The similarities between the lived realities of trillions of land and marine animals today and Cambodia's Killing Fields under the Pol Pot regime are many and striking.
MALINA TRAN: My mother was just 16 years old when Cambodia’s tumultuous politics paved the way for one of the most horrific atrocities in modern history. In April of 1975, Communist dictator Pol Pot set in motion his radical agenda for “Year Zero,” envisioning an agrarian society ruled by the Khmer Rouge—a militant group intent on purging the country of minorities, artists, and intellectuals. Urban dwellers in Cambodia were forced en masse to the country’s rural areas, which would later be infamously known as the Killing Fields. What my mother and millions of Cambodians endured for the next four years was hellish, if not fatal.
The mass graves of the Killing Fields are evidence that the Khmer Rouge viewed certain lives as worthless… About one-fifth of the Cambodian population, or 1.7 million people, died by execution, torture, starvation, or disease… My mother’s storytelling instilled in me a strong sense of empathy and a deep commitment to social justice. When I learned about the animal agriculture industry through documentaries like Earthlings and Dominion, I was shocked to realize that the stories of the genocide are the lived realities of trillions of land and marine animals today. The similarities between modern industrial farms and Cambodia under the Pol Pot regime are many and striking…
Facing a violent and untimely death is preordained for farmed animals from their first days of life. In the egg industry, male chicks—unprofitable because they cannot lay eggs and are unsuitable for meat production—are ground alive shortly after being hatched. Mature cows, chickens, and pigs are queued for slaughter via gas chambers, stun guns, or electrocution. During their last moments alive, they are forced to smell the blood, hear the shrills, and witness the deaths of their peers…
Factory-farmed animals are negligently abused throughout their lives. They are confined to inhumanely small quarters, face disease-ridden conditions, and are routinely deprived of proper nutrition and care. The weakest chicks and piglets are discarded into trash bins, suffocated, or crushed with clubs to save money on veterinary costs. Medical procedures and blatant mutilations are performed without any anesthetic pain relief: male piglets and calves are castrated, chickens’ beaks are severed with hot blades, ducks are forcefully overfed with metal pipes shoved down their throats…
Farmed animals lead short, miserable lives; their suffering is relieved only by painful deaths… Their lives are systematically, and legally, unspared by their human oppressors. The path to creating a world that is fair and equitable for all includes rectifying the wrongs inflicted upon marginalized groups, human and nonhuman alike. Humans have a moral responsibility to care for society’s most vulnerable beings, animals included. While the motivations of Pol Pot’s regime and those of industrial farmers are profoundly different, oppression remains as a central unifying theme.
With the start of the Cambodian New Year, which conjures conflicting emotions for Cambodian people, I am drawn to reflect upon my mom’s quiet fighting spirit in the face of unthinkable adversity. Her will to survive mirrors that of the billions of farmed animals held in captivity and destined for slaughter. All living beings simply want to live without oppression and to experience the instinctive joy of being alive. There is no difference. SOURCE…
RELATED VIDEO: