ACF

Working with animals has taught me more about human behaviour than when I was a psychotherapist or journalist.

The message ACF has been spreading from the get go is kindness and empathy towards each other and all those we share our planet with.

It is because our mindset has been trained towards intolerance, discrimination and separating I from Other, that is so inbuilt in our culture in such a subliminal way, we cannot succeed as a nation.

The same mistakes will be repeated over and over again, as history shows what happens across the world, unless we really consciously make an effort to wake up and stop living such unexamined lives.

Prosperity and peace is not about having all the answers. It’s about asking the right questions.

We have never once asked ourselves and those around us, why is it so difficult to simply be kind? No one is saying one must love animals but why is it so difficult to simply respect the fact that they have as much right to this earth as we do? We all came here together. And it belongs to all of us.

Unless we don’t truly understand and accept that fact, we will never learn true humility and kindness and will always continue in this cycle of self and collective destruction. Which then puts us in a perpetual state of collective Post Traumatic Stress as a nation that remains unresolved and seeps into our subconscious, which then leads to further propagating this toxic pattern of violence and abuse that you will see on the news daily.

I can say this with complete confidence after 6 years of intense psychoanalysis of our country as a whole and as individuals.

We are missing the root problem and continue working on the symptoms of the issue rather than the cause. Which is as superficial as putting a bandaid on a severed spine.

For example, When people ask us if a rabies vaccination will stop a dog from biting, and we say no, it will only erase the chance of getting rabies. For not being bitten, one must be kind, We get laughed at and criticised like that is an impossible thing to do. Says more about our mindset than about poor street dogs.

This post about the zoo is a clear sign of what I am trying to explain. Why does kindness always have conditions attached to it? Why do we only do good deeds if there is a chance of reward? Isn’t the good deed itself enough for us to be satisfied? Why is basic kindness so difficult for us to practice?

If we are really honest with ourselves, these questions above can answer most of the reasons for trouble we have faced in our country to date.

Ayesha Chundrigar