A constitutional mandate that has taken us back to the dark ages
Beyond the slightest doubt, we live in an era of looming and lurking challenges across all fronts and all forms all around us – including abject poverty, glaring wealth disparity, widespread unemployment, fractured outcomes of flawed health and education policies and alarming environmental hazards prone to epidemics and pandemics.
But just when we thought we had seen the worst of all forms, here comes a shocker.
The Southwest African country of Namibia plans to slay 700 wild animals including 83 elephants, 300 zebras, 30 hippos, 50 impalas, 60 buffaloes, 100 blue wildebeest and 100 elands to mitigate the pangs of an acute hunger crisis in the wake of a severe drought that has affected more than half of its population, an alarming fallout of an El Niño pattern.
This barbaric move has been sheltered by the nation’s constitutional mandate shows the abject failure of global diplomatic organisations like the United Nations, to make needful interventions to ensure that such regressive moves bordering on cannibalism are vehemently opposed and banned with unanimous approval of member nations.
As it is, seal hunt, a cruel annual event in Namibia slaughters thousands of cape fur seal puppies every year to sell their skins in international fur markets at premium rates.
Having said that, we can’t put all the blame on Namibia; that would be a deplorable and desperate attempt to escape the guilt of a collective crime committed by the world at large. The sorry state of affairs we see is indicative of what price we as humans of the planet have had to pay in the name of progress and advancement. There is simply no amount to human greed for more of anything and everything.
Our predatory instincts drive all notions of progress and development; which is why we see the maximum land mass being used for real estate development at the cost of shunning agricultural activity. Our sea shores and river banks are being eroded and water bodies are being depleted to fill the insatiable bellies of housing and construction, mountains and valleys are being destroyed and trees are being felled in the name of road and infrastructure connectivity and worst of all, the great divide between the haves and the have nots is growing by the day, which has created the disparity that is at the heart of Namibia’s food crisis, ahead of the El Niño pattern.
Can the world not unite to help Namibia with enough food for its people to safeguard the life and freedom of these precious wild animals, which is their birthright denied by humans? Why can’t the UN call for an emergency meeting of member nations? Why can’t the World Wildlife Fund swing into protest action? Why can’t nations of the world seed and nurture a relief fund for poverty-stricken countries like Namibia? Why can’t the wealthiest individuals like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Mukesh Ambani et al fund a rescue mission for the animals under threat and set up a haven for them?
Why can’t grains and pulses be dispatched in large numbers to the aggrieved citizens, especially when stored food grains often goes waste in many canaries and godowns of the globe, as well as homes and office establishments? Indian households alone waste an estimated 78.2 million tonnes of food annually.
We can surely arrive at a win-win solution, if we unite as global citizens rather than look the other way, leaving Namibia to fend for itself in regressive ways that have been legitimised in the name of tradition.
It is high time we, as world citizens, wake up from our feigned slumber and cherish with fresh resolve those virtues that make us human. It is high time we arrest the demonic disparity of wealth, income and resources which is at the root of inhuman traditions, wilful or otherwise.
Otherwise, the dark ages will come back to haunt us with a vengeance, ironically in this post-modern age marked by Artificial intelligence. What a tragedy would that be?
—Written by Dr. B. S. Ajaikumar, Executive Chairman, Healthcare Global Enterprises Limited
