NEW INTERNATIONALIST
YES: Tony Wardle is Associate Director of Viva! – an animal rights campaigning group that carries out undercover investigations into farming and slaughter. He is also a journalist, writer and award-winning TV filmmaker. Books he has written include The Silent Ark, which exposes the impact of global meat production. NO: Mohammed Ansar is a theologian, social commentator, civil rights activist and visiting lecturer who appears regularly on TV and the radio. He speaks out against the rise of terror and extremism and works to promote peace among communities.
Viva! campaigner Tony Wardle and social commentator Mohammed Ansar go head to head.
TONY
For over a decade I have been campaigning to end unstunned religious slaughter [stunning animals before they are killed renders them immobile or unconscious] and over this time, Viva! has filmed different forms of slaughter; they are barbaric and we campaign against them all, urging people to go vegan. But some methods are more barbaric than others and cause extraordinary suffering.
Religious, unstunned slaughter is justified on entirely false claims: that animals are killed with a single cut and are immediately rendered insensible to pain. Scientifically, this is nonsense. Let me describe the fate of a beef cow that we filmed being killed by the Jewish shechita (kosher) method.
The cow was driven into a cage and its head forced up with a chin lift to expose its neck, thicker than my body. How do you sever carotid arteries, jugular veins, trachea, tendons and muscles painlessly in a neck this thick with a single cut? Of course, you can’t! The knife was drawn backwards and forwards in a sawing motion – 17 times. At the first cut, the animal slammed its head backwards violently but remained standing, blood pouring from its gaping neck. It inhaled some blood, so it had the added insult of choking while slowly dying. It was still standing after 30 seconds. This case supports two big studies carried out by government advisory body the Farm Animal Welfare Council, which found it took cattle up to 40 seconds to lose consciousness and calves twice as long. They strongly recommended a ban – as the British Veterinary Association (BVA) has just done.
MOHAMMED
‘Whoever is kind to the creatures of God, is kind to himself’ – Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)
Each year in Britain, between 850 million and a billion creatures are slaughtered for human consumption. There will always be those who say (views I believe shared by you, Tony, and your organization) that as a matter of good conscience, animals must never be slaughtered for food and that there exists a conspiracy between government and private industry to hide the benefits of going vegan. Although I believe this to be an extreme view, I support your right to hold it.
Others believe that once we accept the consumption of meat for humankind, it then depends on questions of regulation, processes and our morality. Animal husbandry – the manner in which animals are kept, treated and slaughtered – and the effect on our environment is of vital importance. As you will know, our current (non-religious) meat industry has practices which are utterly barbaric; by some estimates, 100 million animals, perhaps more, suffer vile mistreatment, torturous death and improper slaughter.
Both Islam and Judaism make clear that any form of animal cruelty, barbarity in treatment and disregard for welfare is completely forbidden. Aside from theological reasons, I am an advocate for professional kosher and halal slaughter for one simple reason: if we must slaughter animals, as difficult as it is for some people, it is without doubt the most ‘humane’ method of slaughter available to us today.
TONY
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