"He does not miss the first hunting day". This is the title of today SLA's (the local newspaper) main article. The article describes how the 80 years old Arne Nord from Stenstorp has been hunting moose for 60 years. Arne talks about his memories from hunting and, holding his rifle, poses proudly in front of the camera.The article continues by telling that Arne has never missed "the Holy Monday" as he refers to the first Monday of the hunting season.
How sad indeed!
A man, who for 60 years has been using his rifle to kill, has been chosen to make the front page of the local newspaper! A man, who for 60 years has been having fun by murdering, is interviewed and treated as something very special!
The relevance between hunting and war through the culture of aggression deriving from hunting, is unmistakable.
Hunting as means of entertainment and "sport", produces sadistic feelings, a mental condition where the mental pleasure of the hunter is directly connected to the murder of specific animals, i.e. with the abstraction of life. It is of course obvious, and there is no further need to emphasize how negative this coupling of fun and murder is.
The recourse to weapons and the use of force and violence, marks the inability of the individual to use reason and argument as tools for solving his problems.
After this initial approach to the huge issue called "hunt-sport", it is every true pacifists duty to condemn hunting as kind of entertainment or sport. The automatic legalization of violence derives from a quite acceptance.
It is time for those who oppose hunting and remain silent to come out and talk. We must stop teaching children the ways of militarism, sadism and violence.
I really wonder, what is it that stops the hunters from killing, skinning and eating their bloodhounds? Which difference, have they convinced themselves, that exists between their dogs and other animals for example moose and deers?
The fast increasing population of the moose is a very poor excuse that no thinking person - what about the hunters? - may even consider as well-founded.
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3 comments:
Murdering sound a bit strong. As far as I understand (I'm no hunter),100 000 elks are shot every year as a part of the wildlife conservation.
Thank you for your comment Steffe.
One of the definition of murder is: "To kill brutally or inhumanly".
I honestly cannot imagine a hunter making sure that he/she has been seen and heard by the elk before shooting it.
Is the abstraction of one or, even worse, of more than 100 000 lives a humanitarian, non brutal action?
The above post was sent as letter to the editor, of the local newspaper SLA. It was written in Swedish, and SLA titled it "The
hunting of elk is a cruel and sadistic sport"
The translated responses of SLA's readers will be posted here in the form of comments.
Wednesday, 21 October 2009
Stefan's response was titled "The hunters are important for the animals and the nature"
Stefan wrote:
The elk hunters are needed. If these people did not exist, who would ensure instead that the elks do not become too many?
We can already see a solution that other countries use in order to have enough place for their own populations, which is to get rid of the ones that try to migrate, or shall we plant more wolfs and bears that will take over the job?
The hunting itself is not entertainment, the main thing is to be out in the woods and engage in outdoor activities. Shooting a moose, is a bonus from the hunter's point of view, something that does not always happen.
The rest of the year the hunter does not sit at home waiting for the hunting season, there are so many other thing to do in the forest, to fish, to pick mushrooms, berries etc.
You, who are against hunting, come up with another sensible solution so that we can keep our great variety of fauna and flora.
How militarism came into the picture I cannot understand (distorted point of view).
If anyone, it's the hunters that look after their dogs, while there are other idiots, who leave their animals to manage entirely by themselves when they get tired of them.
Myself, I am not a hunter.
Let's start from the end.
I never mentioned in my post that the hunters do not look after their dogs. On the contrary I wonder what difference do they see between their dogs and other animals. How can they kill other animals while they adore their dogs? How can they kill and eat other animals but not heir dogs. The dog is considered a delicacy in other cultures.
The fact that Stefan is not able to see the relation between militarism and hunting, does not mean that this relation does not exist. Militarism means violence, armed force, disrespect of life, use of weapons, the right of the strongest... Is the relation still not obvious?
What the hunters do during the rest of the year does not justify, what they do while hunting, and what they do is killing, is abstracting innocent lives of peaceful, unprotected creatures, who have the absolute right to live.
It seems that Stefan - who declares not to be a hunter - closes his eyes at the pictures of hunters with dogs, rifles, walkie-talkies, tracks, camouflage uniforms, boots, binoculars (did anyone mentioned militarism?) etc. All this equipments just to... engage in outdoor activities? Maybe pick mushrooms and berries? These people look like going out to war, and that's exactly what they do. They go out to kill more than 100 000 elks every year.
If this is not organised crime!
People that demonstrate against the war - any war - do not come with "sensible solution" of how to end the wars. We see something wrong and we complain. We see something wrong and we rise our voices in order to change it. The same stands for the matter of elk population. It is the state's responsibility to work out non violent procedures, to maintain the balance in our beautiful nature, the balance we have destroyed ourselves.
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