Worldlog Week 03 - 2009 - Hoofdinhoud

Best wishes to everybody in 2009! I've just put the finishing touches on my latest book “The Equality of Animals, the Happiness of People”. In my book I describe the correlation between the credit crisis, climate crisis, food crisis, fresh water crisis, value crisis and the bio diversity crisis. These crises show significant similarities, in that they were caused by human greed and sort-term thinking. None of the crises could have occurred in the animal world without the presence of humans. Humans differentiate themselves from animals with higher intelligence and the ability to make moral, ethical decisions, but turns this differentiation to its disadvantage. “The Equality of Animals, the Happiness of People” will appear in March in the Book Week framework. It's a week designed to promote Dutch literature, and its theme will be “Tweet, Tweet”.

Recent figures show that the party is doing well because The Party for the Animals has gained a lot of members this past year. We have 15% more members now for a total of 8012. This is opposite to the ruling political parties in the Netherlands; they are losing members. The other opposition parties, except for GroenLinks, are also gaining members. The total number of people who joined a political party this year is down. Approximately 2.5% of the 12 million people eligible to vote in the Netherlands is now a member of a party.

We asked a lot of questions last year, if we look at Gerdi Verbeet's annual report. We will continue to ask even more because Minister of Agriculture Verberg is on a collision course. In her new year's address she said that she would like to “remove the taboo' on genetic manipulation (except she used the word “modification” because it sounds less scary). This means that the Minister, against the House's wishes, wants to allow free entry of products such as soya and rape seed into our country.

Some more of Minister Verberg's unusual stand points: answering questions to the House that I posed about the way in which city pigeons were killed, the Minister said that it is permitted to twist the pigeons head from its body, while the animal is still alive.

Let's just say this is a whole new look at the issue of stewardship... and the Minister does not see a single connection between the increase in keeping pigeons and the increase of city pigeons running wild. I still have a few more questions that I will ask as soon as possible.

Then the Minister let slip that she is not the “Minister for house pets”, by this she obviously wants to show her lack of interest in the wellbeing of house pets, but would rather chiefly busy herself with the economic background of production animals. This is a direct declaration of war to anyone who holds their house pet dear.

To finish I would like to point you towards and English language interview I had with the NRC Handelsblad at the end of last year.

See you next week!