It is said that the progress of a culture can (also) be measured by how it treats non-human animals and how it views their suffering.
On the afternoon of Monday, 29 July 29 2024, a barn in a small town in southern Germany caught fire. 20 cows inside, tied to their stalls, were burned alive. Collateral damage of the dairy and beef industries. It reminds me of a sign I once held, with the slogan "You pay, she dies".
While many headlines emphasize the financial damage and point out that no "person" (human) was killed, one of the largest newspapers in the region reported what happened in a way that seems to consider that animals' lives actually directly matter at least somehow:
"[Headline:] Around 20 cattle die - one person injured: Barn burns down in Forchtenberg
[...]Thick clouds of smoke rose above Forchtenberg on Monday. A barn was completely ablaze. Around 20 cattle were said to have been inside." Apparently, they don't even know how many cows they have (?).
"[...]
Thick clouds of smoke rose above Forchtenberg-Ernsbach in the Hohenlohe district [southwest Germany] on Monday afternoon. According to the police, a barn there was completely ablaze. The fire brigade is on a major operation - and is trying to get the fire under control as quickly as possible, but for around 20 cattle, all help came too late apparently.
[...]
[Minor heading:] Around 20 cattle die in the barn - one person injured in a fire in Forchtenberg
According to initial findings, the fire broke out shortly before 5 p.m. [...] According to a spokesman for the Heilbronn police headquarters, there were about 20 cattle in the stable that, according to current information, perished in the flames. [...]" [Ebert & Kinkopf, Stimme (30 July 2024)]Note: The words used to describe their death are those also used for humans. The English equivalent may be "perished" (see above). Their are not non-human animal-specific, although there are such words in German (e.g., the verb "verenden").
Note: The German for "cattle" in this case is "Rinder", an accurate term describing the species irrespective of sex (unlike cow) and less speciesist than "cattle" (which is a non-countable word referring to cattle as property). I wrote "cows" because I'm pretty sure that all of these animals were dairy cows.
Note: Both authors of the article have "female" first names.
Van Gogh (1883)
