from: Roy Tomkinson, Novelist
Of Boys, Men and Mountains ---------------------ISBN:0-86243-868-3
Anger Child -----------------------------------------ISBN: 97895597360-4
The Tour ---------------------------------------------ISBN: 978-1-60693-682-5
Blog site: http://roytomkinson.blogspot.com/
Anger Child -----------------------------------------ISBN: 97895597360-4
The Tour ---------------------------------------------ISBN: 978-1-60693-682-5
Blog site: http://roytomkinson.blogspot.com/
Has Egypt gone mad?
You’d have to be living on another planet not to have noticed that we are being warned to expect a pandemic, and if you listen to the authorities, on a scale similar to the Bubonic Plague which ravaged Europe in the Middle Ages. I’m not saying we should ignore the situation, but neither should we believe we are standing on the edge of a cliff waiting to be pushed off into the sea where angry sharks await to devour us.
An example to that behaviour, which I’ll refer to as “Mad Human Disease,” is presently happening in Egypt. It’s not the disease we should fear, but the reaction towards it, based on ignorance, or perhaps there is full knowledge, and the disease is used as justification to intimidate minorities, an excuse to force a principle into some of its people, which in normal circumstances would otherwise be difficult, if not impossible, to justify.
Let’s look at this a little closer. A recent YOU TUBE video clip, which brutally shows pigs being culled to protect the population against swine flu in Egypt is being watched around the world. The images, posted by the Al-Masri Al-Yom newspaper, includes gory images of helpless pigs and piglets, being beaten with sticks and steel bars, kicked, stabbed, spat at, and placed into the buckets of bulldozers. From the clip, it’s obvious some are still alive, writhing in agony as they are transported in large wagons, which takes them into the desert to be buried.
These images have caused outrage around the world, and justifiably so, from many Muslims, and from the Christian Copt community, who are the main breeders of pigs in Egypt. What is even stranger, no cases of the (A) HIN1 swine flu have yet been detected inside the country.
Indeed, the World Health Organisation has categorically stated the draconian measure is not scientifically justified. The deputy mayor of Kashkus near Cairo, Mahamed el-Mugarbil, describes how chemicals are dispensed over the animals, which are caged, resulting is a slow agonised death.
This way of killing the pigs, have also been confirmed by Ai Shaaban, who is responsible for administering the site where the pigs are buried, and he stated.
“The pigs are covered with chemical products and left for 30 or 40 minutes until they are dead, then we throw them into the ditch.”
It gets worse, other pictures show pigs which have been disembowelled, but they are still alive, which is strictly forbidden by Islam.
Of course, the Agricultural Minister denied that animals are killed with chemicals, and he insisted that they are already dead, and what is seen are the dead carcases being disinfected before burial. He is insistent that the throats of the animals are slit before they are buried. But according to the journalist, Heba Nasreddin, only some of the male pigs are killed according to the rules, while the sows and piglets are hit with iron bars, left to bleed to death, and buried when alive.
The slaughter has sparked violence inside Egypt, when riot police clashed with pig farmers in Moqattam, the slum district of Cairo, where mostly Coptic scrap merchants raise pigs. They hurled stones at the police to try to prevent their animals from being taken and slaughtered, denying them of a major source of income for their families.
The farmers are the victims of bigotry and many believe the government is acting under pressure from Islamlists, the real reason why the cull was ordered, and not because of any danger to the community from the pigs,. The threat is clearly just not there, and defiantly cannot be justified. Countless people believe this is just the ammunition the authorities needed to rid the county of all the pigs, around 300,000.
Indeed, it is reported in certain quarters that Muslims, who consider pigs unclean, and will not eat pork, are attacking Christians who mainly breed the pigs, and who accuse the government of duplicity. The authorities deny the accusation, and justify the slaughter on long running hygiene problems that the pigs, which are raised on garbage, pose to the general community.
Despite the furore, most of the eighty million Egyptians are comforted by the decision. Muslims detest pigs as ritually contaminated and carriers of disease, as do many of the Copts.. And with the panic over swine flu increasing, Egypt intends to act decisively, and to take no risk, however small. Already, the country has suffered at least 26 deaths from avian flu since 2006, the highest outside Asia, believing the draconian action against the pigs justified.
The pigs live in crowed pens, surrounded by mounds of combustible biodegradable slime from the bins of Cairo, and live cheek to jowl next to heavily populated areas, and are a stinking eyesore to many, who will be glad to see the back of them.
