Two concrete examples of prejudice about pigs

This is Eddy. He is currently the only pig staying at the Berlin animal shelter, where he came after his family abandoned him because of "changed living conditions".

This weekend the shelter participated in a local "family weekend" event, and invited the public to lots of fun activities and a market with good food and pet related goods. The weather was really bad, but quite a lot of people still came.

When I found Eddy, he made my heart sing. I talked to him in pigspeak and took several dozens of photos of him. While I was standing there, some other people came along, too.

Among the more neutral comments I heard was, "Yeah, you know, some people keep pigs in their apartment."

An older couple came along and stared at Eddy. Then the woman started to make faces, noises and gestures implying that there was a strong bad smell there.
But there was no bad smell at all! Only the smell of straw!

Then a family with two children, maybe 7-10 years old, came along. The girl kept muttering, "He's so fat."
Eddy isn't full grown yet, and he is quite slender for a pet pig. He doesn't even have a double chin. In accordance with his breed standard, he has a little tummy, but it would never cross my mind to consider him "fat" because of that. (Here is a full-figure photo of Eddy.)
I asked the girl why she said he was fat, but she just stared at me and left without a word. (The parents, as usual, were totally autistic towards their children and didn't exchange any thoughts with them at all.)

The only sensible explanation I have for these comments is that these people have learned that pigs are supposed to smell and that pigs are supposed to be fat, and they can't break free of those false images even when the actual reality is right in front of them.

Ambient pigs

This is the back cover of the record "Pig" by Stephen Ugo Rosen, "a collection of 9 'dirty' ambient tracks".

"The term 'dirty' is used here because ambient music has a reputation for being 'pure' or lofty in many respects and this collection deliberately attempts to throw the atmospheres down in the mud."



Of course, what is a better symbol for dirtiness than pigs forced to live in such a cramped space that they have no chance of keeping themselves clean?

Placing a naked human among them (with some chains across his shoulders for potential kinkiness/fanservice) puts the plight of pigs raised for meat in a whole new light, because they look so very similar.
Humans get into conditions like this when imprisoned in 'inhumane' conditions in cramped cells with no access to toilets, while such conditions are the norm for most pigs raised for meat. (Sows in factory farms, who spend most of their lives in "gestation crates" - outlawed in the EU and some US states - and give birth and nurse their piglets in "farrowing crates" can't even turn around.)

Model + Pig

When researching one subject, I keep coming across something else I want to mention.

A couple of years back, Sisley had an advertisement campaign that featured a model getting friendly with a pig:



In the blog g.o.r.i.l.l.a./livingfromlove, based in Brussels, the author asks the question:

"For example if you are one of countless Muslims who live near this advertisement in central Brussels, how do you handle its challenge to your cultural preferences?"

Figure that pigs are actually very nice animals, and that the religious ban on eating pork could actually have more to do with them being too human-like to be eaten than them being "filthy" (as the only reason why they might be 'filthy' is that humans keep them in filthy conditions)?

Well, a corporation like Sisley might not be the best advocate for that kind of revolution of the mind, but a girl can dream, can't she ...?

The People vs. the Pig

One of the great wonders of the Internet is that you can find archived material from many parts of the world dating many years back. Something interesting I came across today is a transcript of the TV program "The Animal Attraction", aired on ABC TV in Australia on February 24, 2001.

Its fourth program - Animals on trial: The People vs. the Pig "takes us over to the dark side. Our relationships with other animals are not all sweetness and light. And over the centuries, we've come up with some truly bizarre attempts to justify our actions." This episode explores "the ethical complexity of our dependence on animals. We find out why animals were put on trial in the middle ages, what witchcraft had to do with pet ownership, and how pet keeping transformed our society."

The program gives an overview of the problematic relation between humans and animals in history, and how humans have dealed with the moral problem in relying on domesticated animals for their survival.

Jonica Newby: Our empathy problem magnified a thousand fold when we were joined by domestic animals and our entire economy became based on exploiting them.

James Serpell: We have to maintain a degree of separation, emotional separation, if you like, from these animals. We have to avoid getting too close, literally, too intimate, too involved, too knowledgable about the nature of that animal and its psychology and its feelings.

[...]

Jonica Newby: Humans face a dilemma that's not been faced by any other animal in the history of our world. Many animals are carnivores. But we're the only ones with the brainpower to sympathise with our victims. And to cope with being a sentient carnivore, we’ve resorted to all sorts of strategies. Where possible, we avoid responsibility for killing. Even abattoir workers subconsciously shift the blame.

[...]

James Serpell: We have this association in our minds of pigs being filthy creatures but, of course, how could they not really be filthy in the kinds of conditions we keep them in. So, there’s a great deal of misrepresentation going on there which, I think, just makes people feel better about the notion that pigs can be killed, you know, because pigs aren’t really worthy of moral concern.

Read the full transcript.

Suicide bombers and suidae bummers

A number of factors appears to have led to why the pig is considered a "filthy animal" in Islam and Judaism. However, at the face of 'extreme situations', concessions can apparently be made from this position.

In the struggle to prevent suicide bombers in Israel, there have been propositions, approved by religious authorities, to form a force of 'guard pigs', that would function like guard dogs, sniffing at people crossing security checkpoints and detecting arms and explosives. Likewise, there have been ideas about placing pieces of pork in buses. The point would be that potential fundamentalist Muslim suicide bombers would change their mind about their mission, since if a Muslim touches a pig or pork, he/she can supposedly say goodbye to all those virgins that had been waiting in paradise.

But have the people behind these propositions considered what might happen if the suicide bomber is Christian, secular, or just not so very fundamentalist? And anyway, if they themselves are desperate enough to look away from religious prohibitions against pigs and pork, who says that the potential suicide bomber isn't?

Actually, the notion that a Muslim would be denied entrance to Heaven after touching parts of a pig is "ridiculous", according to Raeed Tayeh of the American Muslim Association in North America. In fact, it seems to be based on urban legends and false caricatures of muslim beliefs.