Bleeding Hearts, Everywhere

Canada's Governor-General Michaelle Jean offered a gesture of solidarity to the Inuit people of Nunavut on Monday. She used a traditional ulu to slice into a seal during the preparations for a community feast in Rankin Inlet, but unless she herself declares that she did what she did in solidarity with seal hunters, then the interpretation that it was a gesture extended to the Inuit people en masse is valid.
After wielding the ulu, the GG asked if she could try the heart and was soon offered a raw piece of the delicacy. She accepted it, commenting after eating that it was much like sushi.
Paul Waye, the town manager in Rankin Inlet, said "She was a delight to have in the community and her participation in the community feast was very well respected by the whole community. To see someone, the head of state, come to Nunavut and participate in traditional activities it really strengthens ties and makes us feel a part of Canada again." His words carry the most significance in regard to the GG's actions. Absolutely, she was showing solidarity with a segment of Canada's population that has been too long devalued. Official recognition of these people and respect for their culture and traditions is desperately long overdue. If there could be any doubt about the woman's intentions, they should be cleared up by her using the trip to further urge the government to build a university in the North in order to help the Inuit be a part of the economic growth in their own region.
Jean's sampling of the raw Inuit delicacy has many up in arms. Her action was denounced Tuesday by the Humane Society International, which opposes the hunting of seals and supports a European Union ban on Canadian seal meat. There are accounts being written that talk in disgust of her using tissue to wipe her bloodied hands after eating the proffered morsel. Give me a break, people. What would have made you happy? Did you want to see her lick her fingers, or would you have better pleased if she had turned to Paul Waye, and wiped her fingers down his shirt sleeve?
When you get right down to it, all the fuss over the seal hunt is no more than an indulgence in looking askance at the goings-on in someone else's bailiwick while the same is happening in your own. The European Union might want to take a little look at bull-fighting before they draw too many more shocked breaths at the seal hunt. The killing of seals by the Inuit is no more horrendous than the merciless baiting and savagery doled out to the poor beasts ushered into the bull-fighting rings. Perhaps the seal hunt is just a little better, in fact, given that the flesh of the animal is used as food, and its demise is not greeted with frenzied cheers by a crowd of depraved types who gladly pay to watch an animal being tortured to death.
Of course, there is a possibility that not all those EU members who denounce the seal hunt go to the bull ring themselves, but I imagine there's a damn good chance the majority of them are meat-eaters. If they are, then once again they need to clean up the action in their own backyard before they dump self-righteous indignation on ours. Until they can give a written guarantee that not a single one of the animals whose flesh they ingest has been improperly/inhumanely murdered, they should not declare the seal hunt to be any more wrong than what took place in order to bring dinner to their table.
There have been far too many pictures in the media of seal pups with their big, black eyes looking at the camera, and not nearly enough of calves (veal) staring in mad terror at the mallet as it swings toward their heads or the blade as it swings toward their necks.
Maybe the problem here is that the description of "cute" has not been artificially assigned to cows in enough media releases. For that matter, neither has it been assigned to pigs, or fish, or chicken or ... the list goes on and on. Each one of these creatures dies in order to make a meal for humans. Many of them live lives of cruel confinement before they are sent off to eternity, but there is little outcry about it from the EU or anyone else who decries the seal hunt. Maybe the problem here is the arbitrary assigning of more worth to some animal lives than others. If the Eu really needs a cause to champion, why don't they slap some of the holier-than-thou condemnation on the makers and consumers of shark-fin soup?
Maybe, just maybe, the problem here is not one of cruelty to any animal. Maybe the problem is simply one of hypocrisy.