Neighborly Rights and Encounters with Animals, Seyyed Hassan Eslami

Seyyed Hassan Eslami: By ill fortune (or perhaps good fortune), my place of residence is about 300 meters from the large Frankfurt Zoo. On the very first day, my host told me that to avoid getting lost and taking the wrong path, I should always remember that I am near the zoo and that this is its wall. Throughout my stay, I passed by this zoo every day, heard the sounds of some of the animals in the early morning, and was sometimes bothered by the stench of their living quarters. In any case, after a few days I decided to honor the rights of neighborliness (or, from the perspective of those who think in Darwinian terms, the rights of kinship) and pay a visit to the zoo; not for recreation and pleasure, of course, but to learn.

The last time I went to a zoo was about 20 years ago, and I saw such hateful and pitiful scenes that I was forever put off visiting zoos. Seeing listless, despairing lions with lusterless eyes kept in cramped, stinking cages was not only unenjoyable but made one ashamed of one's own humanity. Even more pitiful was seeing the zookeeper, who had once been a strongman and, by his own claim, could tear a lion's mouth apart, but now, like the aged lions, lay slumped in a corner, barely managing to swat flies away from himself. I was reminded of Hegel's dialectic of the master and the slave. In this process, the fate of the captive animal and the human captor is the same, and both become alienated from their own identity. A human whose entire life and identity is reduced to holding a whip and taming an animal, after a while becomes a captive of that very whip and animal, and with the removal of the whip and the animal, he himself is annihilated. But let that pass.

Nevertheless, since I had no experience of seeing European zoos, I wanted to see how things were here and how animals were treated. I paid 10 euros for a ticket and, amid the weekend holiday crowds, pushed my way through the throng. It was Monday and the religious holiday of Pentecost, or the Feast of the Fiftieth Day, commemorating the Ascension of Jesus Christ. The whole city was on holiday, and families with their children, big and small, had come to watch. I had never seen so many German children of various heights before, and I suddenly made a discovery. The German language is notoriously difficult and cannot be easily mastered. But when I saw two-year-old German children speaking German as fluently as nightingales, I realized with astonishment that this language is not so hard after all, and even small children can master it! But then I remembered that my discovery was not so groundbreaking, and apparently before me, Naser al-Din Shah, upon seeing French children in Paris and their nightingale-like speech, had reached the same discovery and taunted some of the grandees of his court for not knowing French as well as a French child!

This very large zoo was in the heart of the city, and numerous buildings within it were designed to suit the animals' living environments. One or two pools or ponds for seals to live in and hippopotamuses to bathe in could also be seen. Aquatic animals were kept in one place, and nocturnal animals in another. Some animals, such as camels, giraffes, deer, and certain birds, were left free in open, large, and relatively unrestricted spaces, such that they might not have felt confined—though they would have to speak for themselves on that matter. In contrast, some animals were kept in completely closed and restricted spaces, like certain large water snakes that were coiled in a pit and could not even stretch or arch their bodies in the water.

In the seal enclosure, to effectively demonstrate the concept of friction and show how seals' bodies easily cut through water, two glass containers full of water, like office water coolers and heaters, were placed side by side. In each was a piece of wood connected by a rod to a plate outside the glass, and by placing one's hand on that plate, one could rotate the piece in the water. One of these pieces was cube-shaped, and the second resembled a seal's body and had an aerodynamic shape. Although the weight of both pieces was the same, rotating the second one was much easier.

There was a building specifically for nocturnal animals, where bats, some snakes, hedgehogs, and, in short, rodents that are mainly active at night were kept. This building was relatively dark and perhaps seemed frightening to the children.

Using cameras and photography was permitted, but only without flash. This is a good policy, both for protecting the artworks and for not disturbing the animals’ peace. Imagine if several hundred people a day wanted to repeatedly flash a light in someone’s eyes and take their picture. Nothing would remain of that poor creature’s eyes. Let me mention here that regarding photography in artistic and tourist sites, I have so far observed four policies. At the entrance to the very beautiful Jeita Grotto, near Beirut, they would confiscate cameras and no one had the right to photograph, and the pleasure one derived from seeing the natural scenery was buried within oneself. At the large museum in New Delhi, India, I had to buy an extra ticket to use a camera. That is, upon entry, when they saw I had a camera, they said using a camera was conditional on purchasing a separate ticket; this is called economic-cultural revenue generation. At the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt, I was asked to fill out a formal request and ask for permission to take photographs. At the zoo in the same city, there were no such formalities, and it was enough that you did not use flash. It seems this method is the best. It both respects the animals’ condition and allows the visitor to enjoy the fruits of their work.

