Animals and humans share this universe but humans alone make fun of animals. Scorn, I would say, ridicule too.
Have you ever seen any animal laughing at a human? Will that be
behaving like us? Humans find it difficult to share things easily with its own species & almost impossible with others depending upon degree of unfamiliarity. Most animal species happily share most of the available bounty with their ilk and others. We humans extensively use animal metaphors to describe our fellow humans. The most common animal metaphor used is perhaps that of dog, cat & lion. Most of us think of themselves as a Lion and others as dogs? Let's see what's popular animal metaphors are there from the animal kingdom. Let me warn you that since its humans who run the show of civilization & creation of languages concepts etc therefore animals are still said to have been living in a kingdom and not in a republic with adult franchise.
Most countries want to become a world power more in military sense than economic. And therefore military has remained a major national asset of the nationalist people. Honey Badger reminds me of the
elitist navy seals of USA or other professional killing machines part of military
worldwide. Who won’t like the sweet badge of honour for killing in cold blood
for enlightened-self-interest?
Donkey has long been symbol of poor hard working classes who
could never get out of the rut of feeding, sleeping, breeding revolving on the
axis of relentless back braking hard labor. India is home to world’s largest
population of poor people. Large numbers of people are willing to work on assurance
of food alone without nay wages. You won’t be surprised that our Hindu nationalist
politicians have long discovered that India is shining. The ‘secular’
politicians find India as incredible. Well India surely is an incredible
country where vast majority conducts their life according to movement of
planets in Sky.
Monkey is generally portrayed as an animal that resemble
human race a lot depending upon its various species which is endowed with
ability to learn or copy human behavior. You may have herd of folk tale of ‘Monkey
& Cap Seller’ in which the trader uses Monkey’s behavior to get back his
stolen merchandise from him. Well moral of the story is that those who copy for
living would not win the game. A nation that discourages original thinking and
promotes conformity by imitating, reengineering, technology, processes and concepts
from others cannot become a world leader. It’s illogical to except that a blind
follower to become leader, who will he follow? Regimented society based on group dynamics than
individual recognition has no future. It would soon be dead as a dodo.
Dogs are domesticated for their unconditional loyalty. Horse
is said to be most loyal among all the animals. Can you recall a famous person
who is known as Dog of X-country? Not pejoratively of course. Many people are
called Lion of so & so place. Punjab my homeland has a fetish for the sobriquet
of Lion of Punjab. CM of Gujarat also is called Lion of Gujarat. United Kingdom is well known for having cats
as pets. Cats are add charm to life by their presence but are not known for
their loyalty.
Modern corporate media is like cats, it has no value except to
add some color to the business of life & governance in a country. Media no
longer resent any editorial control direct or indirect as long as it has
healthy bottomline like that of a feline. Gone are the days when a book or
story in media could affect amendments to constitution or force parliaments to
enact new laws. These days’ cats keep playing around the house without disturbing
anyone except those who are looking at them.
