Genocide
Jim Engel, Copyright February 2001
From time to time someone, usually a little old lady, will step forth
and pontificate on the subject of ear cropping or tail docking. Usually it goes something this:
"Mere cosmetic surgery
does not define a dog, a Bouvier is a Bouvier with or without artificial, man
made change. A dog will work and act
the same, regardless of whether or not the owner or breeder has chosen to
mutilate him."
Is this true ? Does appearance
matter ?
Let us set aside for the moment the question of whether or not the
process is unduly painful or morally acceptable in terms of the discomfort and address the issue of
appearance and bearing.
The United States Marine Corps has a long, and some of us believe noble and honorable, history. Yet their business is the most grisly, for
ultimately their function is to kill and destroy those who our government, with
or without wisdom, has identified as the enemy of the moment. The process is incredibly demoralizing, a
confession of the failure of the human race to conduct its affairs with
anything which could be thought of as rational and civil methods. Yet, were it not for such men, we would not
enjoy the liberty we have and be able to celebrate the Fourth of July.
When these men go about their work they are dressed in fatigues and
mark their faces so as to be inconspicuous, so as not to attract attention to
themselves. Yet every Marine has a
dress uniform too, used only for ceremonial occasions. When a young man returns from boot camp, a
callow youth has become a handsome young man, and, at least in the days of my
youth, it was not unusual for him to appear in his home town in his dress blue
uniform with the golden stripe. And he
truly was a sight to behold.
Yet it could be said that this is pointless,
that a killer does not need fancy clothing, that appearance does not
matter. In the Vietnam era, those
opposed to war chose to dress in a way intended to offend a more conservative
generation; their tie dyed apparel was a uniform, a statement, just as much as
the dress uniform of the soldier affirmed his allegiance to the heritage.
On the
frontier of America, the Apache Indian tribe was well known and
formidable. Yet what was an Apache
? It is well known that in war women
were captured and they, or their children,
were integrated into the tribe and in time became Apache. So it was not the gene pool, it was the
heritage which defined the Apache, and the customary and distinctive dress was
fundamental.
When the
American government decided to destroy the Apache because, of course, it was
necessary to "civilize" them, they took the children, cut their hair,
dressed them in strange European clothing and punished them most severely for
using their own language. They were
forced to be "christian" ( and I will not capitalize that word ) and
to deny the beliefs of their ancestors.
In time they achieved their goal, and the Apache tribe is no more; crude
and cruel as the process no doubt was, it worked. The progeny were no longer Apache, they were second rate
Americans who had been stripped of their original heritage.
This was
of course a disgrace of the highest order.
This should not be a surprise, we learned the process from the masters,
the British, who applied the same methodology to the Scots and the Irish to
enslave them. When the British wanted
to colonize and conquer the highland Scots, they forbad the traditional dress
and it's clan associations. In the end,
this was sufficient.
Genocide has been defined as " The systematic and planned extermination of an entire national,
racial, political, or ethnic group." Sometimes the program is to simply
exterminate every individual, as in the Nazi era in Germany. But other times, as with the Indians, and as
with the British in Scotland or India, it was deemed sufficient to destroy the
existing social fabric.
When the far left political
and social movements in Europe seek to ban ear cropping and tail docking, they
are not concerned about the welfare of animals, or about pain and suffering. They are like the evil child who kills cats
for sport, they do it because they enjoy the sense of power over something they
have found to be weaker than themselves, the established canine community.
Their purpose is not animal
welfare, it is genocide, the destruction of the breed. They understand better than the leadership
of the canine organizations that the appearance is the breed, is a fundamental
part of the heritage that forms the emotional bond over the generations of
human beings who created and perpetuate the breed.
Just as military men have understood from time immemorial that the military bearing, as expressed in the uniform, is the foundation of the "esprit de corps" fundamental to every viable military tradition, in the Bouvier world the cobby body and alert expression, enhanced and accentuated by the cropped ears and docked tail, is the essence of the breed. To abandon this traditional appearance is to abandon the breed itself.