Whilst many of the middle classes of Iran either directly remember with fondness the latter days of the Pahlavi dynasty or romantically harken back to the days of middle class social and economic freedoms that in spite of the political strife of the times, permeated society without abatement; the repressive and ideologically Palaeolithic Government of the Islamic Republic continue to remind observers in Iran and throughout the world of the cultural clash being fomented by the Islamic Republic’s leadership.
Many of the remaining middle class men and women of Iran have taken to keeping dogs as pets—seems innocent enough. But according to strict Islamic tradition, dogs are filthy and therefore a source of religious and ergo, social proscription. Because many people in Iran have moved on from such dogmas(if you will), they’re not especially bothered with what ancient, garbled texts say about keeping a pet for companionship—something civilised humans have done to varying degrees since long before the advent of monotheism. This however does not sit well with the theocratic leadership in The Islamic Republic. It has been reported in the Telegraph that Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi has issued a fatwa against pet owners—a fatwa rife with Islamo-Marxist sentiments castigating people in the ‘west’ on the basis that we allegedly proffer more affection towards their pets than their families.
Indeed, Hitler famously loved his Alsatian more than the 12 million people killed in the Holocaust, but to proclaim an indelible causal link between a society that keeps pets and inhumanity towards fellow humans, is simply ludicrous. What a sharp contrast then The Islamic Republic provides to modern Britain, where Facebook groups attracting many thousands have started to heap reproach on a woman who put a cat in a wheely bin—leaving it for dead.
In many ways though, the West have gone too far with our ‘compassion’. Whilst pets are innately bred for companionship—a very human trait, wild animals and especially verminous wild animals are not. Humans have an environmental responsibility to cull vermin so that both natural and cultivated ecosystems are not overrun. This is why the fox hunting ban in addition to being a supreme infringement on civil liberties is also deeply environmentally misguided. Even many in favour of the ban admit that the fox must be culled so that the countryside can continue to function as fertile agricultural place. Those who acknowledge this fact, yet continue to support the ridiculous ban are therefore engaged in the same kind of violent class warfare that the Mullahs of The Islamic Republic of Iran are engaged in, in respect of their middle class pet owners.
Any kind of dogmatic proscription of basic freedoms in respect of the relation of humans to our environment is wrong . When left to our own devices, most sane people tend to get the balance between taking and giving rather right—we come to it naturally; not as a function of obedience to New Labour over-legislation, EU directives or Islamic fatwas.
In pre-New Labour Britain--in sane Britain, few people would dream of putting someone’s house cat in a bin—just as in spite of 13 years of New Labour, few people would do to-day—least of all a person as fond of cats as I am. At the same time there used to be a general consensus(outside the extremist circles of dogmatic animal rights ideologues) that fox hunting was a necessary thing for the countryside and indeed implicitly a part of the very culture of the countryside.
Now though the ideologues and dogmatists seem to be contravening the former balance, measure and wisdom that naturally permeated throughout British society. In other words, the dogmatists of New Labour and their cohorts have made us a bit more like Iran, just as Iran’s struggling middle classes would like to be a bit more like how we used to be.
As I said then, it’s a matter of allowing a humane balance of things to come into play naturally—free from dictates or New Labour fatwas by any other word. I don’t like dogmatists abroad nor do I like them at home…now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go walk the dogma….and have him piss on the grass.
Source: http://agonenation.blogspot.com/2010/08/iranian-dogmas-and-new-labour-foxtwas.html
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