Gov. Gen. eats slice of slaughtered seal's raw heart to show support for hunt

[time_has_come]

Source: Canadian Press

RANKIN INLET, Nunavut — First she gutted it. Then she had the bleeding heart pulled out of its furry, flabby carcass. Finally, she swallowed a slice of the mammal's oozing organ. And when it was all over Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean wiped the blood of a freshly slaughtered seal off her crimson-spattered fingertips.

The Governor General made a graphic gesture of solidarity with the country's beleaguered seal hunters on the first day of a week-long Arctic visit Monday.

Hundreds of Inuit at a community festival gathered around as Jean knelt above a pair of carcasses and used a traditional ulu blade to slice the meat off the skin.
After repeated, vigorous slashes through the flesh the Queen's representative turned to the woman beside her and asked enthusiastically: "Could I try the heart?"

...

Jean gestured to the hundreds of people in a packed arena and noted that they would all be fed by the meat laid out on a tarp on the floor.
"It was absolutely delicious," Jean said. "These are ancient practices that are part of a way of life.
"If you can't understand that, you're completely missing the reality of life here."

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5hXfrqyVfDsUefmwghkTOBdvbUQ6Q

---

I have no problem with Inuit hunting seal to feed their communities and make some money with related projects.

[Mythsaje]

1. Given the cultural relevence and all

I have no problem with the Norwegians and Danes climbing aboard dragon boats and sacking the Irish and British coasts again. I mean, fair is fair, right?

[imdjh]

13. +1

[KingOfLostSouls]

2. ...

[flvegan]

3. Posturing. The EU ban has nothing to do with the Inuit.

The Inuit seal hunt is not affected by the ban. Jean is just an idiot flailing about because her brutal asshole sealers lost their market. To wit, I say "suck it."

[time_has_come]

5. The inuit do sell products derived from seal, so a ban would affect them. In the article...

...it says one community leader pegged the economic activity of the seal hunt at 20% of their total activity.

[flvegan]

6. The proposed ban exempts the products from Inuit and indiginous people

You can't believe the Canadian press about this topic.

[tuvor]

8. "But the products must be for personal use and brought into the EU on a non-commercial basis."

http://www.euractiv.com/en/trade/eu-seal-ban-raises-trade-tensions-canada/article-182007

[flvegan]

9. In other words

the EU isn't giving a back door to a massive cull and sale of pelts "on behalf of" the Inuit who right now are responsible for only 1 or 2% of the totals seals killed.

[tuvor]

11. Why would the EU allow for that 1 or 2% to continue the cull?

If the cull is wrong, it's all wrong, no?

[flvegan]

12. You'd have to ask them.

[tabasco]

4. Too bad she didn't choke on it.

Rotten motherfucker.

[tuvor]

7. NYCGirl posted a video on an earlier thread...

"Here's a film of Anthony Bourdain with an Inuit family partaking of their raw seal feast."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGVdYiM5IXw

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5720870&mesg_id=5720896

Definitely worth watching.

[Spazito]

10. I have no problem with what the Governor General has done...

it is the Inuit culture and way of life which the Governor General recognized in her actions.

[imdjh]

14. Do you feel the same way about the guys who club harp seals?

After all, it's been their tradition for as long a history has it.

[Spazito]

15. No, because the killing of the seal is not for subsistance...

it is primarily for profit. The Inuit use everything from the seal, nothing goes to waste. I feel the same regarding hunting, if every part of the animal is used I have no problem with it. If, however, the hunter is taking only the skin or the rack and leaves the carcass to rot, I despise them.

[imdjh]

16. I believe that you are sincere. I don't share your opinion.

At some point in the definition of subsistence you run up against profit. The white men who seal and fish in the far north have a culture of doing that that goes mack as far as the Inuit. Of course, not everyone is one or the other.

