Activists around the world have voiced their outrage and launched campaigns against a food festival in China where hundreds of thousands of dogs are reportedly slaughtered for meat
In the past few weeks, there has been a growing number of reports focusing on the Lychee and Dog Meat Festival which took place in Yulin, China on Sunday and Monday.
The festival reportedly marks the summer solstice but has come under fire from media organisations and animal rights activists for the cruel and inhumane handling of the animals. Photos, videos and online petitions have travelled far and wide in order to bring an end to the festival that’s been labelled “barbaric”.
Social media has also come to the party. The #StopYuLin2015 hashtag on Twitter has attracted popular celebrities like Ricky Gervais, Olivia Munn and Chen Kun who expressed their disgust in the festival.
The supporters of the event claim that it’s a cultural event, having been observed for a number of years and they defend their right to the festival aggressively.
Theoretically, eating dog meat should be no different to eating other mammals. Our repulsion to the idea most probably comes from norms of socialisation where canines serve some kind of pragmatic role in our lives as guide dogs, company, watch dogs, law enforcement etc.
This doesn’t mean that, should the dogs be eaten, they should be made to suffer first. Check out this video by VICE, giving some insights into the goings on of the festival (NOT for the squeamish!):
It appears that this doesn’t only happen in China. In March, a Chinese restaurant in Nairobi, which had previously made news for alleged racism towards its black patrons, was shut down for selling dog meat.
Eating canines is also nothing new to some parts of Africa. A few years ago, the BBC reported on some restaurants in the Nigerian capital of Abuja where the meat of dogs was regularly served to eager customers who had some interesting beliefs about the meat. One of the customers told journalists that eating the meat improves sex life, one claimed it wards off evil spells and another claimed it provides immunity against malaria – one of the continent’s most deadly diseases. Indeed, not only in Nigeria do you find people eating dogs, but also in Liberia, Ghana, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Photo: AP/Wikimedia
Photo: Adam Dean/NY Times
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