Finneran: The Lion Once Roared, the Child Once Lived

Finneran: The Lion Once Roared, the Child Once Lived

Two images haunt me. Two responses puzzle me. Meet “Cecil” the lion, whose death several weeks ago at the hands of a hunter has caused international outrage. Meet also Aylan Kurdi, a two year old Syrian boy washed up dead on the sands of a Turkish beach. Now listen to the silence.

Our world is a very confused place. Animal lovers utter death threats to fellow human beings over Cecil’s demise. You don’t have to embrace big-game hunting to see the moral incongruity of preferring the lives of animals to the lives of human beings.

The last three Popes---John Paul II, Benedict, and Francis---have all spoken about the West’s embrace of a culture of death. They despair of a collapsing moral order which celebrates animals above humans and convenience over life. Gee, how old-fashioned can those Popes get when they actually speak about a moral order? Don’t they know that today’s society demands a celebration of every choice, no matter how bizarre, no matter how horrific? To “judge” anyone today is risky business. We tremble at the thought of being labelled “judgemental”. Well, some do. I don’t.

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Many thousands of people participated in loud demonstrations over Cecil the lion. The hunter, an American dentist, has had his home and business picketed and his life threatened. He has had to go into hiding for his personal safety, an American citizen on the run---from his fellow Americans! Are there not ways to raise the points of species protection, harmony with nature, and cameras over carbines, without uttering vile threats against fellow human beings? The demonstrations and the threats strike me as a pose, an easy and fashionable prance to the modern nihilistic music of celebrating slugs while denouncing humans.

How comfortable we are in our antiseptic world, far removed from fields and farms and forests where predators roam. The chickens we bake, the fish we roast, the meats we grill were all slaughtered for our health and our pleasure. That the slaughter occurs far from their view makes the demonstrators no less hypocrites when they sit down to dinner. I might love wolves but I don’t want them in the neighborhood. And polar bears are gorgeous, cute cubs and all, but we are on their menu should we take a wrong turn. Ditto lions.

Back to Aylan Kurdi. Aylan was a refugee from the murderous chaos in Syria. The image of his little body lying in the waves washing the shore is heartbreaking. He lived in fear of evil men. He ran in fright, desperately seeking a safety and normalcy that he had never known. And he died in fright, no doubt gasping for air and for help in a cruel and unforgiving sea. Know this, there are many Aylan Kurdis.

One Cecil triggered massive outcry. Many Aylans trigger silence……………………….

I recall an incident from some years ago where either satellite imagery or weather plane photos revealed three whales trapped underneath polar ice. The news channels were all lathered up with their “breaking news” nonsense and the U.S. Navy actually dispatched icebreakers to try to clear a channel for the whales. Now I suspect that in the long history of the world whales have been trapped under polar ice on more than one occasion. As with sandbars and shoals for dolphins, there are natural hazards out there for all of God’s creatures. And in some ways it was thrilling to see American ships running a rescue mission through brutal cold in order to save the whales. But conscience speaks and asks the question…..

So ships can go to sea for whales but not for Aylan? God help us.

Tom Finneran is the former Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, served as the head the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, and was a longstanding radio voice in Boston radio.