Americans Outraged Over Killing of Cecil the Lion Handed Harsh Dose of Reality

[scannon]

Americans Outraged Over Killing of Cecil the Lion Handed Harsh Dose of Reality by Doctoral Student Who Knows a Thing or Two About Wildlife in Zimbabwe

Aug. 5, 2015 Dave Urbanski

 

Goodwell Nzou can claim a number of critical statuses that most Americans — even almost au naturale thespians in PETA ads — cannot.

 

First off, he’s from Zimbabwe.

 

Second, he’s a doctoral student in molecular and cellular biosciences at Wake Forest University.

 

Third, he knows all about lions — and not the kind you see on YouTube or even at the zoo.

Nzou’s Wednesday op-ed in the New York Times is turning some heads — and perhaps generating just a little bit of cognitive dissonance — because he’s decidedly unsympathetic toward those outraged at Cecil the Lion’s demise.

 

In fact, when Nzou heard the news about Cecil, he said “the village boy inside me instinctively cheered: One lion fewer to menace families like mine.”

 

Did all those Americans signing petitions understand that lions actually kill people? That all the talk about Cecil being “beloved” or a “local favorite” was media hype? Did Jimmy Kimmel choke up because Cecil was murdered or because he confused him with Simba from “The Lion King”?

 

In my village in Zimbabwe, surrounded by wildlife conservation areas, no lion has ever been beloved, or granted an affectionate nickname. They are objects of terror.

 

Nzou went on to tell how a prowling lion made life hell for him and his family, how one injured his uncle in an attack, how the predator “sucked the life out of the village: No one socialized by fires at night; no one dared stroll over to a neighbor’s homestead.”

He also couldn’t believe Cecil’s killer has been painted as a villain, which amounted to “the starkest cultural contradiction I’d experienced during my five years studying in the United States.”

 

Recalling the point at which the lion that menaced his loved ones finally was killed, Nzou didn’t hold back. “[N]o one cared whether its murderer was a local person or a white trophy hunter, whether it was poached or killed legally,” Nzou wrote. “We danced and sang about the vanquishing of the fearsome beast and our escape from serious harm.”

 

He backed up his point of view by explaining from personal experience the damage that dangerous creatures in his country can dole out: Nzou lost his right leg from a snakebite when he was 11.

 

And while he acknowledged wild animals garner near-mystical significance from Zimbabweans, it’s never kept his people from hunting them or letting others do so. Not that it matters to Americans who habitually “jump onto a hashtag train” and transform what’s a normal — and necessary part of life — into an “absurdist circus,” he wrote.

 

Nzou concluded his devastating column in this way:

 

We Zimbabweans are left shaking our heads, wondering why Americans care more about African animals than about African people.

 

Don’t tell us what to do with our animals when you allowed your own mountain lions to be hunted to near extinction in the eastern United States. Don’t bemoan the clear-cutting of our forests when you turned yours into concrete jungles.

 

And please, don’t offer me condolences about Cecil unless you’re also willing to offer me condolences for villagers killed or left hungry by his brethren, by political violence, or by hunger.

[Off Road SHO]

Not that it matters to Americans who habitually “jump onto a hashtag train” and transform what’s a normal — and necessary part of life — into an “absurdist circus,” he wrote.

 

Ain't that the truth. Unfortunately.

 

Tom

[rikker]

Not that it matters to Americans who habitually “jump onto a hashtag train” and transform what’s a normal — and necessary part of life — into an “absurdist circus,” he wrote.

 

Ain't that the truth. Unfortunately.

 

Tom

 

It is not right.

[mrmustang]

He makes a good point.

[jlumba81]

So kill an animal with a gun and its the shooter's fault, shoot a human and its the gun's fault.

[yellowss7]

So kill an animal with a gun and its the shooter's fault, shoot a human and its the gun's fault.

 

:iagree:

What ever suits the fruitloop agenda.:troll:

 

Tom

[Croc]

Ah....we have migrated to a discussion about Republicans and Democrats? :hat:

[coffee break]

Ah....we have migrated to a discussion about Republicans and Democrats? :hat:

 

Is that illegal migration? :devil:

[scannon]

Ah....we have migrated to a discussion about Republicans and Democrats? :hat:

 

Well, this is in the Politics, Religion and Controversy section of the forum.

[NVP66S]

Ah....we have migrated to a discussion about Republicans and Democrats? :hat:

 

The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best.

 

That's a Will Rogers quote.

[speedwagon]

have taken a poll and Jon Stewart won the debate the other night while absent.

[toedrag]

Nzou is clearly a fictitious person fabricated by the pro-hunter propaganda machine (and the NRA, of course)....:jester: