Monday, June 1, 2009

What Gets You More?

Just around the corner from here, 55 pilot whales beached themselves on Saturday, as you local yokels will know. It is somehow shocking when animals commit suicide: and this was intentional: not an accident or a mistake Many valiant people struggled for hours in freezing seas to get these beautiful creatures back into the water. Bizarrely, if they succeeded, the whales simply returned to the beach - or in some cases, with an eerie determination, swam further up the coast and beached themselves there. For amazing pics, visit my friends blog Some whales died a slow agonizing death on the beaches A traumatic sight in anyone's language. The authorities eventually decided to euthanize the rest as they lay suffering A horrible decision to have to make - Everyone is horrified by what has happened And the blame game has started with a vengeance The death of the whales was front page news in the weekend papers, second only to a scandalous report about girls as young as 14 being forcibly 'married off' to elderly, often HIV+ men for the price of a couple of animals. The terrified girls were locked in with their "husbands" and forced to have unprotected sex with them while others stood guard outside the premises . These few girls managed to escape to safety - they are the "lucky" ones.
Their parents and communities are unconcerned. And will not lift a finger to help them They say it is their culture. I bet that there will be more hoo-ha about the whales than the girls. That seems to be our culture Blush

11 comments:

Ness @ Drovers Run said...

Those whales are desperately trying to tell us to stop messing with the oceans.

That other story you mentioned - I hadn't even heard it.

Yes, sometimes our culture is downright embarrassing.

Shayne said...

Having lived in the Eastern Cape for almost 5 yrs now, i've become more knowledgeble on the cultures of our staff, and unfortunately, what happened is "their culture". Everthing, even their children are valued in terms of cattle. And the sooner the young women are taken off their parents, the better for them. One less mouth to feed and look out for. Shocking, but true.

As for the whales, it's heartbreaking. But are they not telling us something? Perhaps we need to be more aware of the consequences of our lifestyle and the effects it's having on our planet.

Lynette Jacobs said...

This just breaks my heart! The whales and more so these young girls!

allie. said...

I am a pain about pollution - ask my family.
Water, air, earth - Can't stand the damage that is being done.

And yes, it seems very likely that it is water pollution or global warming but local expert (Nan Rice) seems to think that whales have been doing this for a long time, and no one knows why.

Mel said...

Culture smulture. Abuse is abuse - its not a culture.

And yes, I heard Nan this morn so I think she said there was a large beaching in 1903 (or 1928) of over 100 killer whales here! Can you imagine! One of lifes unexplained (very sad) mysteries.

I'm so not a blogger said...

It could be a natural phenomen (the whales) but personally I think its probably related to the nuclear testing they did last week, cant remember where, think it was korea or something like that. Could very well be related somehow.
So not cool.

Avril said...

So sad about the whales and for now only they know why they did it.Something seriously amiss with our planet I think.Heartwarming how the local people rallied around to help.Re your other comment about the young girls.How sad in this day and age these things happen.It may be someone's culture but that doesn't make it right!

Kirsty said...

I think both of these highly emotive topics are things that I cannot comment on, apart from the fact that they both make me equally sad. I cannot comment because I know not why they do it! No -one understands the whales reasons (execept other fellow whales - but you learnt how to speak whale yet? Me neither)
And only people of the same culture will "get" why more importance is placed on a head of cattle than on ones own off spring! For me - these concepts are mind boggling, but - I can't point fingers 'cos I'm not understanding it from their perspective!
Just very,very sad. Both stories

Jo said...

One has a voice and other not.

Kate said...

Ah, just too sad. Animal stuff finishes me off. That FB group about saving dogs from being used as shark bait had me crying for days every time I thought about it.

And the girls...I can't even imagine their horror. Terrible, Terrible. Sad that we are so used to that kind of crime that it "passes by" so to speak, but the fairly "unusual" whale case has so much publicity. Weird.
Our world needs it's Saviour more than ever...

jacki janse van rensburg said...

you can read how candice blogged about the whales here:

http://candicegreenway.blogspot.com