Slaughter ban and social realities

Greetings to all my friends and fellow humans who are vegetarians. One simple question to all of you. What would you think if I try to persuade/convert/force you all to eat meat? If I had a notion somehow I was superior to you just by being a meat eater; or worse still, if I had authority to enforce my convictions on you, and did?

Actually, these are questions to the government, especially Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, who seems to be on a personal crusade to champion Buddhism. For whatever reason he’s doing this, I salute him. I believe a country is blessed, when its leaders are devout followers of a great religion like Buddhism. Hopefully, that should keep them on the straight and narrow path.

But I object when the government takes upon itself to administer religious values upon the public or enforce their personal or religious beliefs on other religions or the general public. There are millions of Christians, Muslims, Hindus and meat eating Buddhists who voted this government in. If the current leaders have the notion it was their well-publicised religiosity that drew the masses to them, they are sadly mistaken. Or is it now that they are in their twilight years, they want to score ‘merits’ for their next life? I don’t know. But for whatever reason, the government’s effort to impose a meat ban from our diet, I strongly object to. I am made an omnivore and plan to remain that way. I believe in natural matter cycles and food chains. I don’t feel superior or inferior to anybody because I eat meat. I don’t feel others should follow me either. They are free to live by their beliefs, preferences, likes and dislikes. It should be a personal decision whether to eat meat or not. If they do decide not to eat meat, there’s nothing superior nor inferior about it. If Sri Lanka is to remain a free country nobody should impose their will on anybody else. Or, Sri lanka will end up like a kingdom, where the kings/religious advisors to the king, decide what their subjects should eat, drink, wear, go, study, drive, etc. Saudi Arabia, is a prime example.

We all eat, or not eat meat, on various personal preferences. Some based on our religious beliefs, some on our feelings towards animals. I fully agree all animals deserve a good life. What the government can do is to look after the welfare of all animals while they are ALIVE, and crack down on inhumane slaughter methods. This should be applied across all animals, not just the sacred cows/cattle. That is the wish of every living being, a good life and a comfortable death, because death is a certainty. Also we can stop animal killings for reasons other than food.

So far the only people who have welcomed the proposal are some Buddhist prelates. Going by the uproar on social media, majority Buddhists are opposed to this idea too, though they are reluctant to protest openly to it because of their religious affiliations. Please do not label us ‘meat lovers’. We love vegetables too. So I hope this letter catches the eyes of the decision makers and they will see reason. We strongly oppose the importation of meat for septic, quality, freshness, source, sustainability, price and health issues.

I sincerely hope this will not blow up into a religious issue, because it is not. Hope there’s no hidden agendas in this sudden move by the government.

CITIZEN S