Recently, an ancient town in Nigeria celebrated an ancient historically ritualistic festival that has great carnival potentials… what irked me was the age-long practice of clubbing to death of hapless dogs to satiate Ogun, the blood-thirsty “god of iron”. The rancorous motely crowd watch as gruff priests and their minions torment and torture the helpless mongrel, before splattering with a club his brain matter across to face of the stench-soaked shrine. These are modern times and even animals need to be respected. Culture, though powerful and important, must allow itself to be cloaked in the garment of modernity, which in my opinion will actually elevate it to a place of pride. For example, porcelain dogs filled with blood imitation could be developed and smashed and used as a substitute for this purpose. If the attachment to the grisly is not easy to break, then blood from the abattoir could be used to fill such porcelain dogs…. Ogun should just cool it! Dogs apart from being man’s best friend through the ages play important roles in modern society…. They deserve much more that being bludgeoned in a gruesome public spectre with the lame excuse of perpetuating “culture”. In today’s world dogs are trained to aid the visually impaired; indeed dogs work long shifts in the airports sniffing out everything from counterfeit money to narcotics and explosives thus contributing greatly to our quality of life. Many folks owe their very life to people-detecting rescue dogs after major natural disasters. These animals deserve better. Indeed the government spends millions importing and maintaining specially trained dogs for the law enforcement agencies in the fight against the scourge of extremisms. A society’s civilization is measured in how it treats its weakest members, violence perpetrated in the name of culture, even to a dog, is abhorrent. On the eve of Uhuru, Jomo Kenyatta famously remarked that it’s not only the people of Kenya that will be free, even the animals will be free. Culture that encourages violence runs the risk to self-destruct.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Dec 2013 13:55:25 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015