CAIRO: We had just left Egypt's Lion Village after spending the afternoon documenting the numerous atrocities facing the myriad animals at the facility just off the highway south of Alexandria and the head of the country's leading animal rights group wanted to get some food. No big deal. We stopped in 6th of October City some 40 minutes from downtown Cairo at a mall complex. There were a number of options available, so I was shocked when the animal rights leader went straight for McDonald's and picked up a number of sandwiches. “My doctor has said that I need to eat meat in order to get the protein needed,” Amina Abaza, the co-founder of the Society for the Protection of Animal Rights in Egypt (SPARE), told me. I was more than stunned. In many ways I was appalled that after all we had seen at the makeshift zoo, anyone, let alone an avid meat-eater would devour animal flesh. Certainly, Abaza hadn't read up on the facts regarding plant-based diets. Neither had her doctor, obviously. At the time, it was slightly annoying, but when the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) arrived in Cairo a few months later to hold a demonstration to promote vegetarianism, the so-called animal rights groups came out in full force to condemn the world's largest animal rights organization. They told the two PETA staffers at a private meeting ahead of the demonstration that “Egypt was not ready for vegetarianism” and “it is against our culture.” Being vegetarian should be, and is for all PETA employees, a requirement to work toward animals' welfare. By not eating meat, we take direct action to protect the lives of sentient beings. It is the first line in the defense of animal rights. But, Egyptian animal rights – rather we should refer to them as animal welfare – activists have missed this reality and continue to eat meat on a daily basis. It is too mcuh to listen to their constant arguing for eating meat. Last week was Eid al-Adha, an Islamic holiday that commemorates the sacrifice offered to God by Abraham by slaughtering millions of animals across the Arab world. Abaza was featured in a number of local and international media for her efforts to curtail the slaughter. Instead of condemning the wholesale murder of animals, she and other animal advocates called on Muslims to ensure the killings be “humane.” How can this be, one might ask. The fact is Egyptian animal welfare groups are too focused on maintaining their own personal priorities ahead of the well-being of animals. Eating meat is just the tip of the iceberg of the miscues animal rights organizations in Egypt have perpetrated. Over and over again, our leading animal welfare – they want to be called animal rights activists, but do not adhere to an animal rights ideology – cite Islam as the basis for their work. If that were the case, they would understand that vegetarianism is not contrary to Islam. In fact, Islam promotes a plant-based diet. The Prophet Mohamed told his followers that it was not advisable to eat meat on a daily basis, let alone two or three times in one day. Arguments are put forward that Egyptian society is not ready for vegetarian, but the fact remains that the leaders of the animal welfare movement are part of the elite. And this elite believes that not eating meat is a result of not having the resources needed to purchase animal flesh. Killing is never human. An animals suffers when it is slaughtered. For Egypt's supposed animal rights activists to promote a more humane manner of slaughter tells us they are not ready to take the mantle of animal rights to the places it needs to be. There are dozens of individual animal rights activists in Egypt and around the Islamic world who rightly push for greater rights, but here in Egypt, the animal rights activists need to step it up, go vegetarian and avoid the hypocrisy inherent in their refusal to stop eating animal flesh. The animals that suffer depend on it as does an activist's integrity. BM
