little news of electronic toys and today's healthy and unhealthy amusements, this was a cost-free way to entertain oneself and fill the seemingly endless hours of childhood and adolescence. Children more or less had this pathological habit of amusing themselves by killing or dismembering animals. Even the elders, who supposedly had more sense, were no less involved in this than we were. There were those who would catch a cat. They would select a walnut, extract its kernel without breaking the shell, then pour some hot tar into the walnut shell, place the cat's paw into it, and release it. The cat's helplessness and inability to climb stairs, and its bewildered staggering, were a source of amusement and laughter for these wise elders. If they were a bit kinder, they would tie a metal can or a bucket to a dog's neck, release it, and laugh at the struggling animal's efforts.

I remember one of the elders, who also had some knowledge of religious sciences, bravely caught a mouse. He skillfully pressed the back of the mouse's neck until its mouth opened. Then he stubbed out the cigarette he had on his lips (instead of, as Sepehri says, "offering it to the darkness of the sands") on the mouse's tongue. Throughout all this, he took pleasure in the mouse's writhing and squealing and laughed. The mystery of what pleasure that late person derived from this act remains unsolved for me. But apparently, he did derive pleasure; otherwise, a sensible person, especially one who is also the noblest of creatures, would not do something futile.

Even children with a religious upbringing were not free from this innocent cruelty. A clear example is Shams Langroudi, who, despite all his poetic spirit that says: "Do not kill the dragonflies, gentlemen," speaks of his earliest childhood memories like this:

After lunch, everyone was asleep, and the silence was so palpable you could touch it, and we would go into the yard, catch lizards, tear off their tails, bury them in a hole, and believe that it brought "luck" and that we would surely get some money soon.

Sometimes these cruelties took place before the eyes of the elders, with their consent or at least their silence. I am now astonished that we were children and foolish, but why did these elders not say anything? The main point is that at that time, almost no formal or informal education was given to us as a point of upbringing regarding the treatment of animals. I usually participated in most religious ceremonies and rituals, from congregational prayers to mourning ceremonies and the supplications of Nudbah, Simat, and Tawassul, and essentially, part of my mischief, and that of others like me, took place in these very gatherings, and I learned and memorized various historical, literary, and fictional stories, including the story of Za'far the Jinn, in these very gatherings. But I never remember anyone teaching me a single sentence about conduct towards animals or saying it from the pulpit. Of course, some literate elders, whose generation is not yet completely extinct, would always quote a sentence from the Holy Prophet (PBUH) who said: "Kill the harmful creature before it causes harm."

But none of us thought to ask those adults, then why did God create all these vermin in the first place? What kind of act is it that God creates beings and then we kill them without any crime or offense? Is this not an instance of a "futile" act? Has God not called Himself Wise, and has He not said that We did not create anything in vain or for sport? Is it not emphasized in the very Quran revealed to this Prophet that all moving creatures and birds are "communities" like us, and that nothing has been neglected in the Book of existence? And finally, why did God command Noah to take a pair of every animal and place them on the Ark, making no distinction in this action between harmful and harmless animals?

Neither did we children have the wit to ask these questions, nor the courage to pose them, nor did those adults have enough sense to reflect a little and perceive the intellectual, theoretical, and behavioral gaps they harbored. Anyway, years passed. Gradually, I read and read and read, and I was astonished to see how much emphasis our religious tradition places on proper conduct and behavior toward animals, and how, despite its anthropocentric perspective, all living beings on earth are introduced as God's creations and "servants." For example, in one narration, Imam Sadiq recalls a devout worshipper among the Children of Israel who spent his entire life immersed in worship and paid no attention to people. One day, while praying, his eyes fell upon two young boys who had seized a rooster and were plucking its feathers. The devout man, heedless of their act, continued his worship. God caused the earth to swallow him up because of this cruelty and indifference. Again, in our religious tradition, it is narrated that the Prophet said: A woman imprisoned a cat and denied it food and water, and for this reason, she became destined for Hell. Incidentally, some jurists, citing hadiths of this kind, have deemed killing a cat, even if it causes nuisance, to be forbidden.

Here, I do not wish to re-enter the theoretical and scholarly debate on the treatment of animals. I have raised this discussion elsewhere. Someone might, in turn, cite hadiths that permit certain behaviors toward animals, or some might justify their claims by asserting human superiority. My aim here is to emphasize this point: in childhood, we treated animals so heartlessly, as if we were striking one stone against another, intending to pulverize it. We had no sensitivity or concern for our actions, and no one taught us that this was wrong. Nor did I ever hear from any pulpit—I personally never heard—anyone teach us children how to treat animals, not to consider them, in Shamloo's words, "a stone-shard in a child's palm," but rather to regard them as beings with a right and a share to live.

Now, when I see that fewer children behave as we did, I am gladdened. But when I hear and see that a few adults, having reached the age of reason, bludgeon a donkey to death with a sledgehammer for fun or tear open the bellies of bear cubs, I wonder: what pleasure is there in this act? Are these not sick individuals who, tomorrow, with the same cold-bloodedness, will kidnap the innocent children of this country and kill them for ransom? Those three kidnappers who, in Mehr of 1393, took a 12-year-old girl hostage in the city of Bonab, and after two days strangled her and buried her in a pit in the yard of a house, had probably done the same thing to other animals before and had learned their lesson well.

Also, when I read that educated people and university graduates protestingly ask whether a chicken can understand "pain," and whether an animal has a "soul," I worry less about them and more about the children these individuals are going to raise and deliver to society. Even more worrying is that some of these people fundamentally consider such words to be mere heartfelt outpourings arising from tender-heartedness, sentiment, and moral sentimentalism, and they laugh at them. Shamloo, in a critique of Sepehri's poetry and his spirit, said in an interview: "In a place where they lay an innocent person's head by the stream and cut it off, for someone to stand two steps away and say: 'Don't muddy the water!' In my view, one of us two is out of touch [...] Poetry must be a trumpet, not a lullaby."

The difficulty of our task is that we analyze cruelty solely at the human level and show sensitivity towards it, imagining that it must be resolved from the top down and gradually encompass other beings as well. But we forget that hard-heartedness and cruelty begin with small and tiny creatures, and when moral numbness intensifies, it reaches humans. When we become accustomed to killing dogs, cats, foxes, and spiders, we will gradually take "killing" lightly, regardless of what or whom its object is, and regardless of what or to whom this act is done. Kant, while not granting animals moral status, condemned violence and cruelty towards animals precisely with this same analysis.

 Goethe, in a poem, beautifully expresses a feeling rarely seen in us:

One day I stepped on a spider's head

And thought to myself, was that right?

And had God not willed that he too, like me,

Should share in the blessing of this day?

In our formal and informal education, there was no attention to the environment and animals. It is hoped that our children will not be deprived in this way, that they will gain a proper understanding of themselves and their place, and be kinder to animals.

.

---

.

 Innocent Cruelty: The Poverty of Our Culture of Animal Treatment