{"id":25892,"date":"2010-11-16T07:16:50","date_gmt":"2010-11-16T05:16:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=25892"},"modified":"2014-01-05T22:11:05","modified_gmt":"2014-01-05T20:11:05","slug":"turkish-vegetarians-call-for-animal-rights-during-kurban-bayram-holiday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2010\/11\/16\/turkish-vegetarians-call-for-animal-rights-during-kurban-bayram-holiday\/","title":{"rendered":"Turkish vegetarians call for animal rights during Kurban Bayram holiday"},"content":{"rendered":"
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ER\u0130SA DAUTAJ \u015eENERDEMISTANBUL – H\u00fcrriyet Daily News<\/p>\n

\"Vegetarianism
Vegetarianism has been practiced since ancient times for ethical reasons, health concerns, and recently for economic and environmental ones. H\u00fcrriyet photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Many vegetarians in Turkey find themselves in a tough spot this week, torn between their religious and dietary practices as their countrymen sacrifice animals to mark the Kurban Bayram (Feast of the Sacrifice) holiday.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven members of the Vegetarians Club in Istanbul sacrifice animals for Kurban Bayram,\u201d Ebru Ar\u0131man, the group\u2019s chairwoman, told the H\u00fcrriyet Daily News & Economic Review.<\/p>\n

The holiday, which traditionally involves slaughtering a sheep or cow as a way of honoring God, does not only create qualms among vegetarians, Ar\u0131man added. She said even people who normally eat meat sometimes oppose the ritual sacrifice of animals due to physical and psychological pain the livestock experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough sacrificing will keep being practiced on religious grounds, one must make sure this is not turned into a painful process,\u201d Berfin Meliko\u011flu, an ethics professor at Ondokuz May\u0131s University\u2019s Veterinary Faculty in the Black Sea province of Samsun, told the Daily News. Calling animal welfare essential, she said sheep or cows should be treated well before and during the sacrifice. In addition, she said, the slaughtering \u201cmust be done out of children\u2019s sight\u201d in order not to create emotional or psychological harm.<\/p>\n

\u201cLooking it at from an animal-rights point of view, I personally believe [animals\u2019] lives must not be taken through sacrificing,\u201d Se\u00e7il Arac\u0131, a vegetarian and a philosophy Ph.D. candidate at Bo\u011fazici University in Istanbul, told the Daily News. She agreed with Meliko\u011flu that if people really believe they have to sacrifice animals to meet their religious obligations, it must be done properly, causing a minimum level of physical or psychological pain.<\/p>\n

Though the ritual slaughtering during the Kurban Bayram holiday has become controversial, some believe the story behind the tradition actually highlights the importance of animals. The holiday commemorates the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son as an act of obedience to God, who gave him a ram to sacrifice instead. \u201cThus, sacrificing an animal is as dear as sacrificing one\u2019s own child, as interpreted in the thesis of Adil Bor, a professor at Haseki Theological Education Center in Istanbul,\u201d Arac\u0131 said.<\/p>\n

Turkish vegetarians such as Arac\u0131 are not only focused on the Kurban Bayram holiday, but also fighting throughout the year for the rights of animals, that they say are often mistreated in industrial farms before they end up on dinner tables.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my childhood, I believed that animals have rights too, but I did not know how far this notion could be extended,\u201d Arac\u0131 told the Daily News. She decided to become a vegetarian four years ago, after her research for her master thesis showed her how animals were treated in factory farms. \u201cI had doubts in the beginning as to whether I could survive without eating meat,\u201d she said, adding that no excuse was enough to clear her conscience about the terrible treatment animals receive in such facilities.<\/p>\n

According to Arac\u0131, people have been eating the meat of animals for a very long time, without even questioning the fact that animals are as aware of their existence as human beings are of theirs. Animals have cognitive abilities that allow them to build social relations among themselves and with people, Arac\u0131 said. \u201cEven the concept of grand-parenting exists in cows,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

Even on farms that are considered \u201cmodern,\u201d animals experience a lot of psychological and physical violence, said Karanfil Soyhun, a philosophy professor at Bo\u011fazi\u00e7i University. She told the Daily News in a recent interview that they suffer broken bones, are injected with hormones to make them grow more than normal and experience pain during the milking process. Soyhun has been a lacto-vegetarian \u2013 someone who consumes no animal products other than milk \u2013 for about three years and said she was planning to soon quit consuming milk and milk products to protest the treatment of animals at dairy farms.<\/p>\n

\u201cEating animals is a luxury,\u201d Soyhun said, adding that although most people believe eating meat is essential for their health, many studies show the opposite to be true. \u201cSometimes [eating meat] can even be harmful for our health,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Turkish doctors generally share the common view that eating meat is essential, Ar\u0131man told the Daily News, adding that she has been a vegetarian for five years and has been healthy the entire time. \u201cAlthough the variety of food is more limited for vegetarians, we can get all nourishment necessary for a healthy life from vegetables,\u201d she said, adding that Turkish doctors should be more aware in this regard.<\/p>\n

Vegetarianism has been practiced since ancient times not only for ethical reasons, but due to nutritional and health concerns, and recently for economic and environmental ones as well. \u201cRaising animals [for food] is one of the main factors that cause global warming,\u201d Soyhun said, noting the contribution of factory farms to climate-changing emissions. According to a 2006 study by the United Nations\u2019 Food and Agriculture Organization, the livestock industry is one of the largest contributors to environmental degradation worldwide, and modern practices of raising animals for food contribute on a \u201cmassive scale\u201d to air and water pollution, land degradation, climate change and loss of biodiversity.<\/p>\n

In addition, Arac\u0131 said, raising animals for food is not economically efficient and its elimination would significantly contribute to reducing global poverty. \u201cWe [consume meat] thinking it tastes good, without considering the economic rationale behind it,\u201d she said, adding that limiting meat consumption would allow resources to be reallocated to resolve poverty issues all over the globe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ER\u0130SA DAUTAJ \u015eENERDEMISTANBUL – H\u00fcrriyet Daily News Many vegetarians in Turkey find themselves in a tough spot this week, torn between their religious and dietary practices as their countrymen sacrifice animals to mark the Kurban Bayram (Feast of the Sacrifice) holiday. \u201cEven members of the Vegetarians Club in Istanbul sacrifice animals for Kurban Bayram,\u201d Ebru […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":25893,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[89],"tags":[4288,4289,4336],"class_list":["post-25892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-turkey","tag-eid-al-adha","tag-the-festival-of-sacrifice","tag-vegetarians"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25892"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25892\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}