The news that Cecil the lion had been killed brought indignation amongst the internet's morality police and free-thinkers alike and rightly so. Luring an animal from safety, brutally wounding the beast and trailing it for over 40 hours, as it did its very best to get away from the savage trophy hunters, deserves a reaction. Using nothing to defend itself but its own natural instincts, the 14-year-old king of the jungle was eventually killed by firearm. Mistreated, he was forced to endure an agonising and torturous death, bereft of any sentiment at human hands and rationality.
Uproar and indignation at this tragedy is an adequate response. But why? Why now? Why is the death of a lion so publicised and part of the zeitgeist? Millions of animals, including many lions, die on a regular basis, most of which at human hands. So why does Cecil's unjust end reserve particular criticism? One word: celebrity.
Cecil was about as well-known as a lion can get having featured on television, on news stories and in a particularly poignant Louis Theroux documentary on hunting from 2007. People feel this need to familiarise themselves with people and things and to grow an attachment with them for no other reason than to feel that attachment - it's human nature. The problem is that we attach aspiration to this admiration. We aspire to dress/live/look like the Kardashians. We want to be able to have the wedding just like Michelle Keegan had, caked in fake bake and all. We want to live in the Big Brother house and voyeuristically put ourselves into that confinement, wondering what we would do in those moments of high drama.
Celebrity and a need to emulate have overtaken our basic desires and have stunted our creativity, restricting human interaction on a meaningful level and have propelled our perceived relationship with those on the screen above those with whom we can actually share a life and a conversation.
We wanted to meet Cecil and to feed him, to pet him and to become his friend. We loved Cecil and while this in itself is understandable; he was a beautiful and unadulterated creature, he was not ours to use and if the affection lies with animal kind then we are, above all else, hypocrites. Why do we mourn the loss of an animal we knew only through the testimony of others above the ones that we abuse every single day?
The very symbol of the animal kingdom dying at our hands for sport is a tragedy but this happens every single day. There was a Cecil on your plate at lunch time and there was a Cecil on your plate for dinner. Your shoes, jacket and belt are made of a Cecil. Your cereal floats in milk made for Cecil's offspring. Your car is trimmed with Cecil's skin. Your perfume and make up have been sprayed into the eyes of Cecil to see what effect it will have on you. "But they were not lions", you may say. The difference between the death of a lion and the death of a cow, pig or lamb? Education and empathy.
Before you chastise a heartless Minnesota dentist for doing something horrendous, inhumane and unnecessary, remember that the very same thing happens every day in your name, to give your life luxury. Horrendous, inhumane and unnecessary luxury.
There are those, lacking in subject knowledge that will claim there is a difference between the hunter and the casual meat-eater. Indeed there is; the hunter understands and witnesses the horrors whereas the closed doors of the abattoir save our poor eyes from the suffering our torturees are forced to endure for our seemingly endless quick fixes of hunger and fashion sense. This is the very definition of unnecessary.
The difference between Cecil the lion and the countless Cecils that are tortured and killed for you? Critical thinking.
Never accept the world with which you are presented.
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