Human Relationship with Animals: How Capitalism & Love for Money Killed our Care & Love for Animals!

Capitalism and modern-day obsession with numbers and quantity stole away the human love and relationship with animals. I have, in my previous work, illustrated how capitalism and our obsession with quantity has killed human relationships, sex, beauty, and sports. In today’s short thought, I argue that money and our obsession with quantity has killed the love or relationship we shared with animals (cows, dogs, goats, chicken, etc).

And, while animals are being hurt, man is a big loser in this! Problem is 21st century man can’t understand any other loss except money! For example, meat eating accounts for 60% of green gas emissions, and thus planet’s increased hotness!

Of course, historically, for the past 2 million or more years, man has been eating meat. Man and Meat-eating is a discussion of another day. And, it seems, eating meat is actually part of who we are as humans. Nevertheless, in today’s article, I am simply concerned with daily mistreatment of animals, even when they are indeed meant for slaughter! Importantly, in some aspects, animals are meant to be eaten.

Human Relationship with Animals in the Past!

In the past, a cow or a dog at home was like another person. All animals, including rats and wild dove seemed so close, fond of us, knowing that we truly cared about them.

In my young age, I remember, we wouldn’t run after a chicken if we wanted to catch it. We would simply call it. Goats would listen to language. Dogs were the closest. When I cried, our home dog would truly and literally cry with me. Cows would drink and eat from our hands, and ensure they didn’t bite us. I remember, we used to put our hands in the mouths of sheep, goats, cows, and even dogs, and they wouldn’t bite us.

You would leave a baby with a dog. And the dog would take care of all his security. When shepherding tens of cows or goats, a dog would stand on the other side as a shepherd stands this side, and would instructively talk to fellow animals whenever they tried crossing over to danger zones or other people’s gardens.

Snakes would crawl around babies without harming them or even be under our beds during sleep, and not hurting anyone. It wasn’t a wonder if a snake was found in a room.

Animals were lovely. They were friendly. I may not tell a lot about wild animals, but home or domestic animals were indeed domestic.

And do you know why?

Relationship with animals: Animals can feel our care!

Because we cared. We truly loved them. Our chicken at home was like mom’s other baby. We would even go extra miles to collect special grass for our goats. Or take sheep with us during harvesting to ensure they ate the fresh leftovers. And everywhere we went, we went with our animals. I remember we would feed our sheep on bean soup every time we cooked beans. The soup is called ‘Amarongorerwa’.

I remember going to fetch water with our young sheep. They were two, beautiful, lovely, and so much humanly. They loved following us, to the kitchen, garden or water wells.

Commercial farming takes away human relationship with animals

But alas! Money came. Commercial agriculture and farming set it. Love for animals diminished. And we started looking at every animals through the eyes of money and prosperity. When we feed them, they can sense the cruelty in our hands. They know very well that our caring isn’t about them anymore, but about the coins we will have when we sell them or when we slaughter them!

Current research already shows that humans are the top predators that animals fear, even more than predators like lions. See here and here.

Today’s people have a way to multiply animals in numbers or make them fat over days using unthinkable drugs and herbs, without minding about the pain, the hurt those animals go through with such drugs or even what fellow humans shall suffer after eating such meat! Research shows that stressed out animals produce dangerous meat that shouldn’t be consumed! And capitalism calls it modern farming, human development.

Animal transportation and slaughter is being done the wrong way!

Sometimes, I come across these cars transporting cows from Ankole to Kampala abattoirs, and I want to cry!

Someone gets a lovely cow and ties it by both legs and neck onto a very rusty and hurting car pole, and drives the animal for hours on bad roads, without feeding the animal or giving it any water. Some animals have their legs hanging outside the car board. Some have their  neck tied wrongly, outside the car board boundaries.

What happened to love and care for animals, not for any reason (money or meat), but just for their existence and their relationship with us?

You see, sometimes, I look at humans complaining that life isn’t delivering the good things they deserve, and I ask myself, do we really deserve any good? How can a being that is so cruel, cruel as a man is, ever deserve any mercy? From which God? Our cruelty and determination to sacrifice everything, including loved ones, relationships, beauty, honesty and integrity, and all things good, just for money can easily be seen in how we currently treat animals.

READ THIS: God had actually asked us to take care of nature

And I am not talking against eating animals. Actually, there can be dignity and caring even for animals that will end up filling our stomachs! And, save for planet savers advocating for our complete withdraw from eating meat, the world would likely fall into crisis if we obeyed at once! However, like I have already emphasized, there is always a humanly way to do things, to eat animals!

We have become too harsh to nature to expect anything good from it.

Nature will retaliate! It’s already doing so!

So, get ready, for nature will punish us, without holding back! And if your relationship with animals is still guided by how much and how many, just know hell is coming! You may point fingers at others for murdering humans, stealing public funds, or suffocating children with poor education, but, in your own way, you too are a murderer. A cruel son of a bi..h.

Good evening! #MiklahLife on the Move. Visit www.miklahlife.com today. Thank you.