Mr. Georges Papandreou, president of Socialist International and president of Pasok, shares PAWS’ viewpoints.
We were excited to find in Mr. Papandreou’s personal website an article about animal welfare making use of some specific ideas and views processed by PAWS’ board of administration in June 2005 and published in 2 articles, one in English in Paros Life and one in Greek in Mr Argouzis’ newspaper.
The article in Mr. Papandreou’s website is in Greek and can be found HERE.
The ideas and views kindly borrowed from the Greek version of PAWS’ article
are the following (as transcripted from the English version of the same article):
“If we would like to ensure that we live in a civilized society, then part of the responsibility of making this praxis is taking care of the things that fall to the wayside.”
“The stray population of the island are basically somebody's throwaways.”
“The dogs deserve respect and a chance for a good life, for they have fundamentally done nothing wrong except to be in the wrong place with the wrong person.”
And our translation in Greek of a quote from naturalist-writer Henry Beston:
“Animals are not brethren, they are not underlings: they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time.”
We are happy because the possible next PM of Greece takes clearly a right position concerning the issue with the unwanted animals in Greece when most of the Greek politicians have a tendency to completely ignore the issue. And we’re even happier because our concepts are publicized in Mr. Papandreou’s personal website.
N.B.:
The sentences in Greek which were borrowed from our article are the following:
- “εάν θέλουμε να λέμε ότι ζούμε σε μια πολιτισμένη κοινωνία, τότε μέρος της ευθύνης
που φέρει αυτός ο ορισμός είναι να φροντίζουμε ότι παραπέφτει στο περιθώριο.”
- “Τα αδέσποτα ζώα του νησιού είναι ουσιαστικά τα απορρίμματα κάποιου”
- “Τα σκυλιά αξίζουν σεβασμό και μια ευκαιρία για καλή ζωή, μιας και δεν έχουν κάνει
τίποτα λάθος εκτός από το να είναι στο λάθος μέρος με τον λάθος άνθρωπο”
- “Τα ζώα δεν είναι αδέλφια μας, δεν είναι υποτακτικοί μας: είναι διαφορετικά έθνη,
που έχουν πιαστεί μαζί με εμάς στο δίχτυ της ζωής και του χρόνου.” Henry Beston |
