How do you prove you are human?

Most of you may have seen some old footage doing its rounds on Facebook and YouTube. It shows scenes that horrified me to a point where my tears welled up ready to fall. I quickly composed myself and thought I would try and understand why they did what they did, rather than get caught up in emotion, hatred and anger. How do you try to understand something that is pointless? Where do you start? To be quite honest, I’m not quite sure. It is hard to write from a neutral position when all you want to do is grab each and everyone involved, shake them, look them in the eye and ask why.

For the sake of those who have not seen or heard about it, I will give you some background. It is an annual event in the Danish Faroe Islands. People claim that the event is held for teenagers on the verge of manhood to prove themselves by killing innocent dolphins and whales. A line of boats round them up to the shore where the massacre happens. They don’t simply kill them, as they do not use knives. They torture them with the use of hooks until they eventually cave. The sea is stained with cries of help, the sound of hook puncturing flesh and blood.

After writing the above two paragraphs, I had to take some time and pause. Mainly because the images came back to my mind and I felt a little sick. So where do you begin to try and fathom the unfathomable? I think of their ancestors who at one stage had to forage for survival. I see a teenage kid sitting in a hut watching his parents and siblings starve to death. He said to himself that he would not let starvation take his loved ones away from him. He went to hunt. Hours upon hours later he returned hauling a huge carcass. It saved all of their lives. His father, when well, grabbed him and told him he was now a man.

The above is just a story that played in my mind. Please don’t think that I condone the innocent killing of the living. I simply told the story to help myself understand a little better. I think that there is a possibility that this mindless slaughter originated from a story like the above. And in my naivety, I think it was something that was once a form of survival that has diluted to be something whereby the participants do not understand why they do it. The sad thing is, is that you see children partake in it also – which makes me wonder what type of upbringing their parents impart on them. This is by no means an attack on the Danish. We see examples of animal cruelty all over the world. Sadly enough, it just… happens.

I guess we don’t want this post to be like all the others. We are not here to attack anyone. I guess what we really wanted, was for the people who participate to take a second to think about what they are really doing and whether it makes any sense. I am sure there are many ways to show others that you are now a man. Why not do well in school, or get a great job, get married and have a family, raise your children well and teach them to be better people. Remember that what we do today reverberates over many generations – is this the legacy you want to leave behind? Think about it.