The future is in our past -
Stephen Harper is defending the seal hunt! You could have knocked me over with a feather! You are probably thinking that the Prime Minister should be given the benefit of the doubt - and you are no doubt right. However, no amount of right thinking can persuade me from my cynicism.
Why now? Why, after all those years, are the denizens in Ottawa finally getting the message that the seal hunt is part of a wider issue? Well, maybe they are not getting that message. But, if not, why is the Prime Minister defending the seal hunt?
What will Canada lose if there is a boycott of seal products? It seems not much in terms of dollars. Surely, it's not just the loss of the sale of seal products that is prompting the Prime Minister to pick up the cudgel. Certainly no one would give a tinker's dam about the money. So why? It should be easy to come up with a cute conspiracy theory. Yet, it's not so easy.
Oh wait! There is a caveat to the story about defending the hunt. Prime Minister Harper will defend the seal hunt, but not at the expense of trade talks, with the European Union. It really does beg the question: why is Harper wading in on seals? Perhaps it's the looming election. Harper knows that he will need every single vote that he can get in order to hang on to the government by his fingertips.
Premier Danny tried his hand at scuttling the Prime Minister, with the ABC campaign, in the last election. Wily politician that he appears to be, perhaps Stephen Harper is going to pull out all the stops on this one. Is he actually trying to head Danny off at the pass? There is nothing like support of the seal hunt to warm the hearts of Newfoundlanders.
That last sentence seems true. But is it? Perhaps even that time tested swayer of hearts is losing its grip on our emotions. Remember how we got our knickers in a twist over the cod. We ranted and roared like true Newfoundlanders, all to no avail. We still can't earn a living from the once common staple, losing out to the guys with the muscle, À la members of the EU! Strange isn't it?
Yes, we gave the cod our best and lost big time. We really did give the seals our best, too. Harper's announcement reminds me of the many times my tongue has been sore from defending the hunt in academic, artistic and writing circles. It has always been my luck, or not, to pal around with people in the forefront of saving the world. Sometimes one literally took one's life in one's hands when defending the hunt. The conversations could get downright ugly.
That's all changed! One day not so long ago, in a group conversation about seals, it came as a complete surprise that the same people who had once viewed me as a barbarian were now defending the right of Newfoundlanders to hunt seals. They were telling me all about seals and how too many seals is not good for the ecosystem! They didn't even remember the heart breaking past conversations.
Nowadays, from the same people who are always so sure of their rightness, the conversations are all about balance and harmony and interconnectedness. If people can change their minds without batting an eyelash, when the damage is done, after being so dogmatic about an issue, how will society cope? This reminds me of the wonderful poem "Disobedience" by A.A. Milne, for some reason.
"King John said he was sorry, so did the Queen and Prince. King John (somebody told me) said to a man he knew: "If people go down to the end of the town, well, what can anyone do?"
People have the right to go to the end of town, but it is too late now for the doomed seal hunt. The academic elite might have changed its mind about how humans interact with the rest of life on this planet, but it is far too late to matter. The animal rights activists have completed the dirty deed of hoodwinking politicians who wouldn't know a seal from a hole in an iceberg. The European Union is locked into its decision to ban seal imports.
Give it another couple of years and the word will have filtered up to those politicians that they have been had but, by then, the busted flush of the seal hunt will not stir emotions in a single soul, not even people like me who cut their teeth proudly on the defense of our precious way of life.
Do people, whose unsubstantiated views destroy the lives of others, have trouble sleeping at night? They are so smug as they go about their business of saving the world according to PETA or IFAW or Greenpeace. Do they ever ask themselves, "What happens if I am wrong?" The answer seems to lie in the fact that they can never even get close to acknowledging that they have been wrong. Change their minds ... yes! Wrong... never!
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