Made me think about humanity

A while ago I got an e-mail from a friend that I found very distressing. It was requesting that I sign a petition, maybe you have already seen it but basically it is highlighting an artist (and I use the term in its loosest form) Guillermo Vargas Habacuc. He allegedly captured a stray dog on the streets and used it as an exhibit in a museum in Nicaragua. The dog was tied up and allowed to starve to death as an exhibit. There are pictures on the net if you care to search under the artists name and there is also the petition trying to stop him doing this or something similar / worse in the future)

The artist seems to have a number of changeable reasons for this exhibit. One was to highlight that strays starve to death on the streets everyday. But that is significantly different from watching one starve and doing nothing. On the streets dogs have a chance to find their own food which was taken from this animal. It is also not placed right in front of our eyes where we can see it and make a choice to act or watch.

This artist is obviously a cruel and disgusting man but he is not the only person at fault here. How many people stood by and allowed the dog to die? Off the top of my head there are the museum management who allowed the exhibit, the staff who must have seen the dog everyday (curators, security, tour guides, cleaners etc). Finally there were all the people who visited the museum and saw the dog suffering. Not one person stopped this from happening. Everyone I have mentioned this to thinks they would have done something, but no one stopped this animal’s suffering.

Did everyone there expect someone else to stand up and stop the cruelty? Did they go home and justify it in their minds saying that it couldn’t be real and the museum would feed the dog at night. Did the museum staff think it is not my responsibility the boss should stop it?

This is how humanity allows atrocities to happen. Everyone waits for someone else to say something first. We all like to believe we would be the person to stand up for the innocent but how many people really do? I want to believe that I would!