One day when I was in Tororo for my annual retreat, in one of the moments when I was meditating, I saw a cock chasing a hen for mating. It happened that one of my friends had seen the cock too. He said to me, “this cock is hopeless, it cannot even feel shy to chase the hen in front of us, it should have waited for us to go away at least” This is not only for birds (hens) but it is a habit of most animals. At Lavigerie house, I take care of animals; we have two pigs and a cat; when a she pig is in heat the male knows and they mate. When it is their proper time they do so regardless of my presence. This I guess is not an uncommon experience to many of us.
The experience that I get from birds and most irrational animals makes me, most of the time, say that we human beings are more advanced, intellectual wise, than other animals. In fact this is what even biology tells us, that man is superior to all other animals. I think this is very true and for so long this has been my conviction. But recently my conviction has been challenged so much by what I call inhuman deeds.
In our “modern world” it is an order of the day to hear about the issue of rape. I hear a lot about it and somehow many of us get used to hearing about it without doing anything to help the victims. Some may go to the extent of saying “it is normal” or “that is how life is.” And you know some even dare say that most women who are raped are responsible for that, for they “provoke” men. They provoke men? I have heard of old ladies some even of 80 being raped, and worse still , I have heard of babies of some few months being raped and yet some say that the victims provoke the “predators”?
Are we really better than the Tororo cock? September the eleventh is the day which will have a long life span in the memory of many people, not only Americans but almost everybody who came to know about it, not only people of good will but by people of “evil intentions” as well. One would have expected such an event, which has captured permanence in many peoples’ memory, to be of great benefit to many people. Instead, it is just the opposite. Even though the act is terribly evil according to moral standards, it is “good” to some people. It is good, of course, to the authors. I guess they look at the act as their masterpiece. “Some gentlemen” pretending to be passengers hijack the planes having many passengers, they take control of the planes and deliberately hit the planes against the twin towers; they know that the planes have many people on board and they know that the twin towers are buildings which have the capacity of having an enormous number of people at a time. They know beyond doubt that what they are doing will cause a big loss of human life and that they too will not escape death. But still they go on and do it…
In our modern “developed” world it is strange not to hear of a considerable loss of human life almost every day, and the agent in most cases is man himself. The events of September 11th, the suicidal attacks and many other causes of deaths of the same nature were and are being planned and carried out by an animal with the most developed brain – a rational animal. I wonder if by doing all such inhuman acts, even though they are rational, for they are “well” planned and “well” carried out, we still remain better than other animals!
Originally written by Martin Mandalu in the PCJ VOICES, Volume 11, April, 2002
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