#indigenour rights

[clorofolle]

There is just so much wrong going on here and it makes me so mad.

First off – of COURSE the anti whaler activist is white. Of course he is. He is the member and descendant of the same population that gave this boy's people hell, and he upkeeps his family traditions splendidly, it seems.

Agragiiq even tells about how climate change is making their hunting expeditions harder. When we speak about “anthropogenic climate change” we often fail to mention about how not every population contributes the same to this event. Wanna guess which of the two cultures at hand is more responsible for fucking the other over?

Then – there is the touchy topic of veganism. I want to preface with saying I like veganism (and vegetarianism) as a practice – for us first world citizen who eat way too many low quality animal products in the first place, and whose entire culture has shifted “eating animals” into “making factories to maximize profits from animal consumption”, contributing a little less on that is all in all a nice thing to do.

But yeah, here's the catch. Humans did not evolve to be vegan, just as humans did not evolve to be part of an hypercapitalist society based on profit and nothing else. Veganism feels, to me, like a natural response to a way of living that's... completely unnatural, that feels *wrong* to us because it is. We're so detached from the food we eat, only having vague notions of the kind of hell that the meat industry is (both for the animals and the people employed in it). So I get why the few people that don't try to look away take radical stances of “I'm not touching animal products again, that shit is evil” - and how, little by little, it transforms into “eating animals is evil”. What allows this distortion, I think, boils down to the disconnect between an abstract idea (killing = suffering = evil?) and the actual real world, which does not allow such black and white thinking.

But, like. Up until very little time ago, nobody but a few hyper empathic individuals would've taken veganism seriously. Because humans, as funky little animals just like any others, evolved to be part of a complex system in which they were sometimes prey, but more often than not predators. When they were not gathering they were hunting, and sharing this super nutritious food with they people they loved. Because yes, if killing another animal means you and your loved ones get to live and grow strong, a human will almost always do it. That's how we survived this far. That's how every predator survived this far.

Then some populations that had access to specific animals that could be tamed invented farming – which was super helpful in terms of population growth and colonizing other places all that jazz. Other populations that did not have access to farmable animals went on hunting, stayed small.

And now after millennia, the child of the culture that invented farming and turned it into hell and then created a counter movement that says “animal consumption is evil” is trying to give shit to the child of a culture that hasn't shifted one bit in their practices. The joke about this too being colonialism, thinking you're once again the “better population” and exporting your rotten ideas elsewhere writes itself.

And yeah, that's another thing I'm really passionate about and that drives me so mad.

The disconnect. Marx would say the alienation, haha.

While young Agragiiq grew up tagging along hunting expeditions since he was no more than a small toddler, learning first hand what it means to be a living breathing piece of a complex system, Watson allegedly was a member of the "Kindness Club", which he has credited with teaching him to "respect and defend animals".

Just look at it - the disconnect between an entire people whose lives and livelihood is in fact based on respecting and defending nature – for it's the same nature that will feed them – and a kid growing up in a regular town and being taught abstract, philosophical notions about all of this, while never actually partaking in it.

Like, man. I'm as much an outsider as him – I've never hunted for sustenance, I live in a huge ass city. But between a random guy who thought some cool ideas about what it means to "respect and defend animals" and an entire culture that's been doing just that and more for over 2000 years, I know who I'm gonna trust on the matter.

It reminds me of the stories my mother tells me of her farm life when she was little. Of how they butchered the pig once a year. And how she was sad, because she always had an unusual empathy for animals – but still it was a feast, a party; she and her sisters would be in charge of going around gifting the entrails to other families (they must be eaten quickly lest they spoil). And of course the other families would return the favor once they butchered their pig – it was all coordinated to ensure everyone could help everyone else and nothing would've gone to waste. Here in Italy it's an entire saying - “nothing of the pig goes to waste”. Every part of meat was smoked and hung and would last an entire winter; muzzle and legs would be eaten as delicacies as would every entrail, the blood was used to make a super nutritious sauce for pasta, the fat used for cooking and preserving other foods. Even the bristles were used for making tools.

There's people out there that want to claim that it, too, was evil. That the discomfort my mom felt was hinting at the fact that we're not meant to kill and eat pacific animals that did nothing wrong! Unable to comprehend pain and death as anything else than punishments, rather than... just plain events, ubiquitous in nature.

There's this guy whose videos I watch, a science communicator in the field of nutrition. While talking about the importance of well balanced, omnivorous (but still plant-rich) diets, at once he gave as an advice to all the meat eaters to try at least once in their life to hunt or butcher even just a small animal, and then cook and eat it. To get back in touch with where the food we're eating even comes from. To be honest with themselves, familiarise themselves and make peace with the idea they are eating a dead, once living animal.

I adore animals. And in my life, I hope to learn how to raise chickens, and to learn the courage needed to butcher them. I hope there'll be a time in my life when, like my aunts that still keep animals and a bit of land, I won't need to buy meat and eggs from the shops again, and rather gift them abundantly to my loved ones as well. Because, like. Food is life and food is love and every human knows this deep down. Every human can find in themselves to understand that this boy committed the most human possible act of love while killing this other living being. He gave his village so much food and prosperity. And canadian clubs be damned, THAT's the kindest thing of all.

Re-Blog to support Native hunting rights and fight against individuals who don’t understand our Indigenous cultures.