It is not the first time that I have heard “I prefer my dog to people”, or some of its variants: “I get along better with animals”;
“they are more loyal than men”… surely you have also heard something similar.
In addition, lately I have seen this defense of pets in two well-known policies.
A Marine Le Pen, who in an attempt - quite satisfactory, I would say - to sweeten her image tried - cats through - to reach the Elysee.
She, to such an extent, played her animalistic trump card —”cat mom” calls herself—, that the phrase
pouvoir d'achat et pouvoir de chat,
purchasing power and power of cats, was part of his campaign at the hands of political analysts.
The extreme right-wing policy was not misguided, being a lover of domestic animals gives votes.
The other has been Cristina Cifuentes, who in a recent television program stated, without a hint of irony: “I have two human children and three kitten children.
And in the vet's card they are with surnames, of course.
They are Aguilar Cifuentes”.
It matters little, I thought, recalling John Berger in
Why We Look at Animals?,
that "the companion animal is either sterilized or sexually isolated, extremely limited in its exercises, deprived of contact with almost all other animals, and fed with artificial foods.
The point is that we humans feel comfortable.
I took a deep breath and assumed that any day Cifuentes will ask for reductions for large families, and Le Pen will make his cats profitable again on social networks in the next elections.
First I smiled, maybe it's not that serious, I told myself.
Basically, in all cultures, and at all times, humans have had pets.
And I erased my smile, because the significant thing is that there have never been as many pets as in the cities of rich countries and that we have never, until now, given them the status of people.
I then remembered that, in 2020, psychologists at Georgia Regents University started a study with 573 people.
They were asked who they would choose to save, a dog or a person, if they were hit by a bus and could only save one.
40% of those surveyed preferred to save the dog... if it were their pet.
Years before, in 2015, the medical organization Harrison's Fund, surprised that pet foundations got more solidarity aid than they did, decided to make an advertisement with a photo of a dog and another —identical— ad with the photo of the boy who gives his name to the Foundation and who suffers from muscular dystrophy, both with the text:
“
Would you give £5 to save Harrison from a slow and painful death?
Conclusion?
Readers clicked on the dog ad twice as often as the boy ad.
Drift is worrying.
And no, it is not the heritage of the right, from the left in the preliminary draft of the law on animal rights and welfare there is talk of the animal's right to have accommodation that protects it from inclement weather, although the humans upstairs can't pay for heat;
not to expose them for commercial purposes, that is, what is done with a child in a diaper advertisement;
or that for him to go to a pilgrimage there must be a veterinarian, even though there are no doctors in schools.
And from considering animals part of the family, we jump, as expected, to food.
Actually to "not eat them".
“You can't love animals and eat them”, would be the mantra, or let's eat more vegetables and less beef, ignoring the fact that at the price many families are unable to eat it because they can't afford it.
And that without forgetting that agriculture impoverishes and desertifies the land and that animals are also killed with extensive cultivation...
And no, I am not going to put an end to that hackneyed saying that Hitler was a vegetarian and loved his dozen sheepdogs, a breed bred
expressly
to embody the virtues of nationalist ideology, while at the same time giving orders to burn millions in ovens. of children and adults held in extermination camps.
Nor will I remember that the first law for the protection of wild and domestic animals is due to the Third Reich.
I will finish with Marinetti, the fascist poet, writer and ideologue, and founder of the futurist movement, who advised young people to become attached to animals... so as not to have to do so with women.
Thus, every time I am reprimanded for not considering animals as people, I will remind them that it is unacceptable that in rich countries the prominence, attention and expense devoted to pets has reached such a level that it is insulting to inequalities and poverty in the world.
Do you remember when socialism was about pursuing a world revolution of the proletariat and not about hating people for eating meat and preferring to have children instead of cats?
I hardly either.
Carmen Domingo
is a writer.
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