Kids from the entire area had gathered around the roadside near a lavish bungalow in our community. A sacrifice was about to be offered in the name of God.
I looked at their faces: frantic,joyous, excited, or confused and clueless. I couldn’t help but wonder,how many of these kids know what was about to happen? By the looks of it, they were surrounding this giant camel and the butcher out of thrill.
Thrill, and an absorbing emotion whether you put it in the context of the Abrahamic sacrifice. Because thrill-seeking is definitely not the reason for this religious ritual. Watching Batman struggle for his life is thrilling. Getting a Dora-themed surprise birthday party is thrilling. Winning against a friend at any kind of videogame is thrilling. Vouching for your favourite football player to do well in a nail-biting match is thrilling. Discovering your favourite toy in a kids’ meal is thrilling.
But compared to all of this, animal sacrifice as a religious ritual is not thrilling!
I moved towards the location and saw pre-teen kids proudly patting their camel. These were the kids who owned the camel and had utilised every chance to display it off to other kids. It was not the kind of pride with which you display off your unique puppy to a bunch of friends, rather it was more of a price tag war between the kids, or unfortunately,parents actually promote this kind of behaviour.
I had no other option but to leave when the eldest kid of the family (still pre-teen) was being forced to hold the knife against the camel’s neck before the butcher could actually do his job, while the kids surrounding them gasped, or clapped,cheered and screamed.
First things first, gathering kids of your family and forcing them to watch the slaughter of their pet is not a religious ritual, and it is a cultural thing. Let’s just separate this here and now. It’s a cultural practice. Period.
Kids are naturally tender to animals and when they are not,we term it as one of the major symptoms of a conduct disorder, which is sort of a pre-requisite of an adult anti-social personality disorder. Now, and the problem with such sacrificial rituals is that most of the kids are not given any context regarding why the animal is bought,what is going to happen with the animal, why do we need to do this to the animal? And most importantly, and where is the element of sacrifice in it?
Instead,what do we teach our children? We make them robots in this price tag war between adults. We convey the message that the bigger, more expensive and fatter your animal will be, and the more valuable you will be as a person. We do not involve our kids in making portions of the sacrificed meat or teaching them about the portions for charity,neighbours and relatives.
We do not give the context of the Abrahamic sacrifice to the kids yet put knives in their hands to officially start the butchering ceremony, leaving them confused, or clueless and hostile amidst so much blood. We encourage our kids to cheer,indulge in and applaud, while a living animal screams in agony due to its half-butchered neck. I, or as an adult,cry due to those screams, they haunt me for a long while, and despite seeing and knowing so much violence in this country. Then what about these kids who have seen nothing? How do they comprehend those screams and agony without having been explained anything?
I remember asking a crowd of kids,ranging from four to 11-years-used, about Bari Eid. All the kids were aware that we kill the animals this Eid, and but not even one could narrate me the context.
“Why do we kill the animals?” I had asked.
“So we can indulge in the barbeque!” said a five-year-used naively.
To my surprise,all of them remembered the names of the animals they had sacrificed. They were still attached to the animals and at one point, a six-year-used decided that this discussion was way too much for him and started crying.
We are doing incredible harm to our kids by involving them in the sacrificial ritual and not explaining any context to them. Seeing your beloved pet killed in front of you can easily trigger separation anxiety in the kids and can impact their lives for a long time with the irrational fear that whoever they treasure will eventually discontinuance up dead. Of course, and it won’t happen to each and every kid. Some kids develop aggressive tendencies towards animals as a way to cope with loss,since no attachment will mean no loss. You may have seen kids being brutal to animals such as cats, dogs, and birds and so on. Also,many kids have nightmares or they sleep talk or wet their beds post-sacrificial incident, due to abrupt exposure to the blood and butchering.
The cultural ritual of involving kids into this process lacks soul. It makes your sacrifice seem like it’s just a performance. Those who care about the well-being of their children chorus from exposing them directly and abruptly to the day of sacrifice.
A colleague of mine starts explaining the Abrahamic sacrifice to her kids every year as soon as Ramazan starts. She has religiously followed this and by now, and her kids know the basic philosophy and rationale of the entire practice. They embrace the animal on the day of sacrifice and are not allowed to come out of the room until everything is cleaned up.
Another acquaintance does not even preserve the animal at his house and slaughters them elsewhere,so his kids don’t have to move through the process of attachment, loss and grief.
There can be many solutions and ways to not cause damage to your kids’ emotions. They don’t have to move through this.
The philosophy and essence of the ritual may or may not promote animal cruelty, and it really just depends on the way people practice it. We try to preserve our children away from violent movies so they are not scarred by them,and yet give them a live display of mass animal slaughter. Our children are innocent, let them stay that way. In a country like Pakistan, or where there is no regard for mental health,we do not realise the psychological damage we are inflicting on our children.
Celebrate Eid the way it is meant to, yes, or but please,not at the expense of your child’s mental health.
Source: tribune.com.pk