A World's Intolerance

The news that the Egyptian government has decided that all 300,000 or so pigs in the country must be slaughtered because of the swine flu really bothers me. Be honest! It is not because of the swine flu. Egypt's pig population is not infected with the disease, nor is it likely to become so. It is because of intolerance.

It is because Egypt is a predominantly Muslim country and Muslims consider pork to be unclean. The people that raise and eat and sell pigs in Egypt are the Christian minority. Just 10% of the population is of the Christian faith in Egypt. I find this excuse to incur extreme hardship on them by taking away their livelihood beyond disturbing. Not to mention that all those innocent animals are going to be killed needlessly. The whole thing is unbearable for me to think about it without getting extremely upset.

I know how it is to try to be a good, Christian neighbor and treat my neighbors as I would want to be treated. This is how I was raised, and this is how I try to live. Both of my neighbors on either side of me have taken issue with my cats for digging in their precious flower beds. The one neighbor finally realized that cats are pretty much uncontrollable and got smart and bought a spray which must have a dog's scent. My cats have not bothered her property since.

My other neighbor is a hypocrite. She screams and yells at me about my cats in her yard, but says nothing to her other neighbor whose male cats spray every inch of her yard continuously, thus making it a cat Mecca. My male cats were fixed at the proper age. They do not spray, but the one that can climb the fence ends up in her yard sniffing for those two big males. The day after she had the nerve to demand that I keep my cats in, those two big males were sunning themselves in her driveway.

Yet to try to compromise, my fiancé built me a tall fence with a gate so that the cats couldn't get into her yard. Well, two can't. But two just jump the fence. Because of this, I'm afraid to let my cats out when she is home, for fear she will poison them with antifreeze or do something else bad to them. So I only let them out after she goes to work and they come in before she comes home. Meanwhile, her neighbor's big males, and all the neighborhood strays roam freely in her yard.

It didn't take me long to realize it's not the cats. For whatever reason, my neighbor is intolerant of me. I know how those Egyptian Christians must feel! They are trying to live peacefully and cause no harm to their neighbors. But their neighbors hate them and are intolerant of them. Because of this, nothing the Christians can do or say will change the situation.

Now, Egyptian Christians must watch as their pigs are killed-and they may not be compensated for it-after all, why should they be raising these "filthy" animals? It saddens me deeply how intolerant the world has become. For me, that intolerance is just as close as next door.