CHAPTER 4

      From Automata to Sentient Beings

      The animal rights movement originated in western Europe and its colonies, reaching back to the seventeenth century. In 1635, an ordinance was passed in Ireland that prohibited pulling the wool off sheep or attaching plows to horses’ tails, deeming such activities unnecessarily cruel. In 1641, the Massachusetts Bay Colony prohibited “Tirrany or Cruelty toward any bruite Creature which are usually kept for man’s use.” Under Oliver Cromwell, laws were passed in England that discouraged the blood sports dearly loved by the hoi polloi, including cockfights, dogfights and bullbaiting.

      Such initial attempts to imbue animals with certain rights may seem tepid by today’s standards; indeed, these regulations mostly dealt with domesticated animals, creatures generally considered essential to human welfare. Wildlife, as a whole, was still considered vermin or proper subjects for hunting, either for the larder or as a gentleman’s pursuit. Still, tentative as these initial forays may seem, they were revolutionary in their own quiet way, in that they ran against the prevailing philosophical mode of the era. By habit, the common ruck viewed animals as property, food, or objects for amusement, scorn, or ire. Intellectuals generally accorded with Descartes, whose rigorous mechanism excluded animals as reasoning beings, categorizing them as biological automata.

      But the nascent concept of animal rights gained credence when Rousseau published his Discourse on Inequality in 1754. Here, he argued that animals are integral to natural law—and hence have inherent rights—because they are sentient; they are capable of perception, of emotional response, and, most pertinently, of suffering. To Rousseau, the power of ratiocination doesn’t even enter into the argument. For Cartesians, to think is to be. For Rousseau, to feel is sufficient to establish a claim to the rights inherent to existence: “For it is clear that, being destitute of intelligence and liberty, [animals] cannot recognize . . . [natural] law: as they partake, however, in some measure of our nature, in consequence of the sensibility with which they are endowed, they ought to partake of natural right; so that mankind is subjected to a kind of obligation even toward the brutes . . . this is less because they are rational than because they are sentient beings.”

      Rousseau notwithstanding, the English and Irish established themselves as the most ardent champions of animal rights. Attempts in Parliament to pass laws forbidding bullbaiting and wanton cruelty to cattle and horses were quashed with much attending ridicule in the first two decades of the nineteenth century, but in 1822, Richard “Humanity Dick” Martin, the MP for Galway in Ireland, gained passage of the Ill Treatment of Horses and Cattle Bill, which forbade wanton cruelty to these large domesticated beasts. The act was strengthened by an amendment in 1835, which extended the cruelty ban to dogs, bears, and sheep and also proscribed bearbaiting and cockfighting; by another amendment in 1849, which increased the fines for animal abuse; and by a final adjustment in 1876, which placed limits on animal experimentation. Following the British lead, France and the United States also passed laws forbidding cruelty to animals.

      But these early laws were hardly enforced with zealotry or obeyed with punctilio by the general population. In 1824, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was formed, which became the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 1840 under a charter granted by Queen Victoria. The goal was to enforce prosecution of violators of the animal cruelty laws and promote even tighter strictures. Since then, the animal rights movement has only waxed in power, spreading to all countries in the developed world. It sometimes took some bizarre turns: Animal rights, for example, were part of the Third Reich agenda in the years leading up to World War II. In 1934, tough hunting bans were passed in Nazi Germany, followed by laws regulating animal transport and restricting vivisection.

      From the beginning, animal rights advocates generated fierce opposition. The RSPCA, in particular, has been vilified by its opponents since its earliest meetings. The rancor increased as the society made its influence felt, however nominally, in Britain’s colonies, including those in Africa. That most accomplished of satirists, Evelyn Waugh, savagely lampooned animal rights advocates in his acrid 1932 novel, Black Mischief. At one point in the book, Dame Mildred Porch, a leading light of the RSPCA, decides to investigate reports of animal cruelty in Anzania, an island nation that is a pastiche of Zanzibar, Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia.

      Waugh portrays Dame Mildred as an arrant snob and a feckless, irredeemable busybody who cares far more about animals than human suffering. On arriving in country, she writes a letter to her husband, noting, “I have heard very disagreeable accounts of the hunting here. Apparently the natives dig deep pits into which the poor animals fall; they are then left in these traps for several days without food or water (imagine what that means in the jungle) and are then mercilessly butchered in cold blood.” Later, she notes in her dairy: “Condition of mules and dogs appalling, also children.” And still later: “Road to station blocked [due to] broken motor lorry. Natives living in it. Also two goats. Seemed well but cannot be healthy for them so near natives.”

      Dame Mildred makes her way to the Anzanian capital of Debra-Dowa, where she is feted by the country’s young emperor, Seth. Determined to demonstrate Anzania’s modernity, Seth throws a banquet for Dame Mildred. But he misapprehends the name of her sponsoring organization, interpreting it as the English Society for Cruelty to Animals—an understandable mistake, given that animal cruelty is a fact of Anzanian life. He prints gilt-edged menus for the occasion, which include such offerings as Small Roasted Suckling Porks and Hot Sheep and Onions—dishes calculated to appeal to anyone with a predilection for hurting animals. Needless to say, Dame Mildred is deeply offended, and the scene dissolves into typical Waughian farce.

      Of course, the RSPCA’s attempts at influencing animal welfare policy in Africa have hardly been so ham-handed; for the most part, their efforts are focused on programs aimed at improving conditions for domestic animals. One campaign involves the promotion of humane methods for dealing with dogs infected with rabies, a perennial threat to both canids and humans in Africa. As regards cattle, the organization implies that the situation is better in some ways in Africa than in Europe and the United States, noting with approval that pastoral lifestyles provide cattle with “a good standard of welfare.” In other words, the animals get to roam around almost at will on the range, enjoying the fresh air and sunshine—in virtually all ways, an existence superior to that of cattle consigned to the feedlots and factory dairies in the developed world. Still, the RSPCA notes African cows, sheep, camels, and goats suffer greatly in other ways, specifically when it comes to their transport and slaughter. The group is now prodding African nations to enforce the World Organization for Animal Health guidelines in their livestock sectors.

      An exception to this general focus on domestic animals is the RSPCA’s work in Zambia, where it is attempting to reduce conflicts between elephants and villagers in the areas surrounding national parks. Working in partnership with the French NGO Awely, the RSPCA is promoting an “animal friendly” approach that involves crushing powerful chili peppers and macerating them in motor oil. This highly irritating admixture is then slathered on fence posts bordering the reserve lands—a highly effective means for keeping elephants in the parks and out of maize patches on adjacent private lands, claims the RSPCA. As part of the program, about two hundred farmers have been contracted to grow the requisite chilies.

      (As an aside, anyone who has