I’m having an epiphany. My moment of revelation actually lasted about ninety minutes. It wasn’t the first time I was traumatised by a television. That happened first in the World at War in the scene where a chicken farmer was splashed by brains. The mood music and laconic narration of Laurence Olivier helped fix this scene forever in my memory. We were shown how the grey matter that had just been thinking terror had sullied the splendid military uniform of a man for whom executions were timed as a newsreel opportunity. Such was Himmler’s power that people slaughtered other people just to appease him. Such was the wilful ignorance in Nazi Germany that this wasn’t considered abnormal behaviour.
I must admit that this journal entry is perhaps the most serious topic I have addressed since I started rambling on the internet rather than the trails of Europe.
I will take a few days to journal my thoughts on this epiphany. That’ll give me a bit of time to process my trauma and put the horrors I experienced into some form of perspective.
‘It’s time to see the oceans in a new light: to treat fish not as seafood but as wildlife; to see their societies not as stocks but as populations; and marine food webs not as fisheries but as ecosystems. It’s time we saw their existence as a wonder of nature, rather than an opportunity for exploitation. It’s time to redefine our relationship with the blue planet.’ wrote George Monbiot in The Guardian a few days ago. He was writing about the Seaspiracy documentary.
My wife since wrote that ‘the documentary Seaspiracy is harrowing to watch but you must watch it’.
I’d like to suggest you read both of these and perhaps then watch the movie. Then you’ll be better placed to understand why I will write horrible things over the next week or so.
- George Monbiot: Seaspiracy shows why we must treat fish not as seafood, but as wildlife.
- Libran Writer: Seaspiracy
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