Thirty five years ago I was born to hopeful parents. I was their first born and their dreams for me were limitless. Of course, I was a girl, born in the mid 70s, during the sexual revolution, so they might have got ‘it’ wrong on quite a few fronts.

But I’m healthy, I’m happy and I’m free, and at the end of the day, no matter how ambitious parents are, this is all that they want for their children. This is a universal truth that applies to all living creatures. In fact, be it through socialization, intelligence, intuition or instinct, most will protect their young with their lives.

Back in the days of slavery, a mother and father would readily give up anything to keep their captors from getting hold of their children. Back in the time of the concentration camps, people would smuggle their children through drainage holes in an attempt to save their offspring from the cruel hands of other humans.

Today we might sleep peacefully, knowing that there are no slave markets and ethnic cleansers to worry about, but the truth is that slavery and concentration camps still abound, and sadly this time, it’s not even in the name of religious power or political greed, this time, it’s in the name of human entertainment.

Bear with me for a second, and imagine not having been born human. Choose a wild animal of your choice, close your eyes and imagine yourself living your life as an elephant in the forest, a bear in a jungle, or a camel in the desert. It’s not that silly when you think about it, because the chances of being born something other than human are purely coincidental.

So let’s say you were born an elephant. Luckily you’re highly intelligent and a very emotional animal, your mother would have carried you inside her for 22 months. On your birthday she would have waited until nightfall and with the help of a midwife, most likely to have been your aunt, she gave birth to you after hours of painful labour. If you’re a female elephant you’d spend the rest of your life with your mother and your aunts, tending to kids, and walking for miles and miles every day, stopping for a bath or a frolic in a mud pond. You’d start mating in your twenties and could live well into your 70s, but…. you’d also have loads to worry about.

In this day and age you’re likely to be hunted down, brutally caught, sedated, and torn away from your family, deprived of the opportunity of ever fulfilling your natural needs and turned into a circus slave. This means living in a miniscule space, possiby brutally hit on the soft tissue behind your ears for not learning to perform unnatural tricks quick enough, and possibly even electrocuted. In addition, you would spend most of your days in transit, cooped up in a dark trailer, and the rest of your living years in a miniscule area just big enough for you to turn around, which by the way, you still wouldn’t be able to do because one of your hind legs is constantly chained to a wall.

Sadly, a circus is coming back to Malta, because none of our authorities are evolved enough to stop this atrocity. So WE are their only hope. Boycott the circus, teach your children that this is abuse, this is not right, and that animals are not meant for our entertainment. Start by standing up and being counted. Join the peaceful ANTI-ANIMAL CIRCUS WALK on the 8th December 2010 at 5pm starting at City Gate, Valletta and heading to the circus grounds in Floriana.

And if you’re a teacher or a parent, finding difficulty in explaining the issue of animal cruelty to your children, contact Annalise Falzon (cetfree@gmail.com), she’s an Environmental Educator who will come to your school and give a short talk about the matter.

Remember animals used in circuses do not perform because they want to; they perform because they are afraid not to. Forcing an animal to perform is intrinsically cruel. In addition travelling circuses are ill equipped to tend to the needs of wild animals, who need space, and their natural habitats to be happy.

There’s also a risk to children because no matter how trained they are, animals are unpredictable: despite years of training there is always the risk that under stressful conditions as in a circus or dolphianrium they become aggressive. A recent case on international news this week was witnessed in Kyrgyzstan where an ice-skating bear attacked and killed a circus director during rehearsals. Not to mention the health risks posed when being an enclosed area with animals who have been roaming round the world. And it goes without saying perhaps children who are exposed to animals being hit, prodded, injured, and humiliated for entertainment, are desensitized to the suffering of others.

Stop the torture, stop the cruelty, teach your children it is not right!

info@alisonbezzina.com