HUMAN WORLD?

Today there is an official ivory burn in Kenya. I listened to some live coverage from the scene on BBC World Service. This burn is a landmark assertion of Kenya's commitment to save its elephant population from ivory smugglers and poachers. Bravo. I'm on the side of the elephant in any elephant-vs-human conflict.

In one report, an interviewed expert talked about the place of elephants in a "human world". This reminded me of the European world colonizers who often referred to a "White Man's world" as they exterminated or enslaved indigenous populations with relatively superior weaponry. Same thing really. This twisted ideology is based in religion and the unrestrained breeding of the human species, which has become the top planetary predator due to its frontal lobe in combination with poorly integrated base animal instincts. Human violence is the evidence of the dissonance.

"Human world" to the likes of the Koch brothers or Donald Trump means that aggressive humans have a supreme right to exploit the world and its resources without any responsibility to the whole planet and its ecosystems. This self-destructive mentality is shared by elites across the planet. Organized religions, fawning on the wealthy for their financial health, support this ideology of world rape for profit. No religion has been innocent of this. Temples and cathedrals are the evidence. Iconography, art and money are all entwined. The elephants and other species pay with their lives.

This may be a human world but it is certainly not a humane one. The elevation of humanity to god-like superiority has never been accompanied by god-like wisdom, mercy or justice. Quite the contrary.