WHAT is perhaps just as shocking as slavery itself is how accepted it was by those not directly involved, including those who should have been speaking out vociferously against it, such as, for example, religious leaders. Many of them openly supported slavery and promoted it from their pulpits. It was a widely held belief that black people did not have the same emotional ties with their children as white people did and so it would not be emotionally upsetting for them to be forcibly separated and sold to different slave traders, or, if there was any distress, they would get over it quickly. Similarly, husbands and wives would be forced apart to be sold to different slave traders with no compunction.

In the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin Augustine St Clare says: “My father’s dividing line was that of colour. Among his equals never was a man more just and generous — but he considered the Negro, through all possible gradations of colour, as an intermediate between man and animals, and graded all his ideas of justice and generosity on this hypothesis.”

We look back at such attitudes and beliefs now and wonder how people could think like this. It is almost beyond belief. Yet there are striking similarities with another type of slavery about which many people still retain the same ignorant prejudices.

In her book, The Dreaded Comparison: Human and Animal Slavery, Marjorie Spiegel tackles this subject. On a similar theme, philosophy professor Peter Singer includes a chapter in his book, Animal Liberation, in which he argues irrefutably why those who support black liberation and women’s liberation should support animal liberation too.

To paraphrase Augustine St Clare, talk of the abuses of slaughterhouses... the thing itself [the slaughterhouse] is the essence of all abuse. There will hopefully come a time when we will look back on how we treated other animals with the same disbelief and horror that we now look back on slavery.

It is long overdue for newspapers to have a regular animal rights column. The abuse and exploitation of animals is in our papers every day, but is not treated as such, as instead they are seen as food, clothing, and part of the “light” news.

How long will it be before mainstream media refuse to accept adverts for products involving the abuse and exploitation of animals, just as many mainstream publications now refuse to accept adverts for real fur coats and just as newspapers finally stopped accepting adverts for slaves for sale? Who will be the first?

Mainstream media editors should give this some serious thought. Not all people will be ready to give up eating animals, but that doesn’t mean that newspapers and magazines have an obligation to promote industries that involve cruelty and suffering. In years to come, people will look back on and praise publications who took such a principled stance.

To compare the abuse and exploitation of other animals with human slavery is not to detract from the latter. We are all animals, after all. Rather, it is the necessity to acknowledge that the enslavement, exploitation and oppression of all animals, irrespective of colour and irrespective of species, is morally indefensible. Whatever one’s religion and including those who have no time for religion, ultimately it is one’s conscience that should tell us how to behave and treat others. If one’s conscience does not guide one to conclude that the exploitation and oppression of other animals is wrong, then one’s conscience is seriously flawed. As Albert Einstein said: “Our task must be to free ourselves by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty.”
Sandra Busell
Edinburgh

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STV system failed to deliver what voters wanted 

I FIND the make-up of council control quite fascinating. The allocation of seats was by a proportional voting system designed to ensure better representation of voters’ wishes. So the SNP had by far the most seats — ie the most votes — and the other parties were all less supported. Yet now we see a majority of councils due to be run by a coalition of parties which were not the ones primarily supported by the electorate. The electorate’s most preferred party in this “fair representation” form of voting is left out of power.

Does this mean that two losers equal one winner, or is it just that hatred of the SNP takes precedence over all else, even the Tory bedroom tax, rape clause, benefit sanctions, deportations of entrepreneurs, continued austerity and every other form of attack on the poor and vulnerable? Is it any wonder that Labour is losing credibility?
L McGregor
Falkirk

THERE was an interesting headline in The National (Brexit hits growth and cost of living, May 26). It’s under-heading is more revealing: “Slow down in economy takes the experts by surprise”. Indeed it should!

Since the Euro referendum the reading public, aided by the Brexiteers and the ruling party, have used stats by “experts” to show Brexit had meant no downturn in line with Project Fear2 spun by Cameron and Osborne.

However, the economy, like an ocean oil tanker, takes time to shift and the UK economy, through credit card excess, got a timely boost with the approach of Christmas and, prior to that, with the summer holiday season last year.

We were regaled by statements that Brexit has not affected the economy, implying that we can survive outside the single market and the customs union “after Brexit”, when in fact all that had happened so far was a vote!

The experts, who should really have known better, would have seen that we were and still are in the EU! It is plainly obvious!

Now that the fall in sterling is beginning to shadow what the situation outwith the EU will become, with added pain when we are finally out of the single market and customs union, all the experts seem to react with “surprise”.

The UK is “tied at the foot of the G7 growth leaderboard with the US and Italy” , we are told — and we are still in the EU where 40 per cent of our exports go. Add the threat from May to walk away if we do not get the best deal, and the alarm bells really must be sounding somewhere.

The Brexiteers hold out the grail of Empire2 as a new global Britain throughout the Commonwealth and beyond. Their last throw of the dice. Around 32 Commonwealth countries have, at present, free-trade agreements with the EU — and Belgium exports more to India than the UK currently does! So much for the EU hampering UK trade worldwide!

Hammond, our invisible Chancellor, forecast a “rollercoaster ride” for the UK over the next two years, as if it was written in the firmaments! His image was wrong. Rollercoasters go up and down: what is being anticipated now is simply downward at a gathering pace and intensity. As the Unionist parties all praise our “precious” Union, we must really ask why.

It has been driving macro policy since 1707. It is taking Scotland out of the EU after it voted to remain. The main Unionists, the Tories, have been Ukipped in all but name, yet Dugdale has morphed into the red Tory.

Perhaps it will take a sudden denouement in all things UK to wipe the sheen off the “Great British” propaganda onslaught being spun daily in the media to make the true reality of the dysfunctional Union visible once and for all.
John Edgar
Blackford

ON RADIO Scotland [yesterday] I heard a lot of criticism of Theresa May for her time as Home Secretary. It was on her watch the authorities were told Salman Abedi was a threat but there were not the resources to follow this up.

Meanwhile: May was at war with the police service; ruled the Home Office with an iron rod; reserved all key decisions for herself; and oversaw a dramatic cut in police numbers. In other words her record as Home Secretary was lamentable.

Clearly, the Tory slogan “strong and stable leadership” is meaningless.
Charlie Duthie
Berwickshire