What Were in Danger of Losing

[elleng]

'I’ve been haunted by a story from Iran that appeared in The Times back in May. It described a campaign for the Tehran City Council by Payam Mohebi, a veterinarian who explained that he was running “for the animals.” The clerics in Iran regard dogs as impure, and it’s against the law to have one. Dog owners who defy the ban are subject to a fine, 60 lashes and the possible execution of their pet.

Dr. Mohedi’s campaign poster showed him with a stray dog. That was gutsy (he lost the race), but what has stuck with me is what he had to say to Thomas Erdbrink, The Times’s Tehran bureau chief, about the city’s elected leadership: “We have one million pets in this city — what are they thinking? There is a massive gap between our politicians and us.”

The image of a government as disconnected as that from the will of the people it purports to serve should leave us shaking our heads in sympathy and dismay.

But look in the mirror: The image that reflects back is our own.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/17/opinion/what-were-in-danger-of-losing.html?

[procon]

1. Human beings have a natural affinity for animals.

From our earliest beginnings we domesticated them and kept them close, and after tens of thousands of years that attraction is hardwired into our psyches by now and it can't be expunged by decree. People cherish their pets, they are our dearest companions and become even more important in times of high stress and anxiety.

I remember the tragic tales from the Katrina disaster where people risked death, and even died, because they could not bear to leave their precious pets behind. An authoritarian government that thinks they can force people to do something that is so alien and counter to normal human needs and behavior, is doomed to fail.

Make it so, for the lives of all the long suffering people of Iran and their poor little innocent pets.