The information in this article is intended to help us choose better ways to reduce human and animal slavery.
Slavery began in the relationship with oneself and the relationship between man and animal. It escalated in several directions:
- relationship man – despised man
- male-female relationship
- parent-child relationship
- the relationship between humans and certain animal species
- relationship man – certain nations
- a slave to myself, to my addictions
The way out of slavery is to start fixing the fault at the very core. It is necessary to abandon the basic idea that anything from slavery is ethically unquestionable and necessary. This is the way to freedom.
A man who wants freedom, but does not give freedom to animals, needs persistent reprogramming to abandon animal slavery and supporting that. Otherwise, the subject cultivates energies that promote slavery in general, ideas to justify slavery and motives for its strengthening. This becomes a habit for him, and eventually the boundaries become so loose that a man, for example, no longer cares how he gets cheap food… Even if by buying cheap food from Africa he finances human slavery and child trafficking, he will not give it up and buy local food instead and ensure a fair payment to the grower.
Cocoa (chocolate) and slaves
Let me justify the last sentence with a concrete example. If we typed “is eating cacao ethical rainforest” into Google search in 2023, we got this as a result: “Exploitation of children, trafficking of children, slavery, destruction of the primeval forest (among other things monkeys also live there) for plantations.” Concretely:
According to data from the first hits provided by Google:
- Cocoa farmers earn only 6% of the final price of the chocolate.
- In only 2 African countries (Ghana and the Ivory Coast), where approximately 60% of all cocoa in the world is grown, one and a half million children work in dangerous conditions. According to data from page Modern slavery in Africa, there are 193,000 slaves in Côte d’Ivoire, and approximately 91,000 in Ghana.
- Children work up to 14 hours a day.
- Many cocoa farmers are involved in child trafficking and child slavery.
- Cocoa can be grown in a way that preserves fertile soil, but most farmers use methods that lead to soil erosion and deforestation. In West Africa, where most cocoa is grown, 70% of illegal deforestation is related to cocoa production.
When buying chocolate whose cocoa comes from such countries, many people do not know what they are financing. But even if someone finds out… what will he change when and only if he has the justification of slavery rooted in his mentality? He will probably find an excuse and continue to co-finance such a situation. Other options:
- He could give up cocoa products if there is a strong likelihood that he is thereby supporting slavery.
- He could buy more expensive cocoa from verified sources that ensure fair payment to workers (not just to cocoa estate owners) and forest conservation.
Make an experiment. Check what the situation is, pass this info on to your friends who eat cheap chocolates from stores, and watch for the next time you see them eating ordinary chocolate from the store, whose cacao was collected and prepared by human slaves.
“Even animals eat meat, eating meat is natural”
Killing for food is also present in the animal world. Yes, but animals are not slaves to animals. No predator in form of an animal has its prey enslaved for the lifetime of the prey. Killing animals for food and slavery are two concepts that have nothing to do with each other. Animal slavery is a form of violence that usually lasts from its birth to its death. The execution of animals is very fast.
Industrial animal husbandry (and sometimes some other forms) is very often a severe form of enslavement and theft of:
- the right to free movement;
- the right to natural fertilization;
- the right to care for one’s own cub until it reaches maturity;
- the right to the genuine option of the evolution of the species;
- the right to explore, play, experience the natural environment with all natural phenomena;
- the right to choose a male / female.
Industrial animal husbandry looks like this:
Benefits of slavery?
There are people who think about the benefits of slavery and think that slavery led to a higher level of human development. Slavery has no merit for progress in development. Hard work, organization, higher consciousness,… has it. Of course, hard work can also be motivated by slavery, but there are better methods. Motivation from inspiration / faith / trust / love… is better than motivation from fear and coercion.
Animals as pets
Animals are abused in slavery even at the expense of feeding pets, although they could be fed without the enslavement and lifelong abuse of other animals.
Many people give up meat in order to reduce animal abuse, but then they get e.g. cat and feeds it daily with more meat from abused animals than humans eat. To actually reduce slavery, it is necessary to ensure that other animals are not enslaved and abused from birth to death at the expense of feeding pets.
For example, in today’s Slovenian “culture”, a cat usually eats 100 g or more of the meat of abused animals per day. If cat ate only chickens, this would amount to approx. 24 abused chickens a year, or over 300 abused chickens per lifetime of 1 cat. If cat ate only veal, this would amount to approx. 7 lifelong abusing of calves for the lifetime of 1 cat. In principle, every purchased can of meat food for animals contains not only scraps, but also the meat of a lifelong abused animals. Any purchase of meat and meat scraps from such abused animals is a direct financial support for the continuation of animal slavery and such animal abuse.
Fairer solutions for feeding pets exist and have existed since time immemorial. Some of these are listed in the post Bad and Good (or Better) Animal Husbandry and Treatment Practices article (Slovenian version only).
Into the freedom.