In my opinion, that still does not justify the cruelty, or the way the pigs are disposed of, they are living, feeling animals, and should be treated as such. And I believe the authorities are using the swine flu excuse, which to my knowledge we cannot catch directly from pigs, as an excuse to rid themselves on a long-standing problem with the Christian Copt community, and the rest of the world should make its displeasure known to the Egyptian Government.
What are your views?
An example to that behaviour, which I’ll refer to as “Mad Human Disease,” is presently happening in Egypt. It’s not the disease we should fear, but the reaction towards it, based on ignorance, or perhaps there is full knowledge, and the disease is used as justification to intimidate minorities, an excuse to force a principle into some of its people, which in normal circumstances would otherwise be difficult, if not impossible, to justify.
Let’s look at this a little closer. A recent YOU TUBE video clip, which brutally shows pigs being culled to protect the population against swine flu in Egypt is being watched around the world. The images, posted by the Al-Masri Al-Yom newspaper, includes gory images of helpless pigs and piglets, being beaten with sticks and steel bars, kicked, stabbed, spat at, and placed into the buckets of bulldozers. From the clip, it’s obvious some are still alive, writhing in agony as they are transported in large wagons, which takes them into the desert to be buried.
These images have caused outrage around the world, and justifiably so, from many Muslims, and from the Christian Copt community, who are the main breeders of pigs in Egypt. What is even stranger, no cases of the (A) HIN1 swine flu have yet been detected inside the country.
Indeed, the World Health Organisation has categorically stated the draconian measure is not scientifically justified. The deputy mayor of Kashkus near Cairo, Mahamed el-Mugarbil, describes how chemicals are dispensed over the animals, which are caged, resulting is a slow agonised death.
This way of killing the pigs, have also been confirmed by Ai Shaaban, who is responsible for administering the site where the pigs are buried, and he stated.
“The pigs are covered with chemical products and left for 30 or 40 minutes until they are dead, then we throw them into the ditch.”
It gets worse, other pictures show pigs which have been disembowelled, but they are still alive, which is strictly forbidden by Islam.
Of course, the Agricultural Minister denied that animals are killed with chemicals, and he insisted that they are already dead, and what is seen are the dead carcases being disinfected before burial. He is insistent that the throats of the animals are slit before they are buried. But according to the journalist, Heba Nasreddin, only some of the male pigs are killed according to the rules, while the sows and piglets are hit with iron bars, left to bleed to death, and buried when alive.
The slaughter has sparked violence inside Egypt, when riot police clashed with pig farmers in Moqattam, the slum district of Cairo, where mostly Coptic scrap merchants raise pigs. They hurled stones at the police to try to prevent their animals from being taken and slaughtered, denying them of a major source of income for their families.
The farmers are the victims of bigotry and many believe the government is acting under pressure from Islamlists, the real reason why the cull was ordered, and not because of any danger to the community from the pigs,. The threat is clearly just not there, and defiantly cannot be justified. Countless people believe this is just the ammunition the authorities needed to rid the county of all the pigs, around 300,000.
Indeed, it is reported in certain quarters that Muslims, who consider pigs unclean, and will not eat pork, are attacking Christians who mainly breed the pigs, and who accuse the government of duplicity. The authorities deny the accusation, and justify the slaughter on long running hygiene problems that the pigs, which are raised on garbage, pose to the general community.
Despite the furore, most of the eighty million Egyptians are comforted by the decision. Muslims detest pigs as ritually contaminated and carriers of disease, as do many of the Copts.. And with the panic over swine flu increasing, Egypt intends to act decisively, and to take no risk, however small. Already, the country has suffered at least 26 deaths from avian flu since 2006, the highest outside Asia, believing the draconian action against the pigs justified.
The pigs live in crowed pens, surrounded by mounds of combustible biodegradable slime from the bins of Cairo, and live cheek to jowl next to heavily populated areas, and are a stinking eyesore to many, who will be glad to see the back of them.
In my opinion, that still does not justify the cruelty, or the way the pigs are disposed of, they are living, feeling animals, and should be treated as such. And I believe the authorities are using the swine flu excuse, which to my knowledge we cannot catch directly from pigs, as an excuse to rid themselves on a long-standing problem with the Christian Copt community, and the rest of the world should make its displeasure known to the Egyptian Government.
What are your views?
Pigs killed for no reason, nuts the lot of them.
ReplyDeleteWhat are these people doing? Sounds they are not right in the head, bit stupid.
ReplyDelete