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The subject was
female circumcision, not, I confess, one to which I usually give much thought.
I was just listening in, which differs from eavesdropping mainly in that I was
in plain sight and clearly within earshot. But when my two friends agreed that
the custom should be outlawed both at home and abroad, I was moved, as the
saying goes, to rush in.
Not in support
of the practice but out of amazement that these proponents of an “anything goes”
type of diversity actually found something to object to. On this day, it seems,
multi-culturalism bumped into feminism and lost.
A
lot of folks these days are uncomfortable with concepts of universal right and
wrong, acknowledging only what’s right for me and what’s right for you. To
think otherwise is intolerant, the deadliest sin in the American zeitgeist.
So it’s oddly comforting to find hypocrisy alive and well in those
circles, confirming as it does the theory that the trait is inevitable when
values consist of a manmade jumble of “isms.”
Not that it can’t be found in schools of thought I find more agreeable, though
even then it comes from an artificial mixing of the truth of the moment with the
truth of the ages. But I digress from my real topic, which is whaling.
Hey, I said I digressed. Last week the Makah tribe of native Americans near
Seattle hunted and killed their first gray whale in over 70 years. The tribe
had voluntarily discontinued the practice in the 1920s when it was feared that
commercial whaling (as opposed to the subsistence hunting of the Makah) was
hectoring the animals into extinction. The voluntary halt came more than 20
years before the animals were given international protection in 1947.
The tribe did
not, however, surrender their right to whale, guaranteed in perpetuity by the
1855 Treaty of Neah Bay. When grays were taken off the Endangered Species List
in 1994, the Makah moved to resume the hunts and were supported by the federal
government before the International Whaling Commission (IWC).
The Makah were allocated a total of 20 whales through 2004, which is piddling.
Alaskan Eskimos and native peoples of Chukotka, for instance, are allowed a
total of 280 whales from 1998 through 2002. Certain native American tribes may
take a total of 620 gray whales from 1998 through 2002 while Greenlanders are
allowed annual catches of 19 fin whales and 175 minke whales during the same
period. Our neighbors in Canada withdrew from the IWC in 1982 to allow the
hunting of beluga, narwhal and bowhead whales by native Intuit peoples.
The worldwide gray whale population has blossomed from just a few hundred in
1947 to an estimated 23,000 today. Some believe that there are now too many for
the food supply, evidenced by the large number dying and washing up on the
beaches of Mexico and California.
So five a year
taken by a people who beat the world to protecting whales by 20 years should
raise no big fuss, right? Just scan the letters to the editor in any west coast
newspaper.
One I checked had four, ranging in tone from ridiculous to racist. The first
criticized the Makah’s use of a high-powered rifle and motorized pursuit boat
after a ceremonial harpoon strike from a traditional canoe, which ironically was
a concession to protesters concerned about a lingering death for the animals. A
second opined that the whales were more intelligent than the tribe’s members
while another likes the ancient Celtic tradition of pulling out an environmental
offender’s intestines and nailing them to an oak tree.
One enlightened soul asked if it is “OK to go up north and restore a missing
link to my heritage” by “killing Indians.”
To be fair, the writers made no claim to multiculturalism. But the gnashing of
teeth by those torn between that philosophy and the modern day animism that goes
under the name of animal rights is instructive even if grim. Still, I hope the
lesson here doesn’t end with its entertainment value and instead leads to an
examination of the folly of selecting one’s beliefs from the ever-changing menu
du jour.
© 1997 – 2002 Brent Morrison
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