I post this days later after bearing witness of cows in a slaughterhouse pen at Monday mornings Toronto Cow Save vigil and I can say I feel guilt for partaking in something I didnt do enough to prevent. I dont feel guilty for having been there. It was absolutely the right thing to do. I feel its right to bear witness as close as you can and that we all have a duty to do this. I keep thinking of this young, sweet, Hereford cow who trusted me immediately and let me pet him/her and she licked me repeatedly with her beautiful, sandpaper-like yet soft tongue. It was a kiss I could have received at a very different, good place like Wishing Well Farm Sanctuary in Branford an hour away. But this was at a slaughterhouse (kosher/halal one where they wont even be stunned; though all slaughterhouses are ones worst nightmare). To have befriended an angel like her and all the cows in the slaughterhouse pen and then left when I heard a worker coming to move the cows into the indoor pens closer to the kill pen is painful. I should have stayed longer or jumped in the pen with them. This is my testimony from Monday night: We heard the sounds of the cows moaning and screaming in the pen area. I was thinking tonight: Where do I want to be? If there are death camps in our community, as in slaughterhouses, then thats where I want to be and want everyone to be. When youre with the chickens, cows, pigs, sheep or fish they are so overwhelmingly important and you want to spend your time there and be with them. You want to follow them into the slaughterhouse and be there and somehow get everyone to be there... because if they were, there is no way the slaughterhouses would be allowed to continue. This is what happens inside Torontos slaughterhouses (and any slaughterhouse). The cows were crying in their pens. They had tears. They listen to other cows crying out, screaming, moaning and lamenting. They--the animals--bear witness more than we do... They bear witness the most. They go towards places where they can look and they point their ears towards the other screaming cows or the direction of the sounds... I am absolutely sure if everyone witnessed these utterly heartbreaking scenes inside a killing facility/death camp/slaughterhouse as the animals do and heard their cries--the constant cries of agony inside the pen area near the kill floor, they would do what the animals want to do: try to help each other. The world of humans would quickly follow suit and become full of people who were animal activists part time --> full time... As Pia Stein and Rara Sisboombah said at this weeks Vegfest Guelph, helping others/being kind would just be part of everyday life. For more and more people standing up/acting for animals is a way of life... we just need more and more people... an army of community organizers to build a mass-based, grassroots animal rights movement. One key way of getting people utterly committed is them joining us in weekly vigils and bearing witness up close, first hand... theres nothing like it and all the animals sent to slaughter are doing it, they just need our help in what they want to do: free others and themselves.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Sep 2014 00:30:47 +0000