A very sensitive and eloquent review by Krystine Berey of an extremely moving and inspired book, photographs and mission by Jo-Anne McArthur, We Animals.
The only thing one could add is that there is indeed something in particular that the Quebec “les animaux ne sont pas des objets” Manifesto is seeking: and we all have to look in our hearts to discover what that really is.
Everyone who has ever known and loved a family animal knows how unbearable it would be to allow or even to imagine the kinds of horrors that the meat and fur industry euphemistically call “euthanasia” to be done to our own loved ones. This “euthanasia” is no merciful ending of the suffering of an aged, pain-ridden and incurably ill companion with the help of the medical profession. It is the brutal cutting off of the lives of innocent, helpless creatures that have hardly had a chance to live at all.
And the key to listening to what your heart already knows is to question the shameful untruths that we have all systematically heard (and passed on) to the effect that we need to eat meat or wear fur for the sake of our health and survival. That it’s natural; we’ve been doing it forever. And animals do the same sort of thing to one another.
There are many horrible, unnecessary things we did for a long time; and yes, they came from natural dispositions which we share with other animals: those things are enslavement, rape, torture and murder. And we eventually stopped telling ourselves that they were natural and necessary: we declared them unlawful, because our hearts told us that they were wrong and cruel — and because unlike all other animals, we, human animals, have the choice.
Read Jo-Anne’s wonderful book, face her unforgettable images, and then follow your heart.