#2 Brexit and the Power of Voices

On 24th June 2016 the world woke up to possibly the most shocking news of the decade yet, as the United Kingdom was no longer part of the European Union. The date of the referendum was set way back in February, but most people would not have paid the term Brexit any heed then for it is human nature to only care and panic about a ticking time bomb after it had already levelled cities. Whether this bomb is going to trigger an avalanche of global financial meltdown or possibly wipe out the EU once and for all, it is uncertain and not the focus of my post. I am instead going to explore the tool that enabled this whole saga and led to a seemingly ridiculous move by the UK government, and that is the opinion of the people.

This incident was voted into reality. Voting is a core foundation upon which Democratic societies are built and the very right and privilege that ensures societies stay truly democratic. A 'government of the people, by the people, and for the people', as stressed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, is one that bases decisions on the voice of its citizens, or more precisely the voice of the majority of its citizens. In an ideal world where everyone is perfectly capable of logical reasoning and has access to all sources of information available it is assumed that such a government would always be efficient since the people would all agree on the best course of action. Unfortunately even then information is processed differently by different groups and individuals, personal benefits are put ahead of collective gains and it is virtually impossible for everyone to share the same point of view. So exactly whose opinions should matter?

The fact that more than half of the UK citizens chose to leave was not the concern, but when many of those who believed the UK would be better off on their own exercised their voting right without even knowing what was the EU then we have an alarming situation. The leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) Nigel Farage furthere steered the result in his favour by offering a lucrative promise of channelling the 350 million pounds per week payment made to the EU towards the UK's National Health Service. Shortly after Leave camp surprisingly took an uncatchable lead he somehow disregarded what must be the best selling point of Leave campaign as "a mistake". Upon experiencing the biggest I-immediately-regretted-my-decision moment many blinded Leave voters signed a petition to push for a second referendum, but the damage was already done and German Chancellor Angela Merkel certainly would not entertain this possibility. Opinions voiced irresponsibly and without proper thoughts and considerations evidently could give birth to unimaginable and unprecedented outcomes.

Then again, whether staying in or leaving the EU would be more beneficial for the UK and the rest of the world is not a question to which a satisfactory answer could ever be finalised. Comparisons are always relative and subject to the prevailing standards and conditions, so maybe in 50 years time the idea that the UK was ever part of the EU would seem hilarious and nonsensical and Farage would be celebrated for making that decisive historic move to "free" the UK. Or maybe Brexit eventually never happened, who knows.

What we can and must learn from this comedy of a campaign is that when people are granted the power to vote, or the ability to impact policies with their opinions, the decision making process leading to their choices matters and has to be monitored in one way or another. Strictly regulating participants and their votes defeats the purpose of voting in the first place, but giving every Tom, Dick and Harry a pen to check a box of their preference while they have no clues and no conscious intention to find out what is printed on the voting slip would present the world with more cases like Brexit.

The effects of Brexit are debatable but how it became a reality should and must be studied in order to promote transparency and objectiveness in media and instil a sense of ownership to their nation in each and every voter in the UK and all over the world. Other countries contemplating to follow the UK's footsteps or Scotland hoping to remain in the EU by leaving the UK itself must be responsible to ensure their people carry out the voting duty informed and prepared. The UK government can simply ignore the result of the referendum, and not feel a whole lot guilty for it would be neither the first nor the last to do so, but that does not resolve the issues at hands and might even give rise to more chaotic political turmoil. The UK citizens have spoken, albeit dazed and misguided, and now they have to face the consequences no matter what lies ahead.

#1 Who Owns the Barking Rights?

Since 2009, the later part of June has become a festive duration for the people of Yulin, Guangxi, but it might not be a joyful occasion for man's best friends. In the 10-day period till the midyear point, over 10000 dogs are cooked with lychees and eaten by people coming to this southern region of China specifically to be able to experience something they cannot find elsewhere. While eating dog meat is not that rare a practice in Asian societies, with major ones including China, Korea and Vietnam, but holding a large-scale event exclusively for the promotion and distribution of a special method to prepare dogs for consumption purposes is something mind-puzzling.

It is believed that dog meat and lychees produce some warming effect in accordance to Chinese medicinal belief of substances having yin and yang properties, of which you can explore on your own here. But that is a minor and often neglected point compared to the huge uproar caused by animal rights activists and netizens in China and worldwide over the very fact that this Yulin festival has been occurring for years, and that it has to be stopped. But does it really?

Let me put it upfront bold and clear: there is naturally nothing wrong with eating dog meat, or any kind of meat at all. The reasons we associate different creatures and species with different functions are all made up, by none other than ourselves, or more correctly our ancestors, who were born into societies made up by their ancestors and so on. At some point along the evolutionary timeline, some members of the homo sapiens species must have looked around and asked the million stone dollar question: what can we eat? Probably anything that moved at the beginning, but after awhile bringing down mammoths with pebbles and pure enthusiasm driven by hunger might prove too daunting and exhausting a task, so they asked the next and more sensible question: what should we eat? This process of reasoning evolved constantly and eventually society reached a moment in which there was a classification of biological beings, with intelligence and without, to which a person can regard as food or not. Evidently this process has resulted in people from different parts and different groups of people from the same part of the world having drastic contrasting opinions on what would be on the dining table, and that is a problem.