If you are interested in why I disagree with your perception of the situation then go to this link: http://www.carc.org/pubs/v17no1/4.htm

It's long, so you can page down to: Hunter Income Support: A TFN Proposal

Here is an excerpt :


Hunting, fishing, and trapping are increasingly expensive. It costs many thousands of dollars to fully equip hunters with the needed paraphernalia of snowmobiles, canoes, rifles, tents, gasoline, etc. Unfortunately, wage employment, particularly in the smaller communities of Nunavut, is rare, for non-renewable resource development is limited in the Arctic, and jobs with government agencies are few. This means there is little cash available in the communities with which to buy the equipment needed by hunters. Moreover, just as the costs of hunting have been increasing, the cash returns on wildlife products have been declining dramatically due to the world-wide lobbying efforts of the anti-fur and anti-harvest movement. There is, then, a financial crisis among Inuit wildlife harvesters.

[Spazito]

17. In reading your link, many thanks for it, it is very interesting, well worth the read...

I found this which, I believe, does reflect my point:

"Inuit have a well-deserved reputation for adapting to environmental and economic change. We will continue to adapt to changing circumstances, but this does not mean we are prepared to adopt all southern ways, mores, and values, and to cut ourselves off from our culture and our land. Instead, we want to design a society and economy that enables us to participate effectively in the old ways based on the land and its bounty, as well as in the new ways based on space-age technology and world-wide communication. We want and need a mixed economy and society reflecting the best of the old and the new.

To design this mixed economy and society we must have a formal educational system through which we can acquire the skills needed to function effectively in Canadian society, as well as the land-based skills of our forefathers. Dr Irwin suggests that younger Inuit, in particular, are being shortchanged by the formal educational system, and that fewer and fewer Inuit are acquiring the land-based skills needed for hunting, fishing, and trapping. We are very disturbed by Dr Irwin's characterization of the failings of the formal educational system in Nunavut. If he is correct, the diplomas and certificates being awarded to our children are worth very little, for the standard of education in Nunavut is far below that publicly available in, say, Toronto or Montreal. If so, this is unacceptable. In response, we suggest that a public inquiry be conducted to examine the state of formal education in Nunavut, to document fully its strengths and weaknesses, and to recommend how it can be improved to better serve the needs of Inuit.

snip

To counter the erosion of the Inuit culture and economy, and to bolster our relationship with the land, TFN recently proposed the establishment of a hunter income support program, to be operated through the land claim settlement. Our proposal is for a form of income supplement that will guarantee a minimum level of cash to Inuit wildlife harvesters, enabling them to purchase equipment and to remain on the land obtaining food for themselves and their families. We estimate that such a program could cost between $10 million and $15 million per year, but it would also save government millions of dollars per year in lower health care costs and reduced social assistance payments.

Social assistance is not well suited to serve the minimum cash-flow needs of the harvesting economy; it is designed primarily to permit consumption of foodstuffs brought in from outside rather than to sustain the production of food from local resources. Moreover, social assistance tends to erode, not buttress, cultural values bound up in the subsistence harvesting economy."


It has been the long held and on-going practice of the government to treat the Inuit and other First Nations as "wards of the state" which has been, without exception, totally devastating to the unique cultures once practiced by them.

The response by the Inuit at your link addresses a much broader discussion than the one I was addressing on your question regarding the seal hunt. It is a discussion that is essential if one is to respect cultural differences including those of the Inuit and First Nations.

Edited to add: I realized I did not address your point about "The white men who seal and fish in the far north have a culture of doing that that goes mack as far as the Inuit. Of course, not everyone is one or the other."

If "the white men" were to hunt the seal as the Inuit do, with harpoon and gun, instead of clubbing to ensure the pelt is pristine, and were to use ALL of the seal, wasting nothing, I would have NO problem with their hunting of the seal. The culture of the "white men" for hunting seal was for profit over subsistance, the Inuit's hunt is reversed.

