Guest guest Posted March 28, 2002 Report Share Posted March 28, 2002 ok .. i have conferred with my assistant, Dhondup Samten, a Nepalese born Tibetan... he says that moving to a new location in order to avoid killing animals would be inconceivable... and killing animals for nomadic people is unavoidable... there are about 6 million tibetans... 50% are village based and are agricultural... they grow barley, and some other grains... a little spinach is also grown but it does not survive well in the climate... Rhubarb grows magnificently to the height of 30 feet or so tall ... but it is not really edible... and was exported for it's medicinal properties... [rhubarb found it's way down to Turkey where the British imported it from... however they could not replicate the medicinal potency of the Tibetan-grown rhubarb - this was later to be found because only rhubarb grown at the height of the Tibetan plateau (and Andean?) has such potent properties...] the other 50% Tibetans are nomadic... that's about 3 million nomads... now Tibet is about the size of mainland Europe... so there is lots of space... but most of it is uncrossable and wild mountainous land... in the day the heat can rise to that of Saudi Arabia (same lattitude) and at night the temperatures are below freezing... travelling from village to village could take several months... my assistant says that Tibetans regard life as sacred (they are mainly Buddhist)... but they do recognise that they need to kill yaks for food (no one is allowed to kill dogs in Tibet.. there are many running wild in the towns eating food etc... but they cannot be killed... they also can't feed dead people to dogs... only to vultures...) ... when they kill a yak they feel sad... and they mourn the death... it is like, he said, they are a bright white shirt getting dirty (= having done something they see as wrong) and that shirt then has to be cleaned... by feeding some meat to vultures... giving some back to the land... by doing something good... (and this is the idea behind karma...) i think if i was on a boat... and i had to eat fish to survive... i would feel sad if i had to kill the fish... i think i would find a way to make it up to the world... actually... i'd probably end up going mad... and i'd be asking the fish that if they didn't mind dying then would they like to jump in the boat and die naturally... if they can't decide then swim about under the boat ... (give them warning...) and any fish swimming there might die for me to eat... i'd talk to them a lot ... we'd have to come to a mutual agreement... i'd let them nibble my fingers in return... :-) Z > Not taking more than you need is hardly fair on the animals > killed for the Tibetans. Why isn't it true that those animals must > survive that were killed because Tibetans must survive? You are > asserting here that the needs of one speices outweigh those of > all others, hmm. We seem to have a problem here. Unless we > make an exception of course. > > Now the Tibetans can physically move to a place where they can > eat a vegan diet so you ARE making an exception for them. (Say > what you like about political barriers and national borders, but > that does not change the underlying ethic, and the structure of > the political world this way allows vegetables to be imported to > unsuited environments so it even includes its own solution). > > Michael Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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