Here on Earth - the rescue of the Baghdad Zoo

What I want to write about today is a program on the radio „Here on earth“. However, first I’d like to make some cultural observations which I actually make every day being a foreigner in Austria. My flatmate was going home for Easter today and to my surprise he gave me an Easter bunny when he was leaving. Why do I mention it? Because we, Poles, celebrate Easter as well, are Catholics as well, but out traditions differ so much from each other. I learned e.g. at the beginning of my stay in Austria that the people here eat their Easter meal (meat, lots of meat) already on Saturday, while we have to wait until Jesus “resurrects” the next day, on Sunday. Not that I’m religious, but you just grow up in a certain community where people try to maintain some traditions although they often don’t know what their background is. For example my parents could never explain to me why we weren’t “allowed” to eat meat on the Christmas Eve which isn’t the case in Austria. Anyway, in my region there’s no Easter bunny, so I’m kind of exaggeratedly grateful when I experience such pleasant aspects of someone other’s tradition.

One more thing: how can you recognize a middle-aged wealthy Austrian woman? The answer is: her skin is orange, because she didn’t know when to say “stop” at the solarium, she’s got gaudy makeup (especially those bright pink or cherry lips), she’s wearing a fur coat making herself the number one enemy of the Amnesty International activists and she’s driving her sporty BMW which she got from her husband for birthday. Am I wrong?

Now let’s go to the point. I listened to a radio program on the spectacular rescue of the Baghdad Zoo after the outbreak of war in 2004. Lawrence Anthony, a S African conservationist is the man interviewed. He’s the man who initiated the rescue action as he went to Baghdad is spite of danger and motivated Iraqi civilians and American soldiers to help him bring the zoo in order. After Baghdad was heavily bombarded at the beginning of the war, nobody cared for the animals. Lots of them starved to death, some birds were freed, some other animals wounded. Before war there were 650 animals in the zoo and only 35 of them survived when Anthony came. He managed to get people to upgrade the zoo, to bring animals from other locations and ship badly treated animals from a local Luna park there. Anthony praises the exemplary attitude of American soldiers helping at the zoo and one gets the impression that it’s a kind of propaganda. If you take into account that one bad night a drunk American soldier killed a Bengal tiger locked in a cage, you start reconsidering the positive opinions that Anthony expresses. After all this program aims to raise the issue of the value of animal life… One of the listeners calls the station and says that you treat animals like you treat each other. Isn’t it bitterly true in the context of the Bengal tiger story?