There are many reasons some people eat and do not eat some kinds of meat. Religion, culture, tradition, habit, challenge, torture, self-torture, law and regulation, you get the idea. For certain kinds of meat it is not too difficult to come up with universally acceptable reasons for not eating them. Human meat is one of those, for it is murder which is a crime, cannibalism which makes it difficult to maintain healthy relationships with your neighbours, and there would not be any review of it so you would not know if it even tastes nice in the first place. Others are mostly endangered animals, since once they go extinct you cannot do anything with them let alone dissolving their bones with your stomach acid. And for species that have a long history of being domesticated by human such as cats and dogs, the reason is that they are cute and they are our friends. Seriously? Then chickens are agents from hell sent over to disrupt our sleep in the morning and deserve to be chopped into pieces and packed into $5 meal boxes in fast food restaurants?

There is only one thing that differentiates an animal between being fed to us and being fed by us, and it's choice. It is the choice we decide on that ultimately determines another living being's fate, and claiming one choice is wrong and immoral and illogical because it is not the same as ours is pretentious and hypocritical. As a dog and cat owner myself I swore that I would never touch dog and cat meat, but I do not hate people who enjoy those particular kinds of meat and I absolutely would not consider forcing my belief onto them, as long as they are not eating MY dogs and cats. Of course you would become affectionate to your pets and the very thought of them dying in a boiling water pot would be your worst nightmare, but what does it have to do with others?

Most dog meat businesses operate their own farms for supply, much like those for common livestock. They have no emotional connection to the animals they breed, grow and eventually slaughter for sales, so from their point of view there is no issue and they can pretty much sleep soundly at night. "But dogs are adorable and the way they are killed is too brutal". There is no such thing as a humane way to kill a living being for the sake of frying it with onions in sunflower oil. Muslim's classification of haram and halal meat supported by science can somewhat explain what kind of meat we should eat, but that is besides the point. Unless you have been a voluntary vegetarian your entire life, which is also not possible because whoever brought you up has affected your diet and thinking, you are in no position to say it's wrong for someone to eat dog meat, even though it is wrong if they try to eat YOUR dogs. The Yulin dog meat festival should not be banned and protested against, but it is the higher probability of dog theft that manifests as a by-product of higher demand during this period that should receive full attention from official bodies. I do not advocate the practice of eating dog meat, but I am against prohibiting it for the simple reason that it is bullshit.

What in the World is This?

What is a 24 years old unemployed fresh graduate's most valuable asset? It's time, definitely, well extra time to be more precise. Everyone has the same amount of time every day, but since I have not had much to do besides spamming resumes and sending applications to companies who won't even bother opening my emails I decided that there must be something I can offer to the world and make my existence the least bit more meaningful. So this blog came about, but what exactly is it about?

Since young I have always had this habit of questioning anything and everything that happens, and until now I still can't seem to find an accurate answer. It's not the "what is the meaning of the universe" kind of question that puzzles me the most, but something along the line of "why is a cat called a cat and not a book, or an engineer". Things are the way they are not because of mother nature or the will of a holy entity named differently by different groups of people, but simply because they are supposed to be like that. Names are given to objects, practices are passed down between generations, traditions are taught within communities, laws are written and enforced upon the mass and ideologies are instilled into the average man's mind. Society, the world, and essentially life itself are built upon artificial values assigned by us, human beings, who proclaim to be the ones fit to sit comfortably at the top of the food chain.

The only truth in this world is that there is not absolute right or wrong. Murder is "wrong" because society deems it a crime, laws forbid it and normal people detest it, but in a world without order, rules or guidelines which is effectively a natural one the act of a creature slaughtering another being does not raise any eyebrow, or at least it should not. And in such a world each and every being would be deemed equal, and there would be no distinction between species and no problems whatsoever if one wants to kill another, be it for food, defence or leisure. Yet in the society we grow up in, it is not acceptable for a human to kill a human, but perfectly fine for restaurants to serve chickens in lemon juice. Dog meat which is a delicacy in some countries but a taboo in others is a concrete proof of the inconsistency that engineers our living experience. Human, chicken and dog are not different and should not be treated differently in a world in which humans do not rule and dogs are not considered men's best friends, yet a human eating a chicken is normal, a human eating a dog is normal to some and abominable to others, and a human-eating chicken would be called a monster and hunted down using all military resources. Have you ever thought about what a ridiculous world we have been born into?

Concepts, theories, and opinions are formed, cultivated by the information we retrieve and process. Any issue or matter is viewed, judged and discussed on with an attempt to express one's own thinking and emotion which are ultimately constructed the moment one begins to exist. Whatever nonsense I have rambled up until this point originates from my own exposure to various sources of knowledge and diverse personal experiences. It is by no means definitely correct, but not absolutely wrong either. As much as I can't completely persuade anyone into agreeing with my way of thinking, no one can totally refute it and that's the purpose of my blog.

My future posts will focus on analysing controversial topics in an objective manner and attempt to produce a most reasonable response to a question, an issue or an incident. I would not ride on popular trends or majority's stand, but I would not disregard their validity if any either. Still at the end of the day it will by my perspective which I wish to share with the world, and whether the world accepts it or not, it doesn't really matter.