Our Tacit Approval of The Evil
will make Us the Evil’s Accomplices
by Andrzej Szczepanek -The legalization of the stray dogs' extermination in Romania is a heinous crime committed publicly in broad daylight by the Romanian authorities.
Any state institutions or groups of authorities behind the murderous decision lose their legitimacy and representative character in the public eye. They can no longer be considered representative of the moral values and moral, social order our societies are based on because they show contempt and no respect for the suffering of other sensitive and feeling living beings capable of experiencing the sensations of dread, love, friendship, affection, pain and abandonment.
Such authorities who advocate criminal methods erode the very foundation of the moral principles necessary for our culture to survive because the fundamental value of our culture is the respect for suffering and for life.
Therefore, the mass execution of sensitive and feeling beings approved of by the “legal” authorities of Romania becomes a much much wider issue threatening to destroy people’s confidence in the state institutions, the state itself and the officials who do not hesitate to implement criminal policies to deal with the question of dogs’ homelessness.
The situation in Romania demonstrates that it is possible to legitimize unlawful and criminal policies followed by the state by the mere fact that such policies are propounded and executed by state institutions and state authorities. Likewise, it follows that concentration camps and the policy of mass extermination were legal and lawful because they were accepted and executed by the Nazi authorities and the Nazi state.
In this way, the state bureaucracy uses its authority to cover up human and animal rights violations. This is the kind of logic that aims at making the criminal acts of violence look lawful and acceptable to the public. The legal aspect of the developments in Romania in regard to animal and human rights abuses should be carefully reviewed by the representatives of legal profession and religious communities.
Our tacit approval of the evil will make us the evil’s accomplices. We have to speak up because suffering and pain deserve respect, be it animal or human suffering.
Besides, millions of people capable of cherishing their relationship with animals and sensitive enough to cultivate their affection for them will be exposed to enormous psychological trauma resulting from the animal slaughter.
The people have the right to love and care but the official policy of animal mass slaughter negates the right and makes it invalid. In this respect, animal rights violations are at one with human rights abuses. The psychological trauma and damage done as a result of such cruel and arbitrary decisions by the Romanian officials will have its devastating moral, legal, social and political consequences leading to the weakening of the state institutions and social order.
The question is not a marginal one but it affects the opinions and attitudes of millions of sensitive and caring people across the world who can grasp the meaning of suffering and commiseration. They are those who suffer themselves or those who are ready to sacrifice themselves to make suffering meaningful through showing respect and attention because attention, respect and commiseration and sharing pain is sacrifice.
The Romanian official policy to deal with the question of stray dogs negates the concept of sacrifice, suffering and pain sharing, the very concept that has united people throughout history and allowed them to survive the horrors of wars and concentration camps. Therefore, such a policy of extermination takes away what is most precious to us: our ability for empathy and commiseration. The psychological trauma will be immense, so will the social, moral and political implications. In this context, the decision to exterminate stray dogs should be interpreted against the background of human rights violation and waning social confidence in the idea of a state. Indeed, the extermination project violates human rights and undermines moral and social order.
The Romanian authorities should be aware of political consequences resulting from antisocial policies.
Contempt and disdain for suffering and pain equals contempt and disdain for human rights because both humans and feeling animals have the right to be treated with respect. It is only extremely shocking and depressing that the state institutions and authorities do not realize that and, what is more socially and politically damaging, the very same institutions and officials implement criminal, anti-social policies which strike directly at the foundation of social order, collective sense of security and social confidence.
The official sanctioning of the wholesale extermination methods by the authorities will encourage individuals to slaughter and abuse stray animals creating a fertile ground for a lawless society. This is yet another responsibility of the decision makers who support the policy of slaughter. The social dimension of such a lawless action advocated by the Romanian state is extremely detrimental to the concept of just and unbiased society.
About the Author
Andrzej Szczepanek (Poland), is a pharmacologist, a teacher, a writer and an editor at 'Multiple Impact'