Everyone knows an overly obsessive dog lover and you might even be one yourself (I most certainly am). People go to great lengths to fight for animal rights, especially the ones that we keep as pets at home like cats and dogs. Yet the same people that defend animals with great passion still eat meat but criticize cultures that find our favorite domesticated friends as a part of their culture’s cuisine.
The backlash to these countries, specifically South Korea during the World Cup in 2002 have been extremely ill guided and racist to say the least. Looking at the South Korean dog meat industry, it involves “1 million dogs, 6,000 restaurants, and 10% of the population.” During the time that the World Cup came to South Korea, they received great criticism from FIFA and were pressured to give up the industry all together at least until the games were over.
Why do we find eating dogs so repulsive? Why did many FIFA members find it disturbing and a terrible public image for the nation of South Korea? When Bridgette Bardot, an actress and activist (who pressed FIFA in the first place), was asked this question she stated, “Cows are grown to be eaten, dogs are not. I accept that many people eat beef, but a cultured country does not allow its people to eat dogs” and FIFA President at that time, Sepp Blatter said that dogs are the “best friend of humankind.”
While Blatter’s statement seems sincere and gushy and speaks volumes to many people and their love for dogs, to say the dog is the “best friend of humankind” is most certainly a westernized philosophy especially when Bardot later claimed that “French people, German people, and Americans never eat dogs.” These countries are the standard that the rest of the world must inspire to be like in terms of “acceptable” worldly culture as they are the clearly superior model.
But why is it okay to eat cows, Bardot? Why is beef acceptable but eating dog “uncultured?” Her claims are blatantly racist, indubitably insinuating that non-Western countries are barbaric, uncultured, and uncivilized. The cow in Hinduism is considered very sacred and are held in high esteem. Although not required in Hinduism, many Hindus are vegetarian- consistent with many of their religious beliefs concerning animal life. In the eyes of Hinduism, the amount of beef that American’s consume alone could be considered disturbing, but that certainly isn’t the case. We aren’t attacked for our beef consumption like the petitions we create to stop the Yulin Dog Meat Festivals in China.
It really isn’t the place of any country to intervene with the cultural and food traditions of others. We might get involved with democracy overseas, stopping the way people enjoy meals seems far fetched. I think you can still love dogs and eat meat, but that most certainly is no credible platform to become an animal rights activist. The hypocrisy runs deep when we judge culture’s we are removed from because it doesn’t fit into our cultural context, which isn’t really all that well justified in the first place.