[imdjh]

18. I'm not sure I accept cultural differences reasoning.

I too object to the treatment of the Inuit or any culture as wards of the state. I am inclined to believe that it is only through public assistance programs that the "preservation" of this culture is possible. If the US and Canadian governments hadn't been doing this for at least the last century, would these people not have migrated to wage jobs as the demand (market or legislated) for their products disappeared? Americans and Canadians who had "subsistence" cultures for the most part have. Others, also live on welfare.

Of particular concern to me is the hunting of polar bears by the Canadians. They have an allowance for that as well, an allowance that they sell to "big game hunters" who pay a lot of money to kill under an aboriginal allowance. This is not subsistence - it's business. Many countries have given up or come to giving up whaling. Others are being dragged kicking and screaming into the international sensibility that whaling is no longer necessary for survival, if it ever was; whaling hasn't really been around forever.

The argument in this piece is one I have heard many times. That killing these animals is essential for the preservation of a culture. I don't believe that. I believe that the culture as an isolate is doomed either way, not because it's too weak to survive, but for the same reason every other culture is slowly "eroding" as he puts it: communication, travel, and a commonality of desires for modern conveniences and knowledge of the outside world. Why should an Inuit teen not want to be an astronaut? Why should an Amazonian bushman's daughter not want to be a newscaster? God knows plenty of non-Inuit have gone to the great white north for something they don't have in Wales or Wichita.

[Spazito]

19. I disagree with your premise that the Inuit would rather exist in a non-Inuit society...

were they to have the chance to earn wages. It is that kind of thinking, imo, which keeps the "wards of the state" philosophy in existence. The Inuit are very proud of their culture and way of life and it is the intrusion into their way of life and the presumption that they should want a 'better' life that has devastated that very culture and way of life.

The Inuit were fine before the "non-Inuit" came along to take their land, try to erase their culture using "non-Inuit" education programs, programs that EXCLUDED any reference to their own culture, etc.

The link you provided states very clearly, by the Inuit themselves, the value they place on the "old ways" and a proposal that would keep their "old ways" while incorporating new technologies, etc, that would enable that way of life instead of replacing it.

Your example of the hunting of polar bears by those other than Inuit because the Inuit have an "allowance" and "sell" it is an important one but it reflects more on the hunter than the Inuit, imo, and I would need to know how many "allowances" are sold versus how many are used by the Inuit for the intended purpose. If it relatively rare than it is not an overriding concern, imo, and if the proposal by the Inuit in your link was to be accepted then even that concern might well disappear.

[imdjh]

20. Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that they do, with a qualification.

Merely that like a loss of some of their youth isn't out of the ordinary for rural communities.

Of course they were "fine" prior to outside contact and influence. Though the concern about the effects of alcohol and drugs in their community is seen as cultural pollution, I sincerely doubt that reduction of infant mortality or the other benefits of modern medicine are considered to be cultural pollution. But really this can be said of any culture going back in time. The Britons were "fine" prior to the Roman invasion, or the Vikings, or the Normans and some very ugly things happened in those invasions. But contact with the mainland was inevitable and with the bad came the good. Anyway, that's wandering into a rat's nest of philosophy and historical perspective.

As for the polar bears: here's an article from 2007 http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/the-bloody-business-of-the-trophy-hunters-401833.html

An IoS investigation has identified 10 companies offering polar bear hunting trips. On many of their websites are images of bloody bear carcasses, besides which a grinning hunter poses with gun or crossbow.

Some animals appear to have several wounds, indicating that their deaths were less the climax to a sport and more a slow execution on ice. Experts estimate that around 1,000 of the world's 22,000-25,000 remaining polar bears are killed each year.

About 150 of these are shot by hunters in Canada, 200 by poachers in Russia, and the remainder by native peoples in Canada, the US and Greenland.

And the number of officially sanctioned kills is increasing. Two years ago, Canada upped its quota for hunting by 28 per cent to 518, Greenland (in an attempt to stem the 250 or so unofficial kills) laid down an annual quota, and Russia, where poaching is a major problem, is about to lift its ban on hunting for the first time in 50 years.

