Governor General Eats Some Seal, Big Deal
Reading today’s news I read about the Governor General’s visit to
Nunavut in celebration of its 10th anniversary. Unfortunately
overshadowing the 10th anniversary of a landmark reclamation of Inuit
owned land was the participation of the Governor General of Canada
participating in an age-old tradition of sitting in a group and eating
from a fresh seal.
"It amazes us that a Canadian official would
indulge in such bloodlust," Dan Mathews, senior vice-president of
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, told the Toronto Star.
"It sounds like she's trying to give Canadians an even more Neanderthal image around the world than they already have."
Normally
I wouldn’t dignify a quote from PETA, as they are known for being a
bit…eccentric, but seeing as this was almost a direct attack on Inuit
culture and its values, I felt compelled to retort. The quote begs
these questions. Since the senior vice president of PETA said the
Governor General herself was giving a Neanderthal-like image, what does
he think of the Inuit culture? What does PETA and its members think of
Inuit culture? Does the world really think that Inuit are Neanderthals?
Being an Inuk myself I worry about the negative press this is
attracting. The European Union and other animals’ rights activists are
jumping on the bandwagon as well.
Barbara Slee, an anti-seal hunt
campaigner at the International Fund for Animal Welfare in Brussels,
said, "The fact that the Governor General in public is slashing and
eating a seal, I don't think that really helps the cause, and I'm
convinced that this will not change the mind of European citizens and
politicians."
One sad truth is that the focus is on the non-Inuit
related seal hunt with the Governor General’s gesture, instead of
focusing on what it really was: participation in an Inuit Tradition.
Further
investigation lead me to PETA’s website, and on the front page I came
across a boycott to end the seal hunt. I read the following blurb to a
petition:
Help Baby Seals by Boycotting Canadian Maple Syrup
“Can
your choice of syrup really help stop the slaughter of hundreds of
thousands of seals in Canada every year? Yes! Tell Canada you won't
support Canadian maple syrup, a product vital to its economy, until you
can support its treatment of seals.”
I’ve always known that
Canada has had one of the better economies in the world, and I’m
confident that the line from the blurb “a product vital to its economy”
regarding our maple syrup is mis-leading. I read into it and came to
the conclusion that maple syrup makes up .69% of the AGRI-exports to
the U.S., This doesn’t even touch other aspects of our diverse economy.
What
does this tell us? Does PETA really want to put hard-working maple
syrup farmers out on the street, even if they have nothing to do with
sealing? Does PETA really want Inuit to discontinue four millennia of
tradition? Do their ends really justify their means?
I’ll put
this out there, PETA is ignorant, but so is the rest of the world. They
are not familiar with Inuit way of life, even though we are the people
on the frontlines of one of the biggest issues in the world today,
climate change and global warming. I would like to know why Inuit
aren’t the centre of, or even off centre of conversations around the
world.
Taima
Nanauq Kusugak