Bull slaughter outcry grows
ALEISHA TISSEN
JOHANNESBURG - “In its capacity to suffer, the bull is our equal,” reads a letter in part to President Jacob Zuma from Australian representatives opposing the ritual bare-handed slaughter of a bull at the First Fruits Festival.
Signed by 32 high-profile Australians including representatives from Compassion in World Farming, an Aboriginal Koori elder, a professor in bioethics and a principal lawyer, the letter calls for the suspension of the ritual based on its “unnecessary and extreme cruelty, unbefitting of your proud people in a modern world which values peace, justice and, in the words of your predecessor Nelson Mandela, ‘nobility of the human soul’ ”.
A copy of the letter has also been sent to the SA High Commissioner for Australia, Lenin Shope.
Kate Timmins of London, who has created online petitions on Facebook and the Care2 petition site against “Ukweshwama”, writes: “I see what the young men do to the bull during this ritual, not as brave and proving a coming of age, but as a cowardly act of brutality, whereby a number of men far outnumbering the bull are intent on doing the most harm possible to an animal.”
The Facebook site encourages members to sign a petition to replace the ritual with a cruelty-free alternative.
“I think its only right that people respect and honour people’s rights to traditional and cultural heritage, however, not in the name of deliberately inflicting pain, torture and suffering on another living creature,” she said.
The Daily Sun’s editor in chief, Themba ‘TK’ Khumalo asks: “Is it barbaric for people to show pride in who and what they are? Is celebrating that which connects them with their ancestry now taboo?”
Khumalo goes further to ask how animal welfare activists “would want the bull to be killed”.
United for Animals’ Martha Norman comments that the “cloak of culture conceals a myriad of atrocities”.
“There is nothing brave about killing a bull with your bare hands when there is a whole mob of you ‘co-operating’ in his torment. Achieving ‘manhood’ through torture is shameful,” she said.