We are, of course, a nation committed to celebrating cultural diversity. Except, that is, when a foreigner sits down to tuck into a plate of dog meat. Then, we start to behave like the Taliban, believing that we have the right to dictate standards to the entire world.
On Monday, MPs staged a bizarre debate in Westminster Hall on the subject of what should and what should not be served in restaurants in South Korea. While the government could not technically avoid the debate – it was in response to a petition which had gained 102,000 signatures, enough automatically to trigger a parliamentary discussion under the rules of e-petitions – it didn’t have to send along foreign office minister Alok Sharma, who held up a picture of his golden retriever and said: ‘Our reputation as a nation of animal lovers means we can make a strong case for dogs as pets rather than as food.’
The government’s written response to the petition went further, describing the practice of eating dog meat as ‘cruel and inhumane’ and stating ‘the British Embassy in Seoul has raised the issue of cruelty towards animals on numerous occasions with the South Korean authorities and explained that the UK public and parliamentarians would like to see Korean regulation that would bring the practice to an end’.
Perhaps Mr Sharma would now like to explain what happens if the Pakistan or Israeli ambassadors seek a meeting with the government to discuss how to bring an end to the cruel and inhumane practice of Britain’s pork industry or if the Delhi’s representative in London does the same over Britain’s beef industry. Just what is the moral case for saying that you can eat one type of beast but not another? That lots of Britons find dogs cute and like taking them for walks?
Unable to muster any proper answer to this question the anti-dog meat neo-imperialists resort to the feeble argument that dogs in South Korea are caged prior to being killed – so, just like chickens, pigs, sheep and cows are in Britain as they are taken to the slaughterhouse. YouTube is full of videos alleging that the dogs for sale at meat markets are all stolen pets. It is absurd. The petition claimed that five million dogs are slaughtered every year in the country. Do the moral imperialists really think that it would be economically sustainable to base an industry of this size on snatching pooches from their unsuspecting owners as they were taken for walkies – or can they just accept that dogs are farmed for their meat, just as we do with cows and pigs?
No-one is forcing anyone to eat dogs, and neither is dog meat likely to catch on in Britain. But if we want to be taken seriously on moral issues which do matter we should just accept that eating dog has long been a tradition in Far Eastern countries and leave them to it.
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