In Canada, each Inuit community decides how many polar bear "tags" it will retain, and how many it will sell to trophy hunters. Hunting trip firms then sell these "tags", plus travel and accommodation, as part of a package deal. Alaska Hunting Safaris, for example, invites hunters to "Join us on the adventure of a lifetime for the thrill of chasing the Arctic's greatest trophy animal, the polar bear!"

As for the eating the meat thing- Africans eat Chimpanzees and Japanese eat whales. That doesn't make it right.

[Spazito]

21. What/who is IoS?

I tried to google it but came up with nothing and am curious as to who they are. As for this statement:

"As for the eating the meat thing- Africans eat Chimpanzees and Japanese eat whales. That doesn't make it right."

I can only assume from that statement that any eating of meat is seen as wrong by you? If I am right in my assumption then, imo, you are foisting your beliefs upon others, not unlike those who have foisted non-Inuit beliefs upon the Inuit to the grave detriment of their culture.

[imdjh]

22. The meat thing is something I can't defend

I just had chicken for dinner. I had a hamburger for lunch. While chickens don't stir any emotion in me, yes, I feel guilty hugging a big warm cow and can't imagine how it is that I can eat one. And then down the road I do.

I object to eating chimpanzees, elephants, lions, tigers, polar bears, whales, dolphins, and most zoo animals. I don't know why. I'm not thrilled by eating alligators, but it doesn't bother me other than the fact that I don't see anything to recommend it.

Cows and pigs are farm animals. I know, it's a cultural view, but polar bears aren't farm animals to anyone. Neither are whales. Chimpanzees certainly aren't farm animals. The bottom line is that it's not necessary for ANYONE to eat these animals anymore. They eat them because they want to.

[Spazito]

23. Your view is, as you state, "a cultural view",,,

my point would be to say your (my) culture is in not in any position to claim superiority in what can be considered objectionable, barbaric, etc. Our culture is hazardous to the planet, to each other, and our 'greatest claim to fame', if you will, is the establishment of the 'disposable' society. Polar bears have been hunted by the Inuit for centuries, it, too, is part of it's diet and they would take only what was needed. It is the 'great white hunters' who covet the trophy, it is not the Inuit.

[daleo]

24. I have often thought that the seal hunt would be more acceptable

to many people, if the animals were shot by high powered rifles from a distance. There is something about the close proximity of the killing that seems to offend people in the way that a deer hunt doesn't. It is illogical, but there you go.

P.S. I know that there is a lot more to the issue than this, but I thought this cultural observation worth mentioning.

[Bassic]

25. Also, seals are cute.

Pigs and cows are not.

[daleo]

29. That's true

Though cows do have big soulful eyes.

[Bragi]

26. I have nothing against the seal hunt, BUT...

The seal hunt is simply unsaleable abroad. We cannot win this issue, and we should not be trying to raise it constantly, especially since the industry is economically insignificant.

Time to transitionally compensate the hunters and to move on. Jean's stunt, while well intended, makes that harder to do.

[glarius]

27. The point everyone misses is that the Gov. Gen. as the Queen's representative

is not supposed to be doing political things! I find Michaele Jean to be way too much out there. This is not the first time she has thrust herself in the spotlight. I think appointing her was another of Paul Martin's bad decisions.

[daleo]

28. I agree with your point

It was an unnecessary gesture. Many Canadians don't support the seal hunt. She should have maintained a respectful neutrality.

[Spazito]

30. I don't disagree, to a point, but I support the point she was making...

in that the Inuit also hunt seals for survival, as part of their culture and way of life, a factor that is missing in all the controversy over the seal hunt. She put a face on the Inuit separate and apart from the Newfoundland seal hunt that has caused the uproar and the EU ban.

I don't support the seal hunt as it occurs off Newfoundland, a hunt primarily for profit but I have no problem with the Inuit hunt. The GG never voiced support for the "seal hunt", she voiced support for the Inuit way of life, quite different, imo.

