Animal Abuse 1. Initial Responses

Warning: Contains descriptions of animal abuse.

Anglophone and Francophone readers will be familiar with the recent case of Kurt Zouma, an Afro-Frenchman who plays soccer professionally for West Ham United, who published video clips of himself drop-kicking, smacking and physically tormenting his pet cat (filmed by his brother, Yoan, also a professional soccer player for Dagenham and Redbridge). In the video, multiple people can be heard laughing and giggling as the thug Zouma beats his cat. In one shot, a child – presumably Zouma’s – holds the cat up for the brute to smack, which he does with such force the cat flies across the room. These clips are all neatly staged, which suggests a degree of premeditation in which the videos, uploaded to snapchat, are intended to provide entertainment for Zouma’s many followers.

According to David Moyes, West Ham head coach, Zouma has ‘apologised’. Karan Brady, a club apparatchik, says we live in a society that ‘values forgiveness’. Zouma’s teammate, the Jamaican Michail Antonio, questions whether the abuse is ‘worse than racism’, while the goon’s other West Ham teammates are said to believe public outcry represents an ‘overreaction’, and that they ought to ‘rally round’ “little Kurt”. Meanwhile, the police are yet to charge Mr Zouma despite him clearly violating at least two well-known animal protection laws, and his club is yet to drop him.

At least we now have confirmation that footballers are imbecilic thugs, not that we required it.

Animal lovers such as we were, of course, incensed by what we saw. Those claiming they’ve witnessed an overreaction baffle us, because, as far as we can see, our reaction has been rather tame relative to its potential. Because in Zouma’s actions we of course see animal abuse, which is a crime punishable by large fines and sometimes custodial sentences, but we also see something more than that. The laughter, the premeditation, the publication of such actions for entertainment; this is not just abuse, this is evil. And you don’t fine evil; you don’t imprison it, or restrict or rehabilitate it. You eradicate it.

People like us conceal their instincts in polite society, but for the sake of giving a voice to frustrated commentators unable to say what they really feel, let us say that that people guilty of the level of sadistic, premeditated cruelty displayed here should be put to death. The death penalty should exist in law for these people. Furthermore, we would like a provision enshrined in this hypothetical law allowing for the violent torture for an unspecified period to precede the implementation of this sentence. I will go a step further to suggest, as a biological determinist, that the convicted person’s progeny should be immediately detained for an indefinite period of time, to prevent the further proliferation of savagery.

There are gangs in south London which have as an initiation ritual the submergence in boiling water of a cat to its neck, followed by the carving of a cross into its burned body. The cat is then, of course, discarded, still alive, in unimaginable pain and scarred for the rest of its short and miserable life. Can any genuine, intelligent person tell us these people don’t deserve to be massacred? Could an animal lover argue with a straight face that a fine, or a couple of years’ imprisonment would suffice? I doubt it.

And to those who disagree, who preach moderation and the value of forgiveness: go fuck yourselves. We don’t believe in forgiveness for these savages. We speak for the truly voiceless, and you can either follow, keep quiet, or become an apologist for the evil we wish to erase from this land.

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