The living environment of dangerous animals such as wolves, tigers, bears, and lions was very different. For them, naturalistic thickets had been designed, and around them a moat-like feature containing water had been created. After that, barriers such as wire or glass, and beyond those, semi-high railings had been placed to make access by visitors to them, or vice versa, completely impossible or difficult.

Some animals, like birds of prey, were kept in large metal or glass cages, while efforts were made to make their living environment natural. In the cages of birds, monkeys, or animals accustomed to treetops, they had almost created a forest-like state; that is, natural trees were selected and, after stripping the leaves, a relatively natural space was created with the tree trunks so that the animals could be easily fooled and the possibility of seeing them atop the trees and among the trunks was provided for visitors. The small penguins were seen in a polarized, cold environment from behind very cold glass.

Feeding the animals was strictly forbidden, and it was constantly emphasized to refrain from giving food to the animals. The reason for this correct point was health issues. Because some of these animals had been brought from completely different environments and needed specific foods and were sensitive to other foods, and perhaps a chip or a biscuit could cause their death or illness.

The behavior of the visitors, especially the children, towards the animals was very worth seeing and instructive. There was no sign of the mockery or angering of animals that I had unfortunately witnessed in some domestic zoos. Everyone stared at the animals with fascination and wonder, reading and learning from the information installed next to their living spaces.

Among the visitors, the German language predominated, and young and old spoke in this tongue. A mother was showing a tiger, which was pacing in a corner, to her young son and saying: "Ist das nicht schon?" Isn’t it beautiful? And she repeated this sentence many times. In fact, in these conversations, the beauty of the animals was highlighted and the hidden aspects of their lives were revealed. Nevertheless, occasionally the sound of a different language could be heard, and a mother or father would tell their child something about an animal. A mother who was an immigrant and appeared to be Colombian or Spanish was showing her son a bear and, after saying its name in their own language, also said the name for bear in German: Ein bar! (A bear!).

Various images, designs, and symbols were installed throughout the zoo that conveyed a single idea, and that was the biological and structural link between humans and other animals, such as images showing the similarity between the palm of a human hand and a monkey’s, or a monkey with an open hand that closely resembled a human.

Some animals, like the tiger, the rhinoceros, and a very large hedgehog, clearly had no patience for their cages and were nervously pacing a specific path back and forth, paying no attention to anyone. Others, however, seemed to be living their own lives, either unconcerned with the confines of the cage or accustomed to it.

I wandered the zoo for a full four hours, covered every inch of it, took photos, and reflected. My overall impression was that the treatment of animals here is far more humane, with sufficient space provided for some of them, and an effort has been made to create a natural environment for the animals. Even the habitat for nocturnal animals is dark, or the temperature in the penguin enclosure is kept very low; hygiene is well maintained; there is no sign of animal cruelty; and an educational atmosphere, alongside entertainment, prevails. Nevertheless, seeing the rhinoceros restlessly circling, or the tiger nervously pacing a fixed route back and forth, and that hedgehog moving monotonously along the edge of the darkness, or the monkeys lying listlessly in a corner, all indicated that no comfort can replace these animals' natural habitat, and even modern wildlife parks offer no justification for keeping animals.

An interesting point for me personally was that although I had never seen some of these animals before, like the giraffe, rhinoceros, and seal, I felt no delight in seeing any of them. Whereas when I see an animal in its natural environment, even if it is a common sight, I take infinite pleasure and feel as if I have made a discovery and seen something worth seeing. But the zoo did not give me that feeling. Seeing animals whose eyes had grown dull, as if only a faint glimmer of life remained in them, and for whom the walls, surroundings, and space had become monotonous and meaningless, disgusted me with this modern cruelty. Is seeing a lion walk or a monkey hanging from a tree so vitally important that we must bring an animal from another continent, keep it in a cage for its entire life, and go to see it whenever the whim strikes us?

After seeing this very chic, clean, hygienic, and large zoo, my previous conviction grew stronger that one should not go to the zoo for amusement, recreation, and pleasure. If someone wishes to see animals, let them endure the hardship (or pleasure) of the natural environment and head for the mountains and plains. Or forgo the experience altogether. It has been rightly said: "He who desires the peacock must endure the hardships of India." Not, of course, to hunt it, bring it back, or pluck its feathers.

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Neighborly Rights and Encounters with Animals, Seyyed Hassan Eslami

Seyyed Hassan Eslami

Source: Din Online

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