Looking back, I know why I have never been able to forget that incident. It was two worlds in a nutshell. A meeting of two cultures. The hunter who has spent all his life out there at sea in all kinds of weather, making his livelihood by seeking out and killing wild animals, seals and whales, he never gets tired of it. The fjords are beautiful with mountains and glaciers. The animals out there are good, they give us life. He encounters life and death every day, the animals' lives and the animals' deaths and sometimes even those of his comrades. He knows death, he has blood on his hands every day. It does not occur to him that there might be anything repulsive about it. He also sees how foxes take fledglings, how seals hunt fish and how killer whales hunt the seals. That is how the Almighty arranged it all, and it does not occur to him that someone might want things done differently. He is himself at the top of the food chain, he puts his teeth into it all, and enjoys it. The fact that something can be both beautiful to look at and good to taste is merely part of the excellent order of things. And young animals are among the most beautiful creatures to be found, even more so in a way, when still inside their mothers.
What went on in the heads of the MEP's when they were presented with that tiny smalltype whale foetus? It was such a repulsive affair that they lacked words. And indeed, nothing was said. What words went through their heads? Abortus provocatus, the most painful and most taboo of all the life-and-death experiences of city dwellers? I should imagine so. Under the best of circumstances, it was hardly something they would wish to remember as a thing of beauty, that's for sure. There was a wall between the old man and the stylish politicians from Central Europe. Two worlds that could only meet at a fleeting glance.
The distance between these two worlds is now on the verge of conflict, a sad and unnecessary conflict. I our part of the world, the hunter has always led his life in his own parts, and he farmer and the city dweller in their's. Everyone knew that conditions varied from one place to another, as was the case with lifestyles and the varying interests in natural resources, too. There was room enough for us all. Perhaps that is what is lacking: room for us all. Perhaps the world is becoming too small, even in the far North with its Atlantic distances. Because we now have so many mutual tangent surfaces, that we can no longer turn our eyes away and pretend that we don't notice just how different our neighbours are. We must make up our minds as to whether or not we can stand the thought of our neighbour having different views on the killing of animals than we ourselves have. Perhaps it's true that he can both hunt and respect an animal at the same time? Perhaps the whaling, sealing and hunting peoples are not interested in canvassing for their own attitudes in their neighbouring communities, where the distance from Nature and animal life is greater. Perhaps they are less presumptuous than those industrial people who obviously simply will not accept that there are quite legitimately other people who do not share their ideas, religion, political systems and now believe it or not their attitudes to animals!
If we are to have a reasonable future on this earth, we must learn to live together with other peoples without devouring their cultures. We all have the right to live here, in mutual respect.