In a very sad overreaction to the swine flu, Egypt is slaughtering the country's 300,000 pigs, angering farmers. As the article notes, Muslims do not eat pork, so the hogs are largely raised and eaten by the country's Christian minority. The farmers were not exactly patient and understanding about the decision to slaughter all pigs, and I do not blame them:
At one large pig farming center just north of Cairo, scores of angry farmers blocked the street to prevent Health Ministry workers in trucks and bulldozers from coming in to slaughter the animals. Some pelted the vehicles with rocks and shattered their windshields and the workers left without killing any pigs.
"We remind Hosni Mubarak that we are all Egyptians. Where does he want us to go?" said Gergis Faris, a 46-year-old pig farmer in another part of Cairo who collects garbage to feed his animals. "We are uneducated people, just living day by day and trying to make a living, and now if our pigs are taken from us without compensation, how are we supposed to live?"
I visited Egypt, briefly, a decade ago. I've been to over 20 countries around the world and I saw the most devastating, abject poverty in Egypt, more so than in any other country I've visited. It is absolutely criminal that the country is taking away the livelihoods of these poor farmers without any justification (since the disease is being spread among humans NOT PIGS). Taking away their animals without any compensation (as the article implied was the case) is particularly egregious. |
