This is a post from my new blog,"The Talking Parcel". As it discusses the awesome Tony Jaa - and my favourite of his films - I'm also posting it here :o)
Today is World Pangolin Day, where those of us humans interested in the fate of the amazing, scaly creatures try to inform the rest of the world about their plight, and come together to just enjoy how wonderful pangolins are. The bestest thing about them apart from their cute-ness, IMHO, is their earthworm-like powers of soil aeration and so forth - as outlined here: pangolin's control pests
Much of the emphasis in pangolin conservation - and much of the impetus for it - comes, though, from the poor animals' unfortunate status as the most common victim of illegal wildlife trade: the article I just inserted a link to about this is highly informative, and makes saddening, sobering reading. It also has some horrifying images of pangolin bodies, inlcuding some of it served as a specialist, uber-expensive 'exotic' meal. It also has some lovely images, such as this one:
The article is excellent, and does a lot to inform about pangolins, about wildlife trade (illegal and otherwise) in general, and about the issue around why larger, more 'charismatic' mammals such as the beleagured tigers, rhinos and elephants get so much more press than smaller animals including pangolins. It doesn't address the issue of non-mammals, which also of course suffer hugely... but then, it can't cover everything, which is kind of the point of my writing this blog post at all!
So what is my point?
I absolutely support World Pangolin Day and all efforts to conserve the pangolin along with other animals at constant and ongoing risk from the horrors of trade in wildlife around the world. But here, I just want to say a few things about the way/s in which this trade is talked about, and some of the problematic assumptions that go along with - and are sustained by - those ways of talking and thinking.
For a start, I do find it problematic - at best - that much of this discourse (at least in English!) focuses on vilifying and demonising 'the Asian' market in and for 'exotic' animals. I currently live in Korea, and have no qualms in agreeing that much of the approach I have seen to animals-as-food-and medicine is pretty horrific, and hence would never deny that 'the Asian market' is both alarming and contributes massively to the peril which not just mammals like pangolins and tigers face daily, but to the similar perils and cruelties suffered by sharks and sea cucumbers, to name just a few. Indeed, at the current historical moment (when we claim to be 'post'-colonialism, and when big game hunting is less popular than it was in the days of the British Empire), it IS the Asian market that poses the most threat.
But what concerns me is a latter-day demonising of a new 'yellow peril', and - perhaps more importantly - the way in which this focus on 'the Asian' as a threat to 'wildlife' both elides and draws critical attention from how all humans - perhaps especially those in the 'West' - both contribute to the plight of OTHAs across the globe, and treat 'farm' OTHAs in ways that are at very least as vile and immoral as the ways in which 'the Asian' treats 'wild' animals such as pangolins, tigers, rhinos and elephants.
This adds, I think, to the worldwide refusal to address the fact that the way humans treat the vast mahority of animals is not only despicable, but tends not just to uphold a dubious human/animal dichotomy, but also even more problematic and tenuous dichotomies such as wild/domestic and protected/farm in respect of animals. Images of dead and dying elephants with their tusks cut off are horrendous, as are those of crates of dead pangolin bodies... but so are images from our abbatoirs, where it might even be argued (although it's far from this simple!) that those animals - 'domestic' animals' - have it even worse, since their entire lives from birth to gruesome death are not just in captivity, but are treated as wheels in the cogs of a machine to 'produce' (rather than hunt or otherwise obtain) food... So again, double (triple? quadruple?!) standards are maintained: we decry 'the Asian' for THEIR cruel practices against 'wild' animals, and refuse to recognise the symmetries therein with 'the West's' treatment of animals it has domesticated... and that's without even getting into how 'the West' has already decimated many of its own 'wild' animals, and continues to vilify so many of them (think here of red foxes, and badgers - both so much in 'the news' of late) - and to 'manage' even those it purports to love.
The issue is more complex than even this lengthy blog post outlines, but I wanted nonetheless to at least draw attention to it, and say those few things.
A related point emerges from considering the film Tom-Yung-Goong, aka Warrior King, aka The Protector (aka "Where are my elephants?", at least to me; d. Prachya Pinkaew, Thailand, 2005). This film, starring the remarkable Tony Jaa and two elephants, has Jaa's character, Kham, follow wildlife traffickers to Australia when they steal two elephants with whom Kham has grown up, and with whom he and his family share their lives: it turns out the elephants are bound for a high-class but illegal 'Asian' restuarant in Sydney, where Asian gangsters cater to the 'exotic' tastes of their (largely Asian) clientele. Kham's only desire is to find and save the elephants (whose names I can't find listed in the credits...).
First, the film does of course highlight and demonstrate reasons why larger mammals such as elephants are more focused-upon than smaller, less 'charismatic' animals such as pangolins in the fight against wildlife trade: it is somehow easier to believe that elephants are part of not just Kham's 'family', but also his cultural tradition (as represented in the opening sequence of the film), that to believe that sort of role is held by a pangolin. This points to ways in which even when we choose animals to care about, much of that decision and focus emanates not just from care for the animal itself, but from what it 'means' to humans, and in the human soci-cultural and historical context. This should, in turn, make us (re-think hard about which OTHAs we choose to care about, and why.
The film also ably illustrates why elephants are deemed more 'charismatic': they are impressive on-screen, and simply take up more space than wee pangolins, who would be dwarfed by Kham, their protector! The same applies, in many ways, to attempts to heighten 'public' awareness about the plight of endangered mammals and other species: those that are similar in size to us or larger are often chosen - especially in these ever-more visually-centred times, where more is 'known' about our fellow animals than is read.
Interestingly, though, 'even' this martial arts action film that focuses on elephants IS at pains to show us a wide range of OTHAs in cages when Khan finally locates the restaurant where the elephants have been taken: this is one reason I love this film: it may not be perfect - and it's certainly no documenary!!! - but even within the limitations of its genre, it tries to not just rethink the sharp human/animal divide held to resolutely by contemporary western culture, but does not limit that to only the more charimsatic species, visually, on-screen. (The film's discoure on race is also abslolutely fascinating - especially in its use of pitting Kham against truly gigantic and very white men in the final fights... but I can't even begin to analyse this here: it needs a dissertation to do it justice!)
Lastly, then - before I fall asleep! - I'd just like to note the main reason I love this film. When Kham arrives in Sydney, the plot has him meet up with a local cop who is also Thai, and hence with whom he can communicate verbally. Despite this, several comic moments in the film come from the cop's confusion about what Kham is telling him: Kham tells him he's looking for kidnapped members of his family, and the cop, Mark (Petchtai Wongkamlao), misunderstands this and assumes Kham is searching for humans.
This miscommunication between the westernized Thai figure of authority and the more nationally-coded Thai who grew up alongside other-than-human family members is, for me, one of the most remarkable and lovely elements of this surprising film. To me, it means the film on some level genuinely goes beyond the ways in which western media and even most western conservationists see, conceptualise and treat individual OTHAs, as it points to the ridiculous arbitrariness of the human/animal dichotomy; to the ways in which actual, lived human-animal friendships belie such a clear-cut divide; and to the 'strange kinship' that we humans enjoy not just with each other, but with all animals...
And as these are all ideas to which I hope to return, I will stop for now!
