The Zouma cat case highlights stark cultural divides in attitudes regarding other animals
In the UK it has been impossible to miss the story of Kurt Zouma, an £125,000 a week athlete who kicked and slapped a cat on camera, while his family respond joyfully. His laughing brother, non-league footballer Dagenham and Redbridge’s Yoan Zouma thought this sadistic display was a funny moment to record, upload and share to social media.
However, this impulse was poorly judged and their host country strongly disagreed. This is the UK, a “nation of animal lovers” where (especially) cats and dogs are treated like a member of the family by many. Outrage and petitions followed, West Ham’s decision to start Zouma in the next match against Watford was viewed as tone deaf.
He was roundly booed by both sets of supporters. The RSPCA correctly stepped in to seize the two cats from Zouma’s property and West Ham later fined him two weeks wages and announced he would miss their next match.
Not everyone was contrite though. The big football leagues of Europe are followed globally, particularly across the African diaspora. A large number of whom weren’t willing to throw their man under the bus. Social media that had previously seen posters defend UK-based footballers Benjamin Mendy and Mason Greenwood (Accused of rapes and assaults, trending #1 in South African news) now came out in force to question the importance of a man beating “his” cat.
A cultural chasm in attitudes towards other animals was apparent as the two disparate worldviews battled in social media’s football forums. Zouma’s West Ham teammate Michail Antonio came forward to practice some classic whataboutery asking “Is what he’s done worse than racism?” BBC’s Question Time programme amplified another voice downplaying the cat’s plight.
This is where it gets especially interesting. The defenders of Zouma may be speciesists who hardly value other animals morally, but some were able to expose the hypocrisy of the offended Brits. A few asked the “pet lovers” if they eat meat and pointed out that Adidas (a sponsor who pulled funding), profit from the sale of leather skin boots. Cue outraged responses that killing and skinning a cow for boots or her flesh is a different matter. Perhaps it was only the needless cruelty of this case that made it uniquely bad?
In explicit contrast to Jack’s rhetoric, a cow like any other traditionally farmed animal is no different to a cat in their interests. They too are sentient beings that we should morally avoid causing any unnecessary harm or suffering. An example of necessary harm might be self defence against an attack from a bull but can leather shoes and animal products such as flesh, dairy and eggs truly be said to be necessary?
Both the British and American Dietetic Associations confirm vegan diets to be perfectly healthy, even beneficial and protective by several criteria of health. Therefore we can’t claim that the exploitation and killing of sentient beings is nutritionally necessary.
Rather, just as Zouma and company were party to the menacing of an innocent cat for reasons of sadistic pleasure, so too are non-vegans guilty of consuming according to frivolous gustatory pleasure. They make up 99% of society and are overtly valuing the titillation of their palate over the needless suffering of billions upon billions of farmed animals.
As such, I will leave the last word here to the least hypocritical response I witnessed in the entire discourse. Complete, unsurprisingly, with ethically illiterate responses of “plants though”.
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