Be scared. Be very, very scared.
Maybe we should all stop and think now. Some will call it the wrath of God. But we can also call it the Karma. Or the wrath of nature. Maybe we should realize that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
It happened in China today, and the entire world is suffering. It can also happen to people of other regions and religions.
Maybe we should rethink how we treat our animals. The cruel ways we kill them just to savor their meat and carcasses. Some people consume them while they are still alive and are breathing helplessly their last. Some slit their throat and let the animal groan and die in excruciating pain, while the blood drains out. Just to make our food tasty. We justify our actions with religious reasons, reasons of personal pleasure, reasons of health and cite some pseudo-scientific explanations.
Maybe we should stop thinking that we are the only species who have a right to live on this planet, and have the right to torture, half-kill the weak and helpless, just to enjoy. A tiger pounces on its prey and kills it by the jugular vein. Even the most ferocious predator knows how to kill without giving it much pain. But we would like to make a tiny slit on its throat while wait and see the blood drain out. It’s in our holy books. We watch the animal scream in agony. We would rather eat a live fish, cut its fins and dump it in boiling water, and say that it gives us more nutrition. Watch it wriggle in pain. We would rather clip the claws of a live lobster and drop in boiling water to soften it so that we can cut it with ease. So what if it feels pain, it’s just a small animal, and its pain can be ignored.
We would rather chop off an animal’s head and keep the bleeding carcass near its friends, so that they can see the inevitable and tremble in fear to comprehend what is going to happen to them next. We would rather keep all the live chickens in one basket, catch them and cut them one by one, while the other birds, tied together, quiver in terror. We are humans, God’s best creation. We can do anything.
Why just animals? During war, humans do the most despicable things that my fingers tremble just to write about them. Even giants like elephants do not kill for food. Predators like lions do not kill their own kith. But humans touch the lowest rung in cruelty and even kill unborn human fetus to eat. A shopkeeper here in Canada once told me, “Take these duck eggs, very nice, baby inside.†I had run away hearing that, but most people savor boiling such eggs with babies inside.
Maybe it’s payback time. Today it stemmed from China, and no one knows for sure what is the exact reason for the outbreak. Tomorrow it can be from anywhere. Any tribe, any country, any religion can be wiped out in a painful death, like it is happening with the world today. And no one will know the reason why.
Be scared, humans. Be very scared.