Continuing with the same subject of my blog last week on the animal welfare law in Mexico, I would like to bring forward comments from a well-known artist of the alternative, anti-establishment art scene in Mexico City, who also happened to be a senator until last August: Jesusa Rodríguez.
In an interview published this week in the Spanish newspaper El País, Rodríguez claims that eating meat (including poultry, of course) is the cause of many, if not all, problems, namely climate change, some feminism, policies towards abortion, marijuana legalization, veganism, violence against women, speciesism and capitalism. Wow!
She says, "it's time to abolish animal slavery," and that we need to get "vegangelized." It is not enough to eat less meat, because it would be "like abolishing slavery only a few days a week." According to her, it is essential "to understand that our relationship with animals is our big mistake, and that is why we are going directly to the abyss and the sixth extinction." Quite catastrophic! What about our relationship with carrots or peas?
Rodríguez is vegan since 2004. But you really need to hear why she got "vegangelized." When the big tsunami hit South East Asia, "animals sent a clear message, because thousands of people died, but only one or two animals died, already looking for shelter." This was the turning point, "a clear lesson," adding that brain surgeons in a meeting in Cambridge in 2012 declared that animals have the "neurological substrates" that provide for awareness.
What really killed me about the interview is that "the 'privilege' of not eating animals has to reach the poor. Eating animals generates poverty." I can't honestly believe this privilege. In many instances, poor are already "enjoying it" since they do not eat (or at least not enough) animal protein.
It really worries me that only these voices are being heard, that they are given the chance to speak out loud, while, as I mentioned last week, veterinarians, producers and many industry stakeholders — those in contact with animals — are set aside in Congress discussions. It is like asking negationists for their opinion about COVID-19 vaccines' development and use decisions.
Where did veterinary science and animal science go?
It worries me that they keep on blaming on animal production for climate change, just for the heck of it. However, no mention is given to cars or air conditioners, for instance. How many human activities can we blame upon? Many. Actually all. Animal production is not the bad guy in this movie.
What do you think?
