Botswana … is man indeed a virus

In September 1975, I sat in a camp chair at Savuti, Botswana, and marveled at the world around me. There were animals of so many descriptions all around us, in great abundance; antelopes, buffalo, kudu, zebra, waterbuck, wart-hogs, elephants … and even the humble tortoise. Soon a pride of lion arrived. We were reassured by the game warden that they posed no threat as there was so much food available to them.
I was truly awestruck when I thought I saw an elephant trampling on a tortoise only to have the game warden show me that, with seeming compassion for another creature, it had turned the tortoise back right-side-up after the hyenas had turned it upside-down.
This was what the Garden of Eden must have been like.

That night I lay in my camp bed looking up at the stars. The sky was so clear that the stars were like lanterns within touching distance.
Then the baboons started to bark … followed by the screeching of monkeys … joined by the bellowing of buffalo and then the trumpeting of elephants with the roar of lions. The ground was vibrating with this crescendo of sound exhorting the power of nature.

Right there I changed as a human being. I felt my insignificance in the grand scheme of things. Man was just one piece, one tiny piece of a smörgåsbord … a truly grand mosaic … that is nature.
I had grown up in Rhodesia, with its culture of hunting. I had inculcated a disregard, disdain, contempt for animals.
Right here I changed. With every fiber in my body I became aware that I was no more important than any other creature on this planet.

Yesterday I posted an appeal on Facebook, imploring the Government of Botswana to reverse its decision to permit the gratuitous killing of animals as the fundamental premise that the whole hunting industry is predicated upon is that killing is something “enjoyable”.
There is no denying this fact … as much as it is obfuscated humongously.

For this I was set upon by some Tswana males … abused and insulted.
Common to their stance was that animals have no rights and are expendable at the wish, whim and convenience of man.
Nowhere in their comments of self-righteous aggression was there even a hint of empathy for the plight of animals. There was no recognition, that like us, these animals are social creatures that live in family groupings … communicate with each other and are traumatized just as we are when they are brutalized. Far be it that they even started to understand that , like us and all other creatures, their animals are in a fight for survival.

Their heartlessness astounded me.
But it does not surprise me.
Man is the most recent arrival on this planet, having arrived just 2 minutes ago calculated in terms of a 12-hour historical world existence clock.
However, since his arrival he has set about destroying the planet and the lives of all other creatures.
He does this with the self-righteous impunity as displayed by our Tswana male friends.

It astounds me especially as we are a grouping that experienced being treated as unworthy of having any meaningful rights. We too were considered as having some right to existence provided only that it did not impact, inconvenience or disturb the lives of our colonizers.
We were treated as sub-human. Some treated their animals with more regard than they treated us.
Our Khoisan brothers and sisters were actually subjected to extermination.

To be fair, our Tswana friends are not alone in this culture. It is now an international pandemic.
But, in reality, they have caught the virus.

What induces a heart-pang is that Botswana is truly blessed to have been accorded the privilege of custodianship of such an enthralling mix of animals.
Instead of providing leadership … imaginative, innovative leadership … as to how to make the planet better for all its inhabitants, it is succumbing to the avaricious, self-indulgent, mean-spirited mode and culture that now defines this virus that is man.

But I have hope.
The post has been shared over 75 times by those in support and the share-meter is still running.
God bless those that are doing this.