[glarius]

31. I still say that if she was saying that as a private citizen...that's fine...but

as the Queen's representative she should not voice political opinions. There's a good reason why governor generals are supposed to be neutral and not express political opinions. Who knows what she could champion in the future? She just seems to me to be determined to leave her own mark on the governor general's job.

[Spazito]

32. She was espousing an Inuit point of view...

if she had been espousing the government point of view than she would have been in Newfoundland espousing that seal hunt. She was on a visit to the North, participated in a celebratory feast that is traditional when a guest has arrived and graciously accepted what was offered. Should she have NOT gone to the north? Should she have gone to the north but been rude to her hosts and refused to participate in the feast? Should she have insisted there be no media when she participated in the feast?

The only thing she can be faulted for, if anything, was to publicly voice her support for the Inuit way of life which includes hunting seals, polar bears, etc.

[CHIMO]

33. It Was

Not political!

She is not a politician and is not elected.

She was representing the government.

Our government.

[HeresyLives]

34. Well, she isn't supposed to be.

She's supposed to be representing the crown.

[glarius]

35. EXACTLY MY POINT! n/t

[HeresyLives]

36. Well, in her favor

she is also strongly promoting an Arctic university, and she said today:

'"I've always believed that the institution of Governor General could ... make sure people's voices are heard," she said.
"This is exactly what I'm doing."'


http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2009/05/28/9603606-cp.html

And you must admit, it was a helluva publicity coup. :rofl:

[glarius]

37. I could be wrong, but I really believe that she is setting a dangerous

precedent for future Governors General to take political stands. This cause may be worthy but if the Queen or her representative were to take stands on anything they wanted to, there could be very unsettling results in the future. The Queen (Governor General) is a figure head only and there is a good reason for this, IMO.

[Prometheus Bound]

40. There is nothing dangerous or political about this.

She was invited to dinner, she was served a traditional dish and she apparently enjoyed it. The only thing that would have been unusual would be if she had refused to eat it and said "EEEEEWWW. That's disgusting."

This is no more political than her heating a hot dog at the White House.

It's no more political than when Adrian Clarkson did it (without the cameras catching it).

[Prometheus Bound]

38. Adrian Clarkson did it. It just wasn't filmed.

Clarkson unimpressed with Jean's seal-eating gesture
Alexander Panetta, THE CANADIAN PRESS
31/05/2009 1:40 PM | Comments: 0

IQALUIT, Nunavut - At least one person's unimpressed by all the fuss over the seal-skinning adventures of Michaelle Jean: her predecessor as Governor General.

Adrienne Clarkson was curt when asked by a reporter about Jean's headline-grabbing gesture last week, and Clarkson's own memories of meals with the Inuit.

"I've eaten raw food here since 1971. It's nothing new to me, okay?" Clarkson told The Canadian Press this weekend. Both women were attending an arctic gathering hosted by Clarkson's husband John Ralston Saul.

"I have a lovely seal skin coat. . . I've eaten raw food since 1971 - and there you are."

Jean's decision to help skin a seal with a traditional ulu blade, ask for a slice of heart, and then eat it, triggered an emotional reaction from supporters and critics around the world.

There is indeed long historical precedent for the gesture: even Prince Charles snacked on the blubbery mammal during a trip to the North three decades ago.

But the difference is last week's events were captured on video, landing amid an international debate over seal hunting.

Find this article at:
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Clarkson-unimpressed-with-Jean_s-seal-eating-gesture-46577992.html

[gula]

39. Kudos to our GG

What is the problem with all you people. First, it is not, far from it, an endangered animal; second, if it was slaughtered in an enclosed building like cows, pigs, hens, etc. nobody would care; third, why are Newfoundlanders either lazy bums or brute killers.

I just can’t believe the amount of tears shed over this more than abundant animals while so many children die every day for want of basic healthcare, warfare, you name it.

In other words, go fly a kite.

[sam sarrha]

41. Heart Worm anybody..??

[sam sarrha]

42. i lived in WA for a long time.. white sharks killed off created a Seal Problem..big problem.. they

need to be controlled in Puget Sound