THOSE who practice cruelty toward animals tend also to disrespect human dignity! In fact, I would even argue that those who disregard their basic social responsibilities toward their communities and toward other fellow citizens, ignore traffic laws, don’t care to wait in line seem more inclined to be cruel towards animals! Therefore, if we wish to achieve an effective awareness in our communities about animal rights, we should also continue to examine the fundamental causes of anti-social behaviour, racism, prejudices toward minorities and all kinds of discrimination. Both phenomenons: intolerance toward other individuals and toward animals seems to go hand in hand.

Moreover, those individuals who abuse animals seem predisposed to adopt indifferent attitudes toward cases of discrimination against minorities. In other words, it is almost certain that those who intentionally abuse animal would, in certain circumstances, abuse their follow humans! In order to lead a successful campaign to spread awareness about basic animal rights, we have to improve the quality of animal-rights rhetoric by referring to recent studies about anti-social behaviour and other malignant social phenomenon. For instance, an animal rights discourse which portrays cruelty toward animals as a direct product of social or individual intolerance would be more effective and will have more enduring impacts on the minds of the general public.

Those who abuse stray animals, ill treat animals in Kuwait’s Friday market, and those individuals who run over stray cats or dogs for “fun,” would certainly be anti-social individuals who also might have the potential to practice cruelty toward other humans. The “power of situation” has already been scientifically proven to lead to all sorts of anti-social behavior. For example, those individuals who practice explicit or implicit forms of discrimination, who practice prejudice against other individuals, and who use hate speech in their daily life, would certainly be less tolerant toward vulnerable animals.
I discussed the issue of cruelty toward animals in previous articles which were published few months ago in Arab Times. I was then contacted by few volunteer human rights activists and some Kuwaiti local animal rights organizations. I suggested to those individuals and organizations to increase their media campaigns about animal rights. However, to this day, most local campaigns about animal rights tend to follow low profile, perhaps just presenting to an audience who have already shown their interest in animal rights!

In other words, Kuwaiti animal rights organizations and volunteers need to use more creative channels to convey their noble messages to the general Kuwaiti public. For instance, an animal right organization or an animal rights activist can approach MPs in our parliament and propose some kind of project to implement already existing laws against cruelty to animals.
Otherwise, continuing to ignore the connections between different negative social phenomenon and cruelty toward animals would be ineffective and it will not change the status of abused animals.

khaledaljenfawi@yahoo.coom