Tomorrow it will be exactly ten years since the outbreak of the Third World War. There is no longer any hope that this war will end in peace. Both camps are still fighting gruelling battles. Several million people have died so far. Hundreds of millions are sick and starving. Our once vibrant cities now stand depopulated. Vast areas have been radioactively and chemically contaminated. The biological balance has been irreparably damaged. A tragic end is inevitable, and it will be the end of all humanity. On the occasion of this sad anniversary, let us remember how it happened.
Since time immemorial, humans have eaten meat. The ways of producing animal-based foods were man-made technologies. With the development of culture, different eating habits developed in different societies. The consumption of meat products was often sanctified by religious rites. Often, it was simply a necessity of life, not least for the Inuit. In a word, meats have always occupied a place of honour on the tables of the whole world. Despite this, in the course of the progress of civilisation, the ominous voices of the vegetarian were increasingly heard.
After the Second World War and the Cold War, times of peace and prosperity followed. Armies were disarmed and borders were annulled. The world turned into a big happy village. Scientists constructed hundreds of useful inventions every day. Robots replaced humans in manual labour, so artistic creativity flourished. Parents raised their children more wisely than before. Teachers educated them more wisely. And linguists have created new languages so that it is easier for all people to communicate with each other and understand themselves.
Religious tolerance prevailed, as religion ceased to be politics. Democratic continental governments were established, as a result of which politics ceased to be religion. Law, by contrast, ceased to be law, because law ceases to exist when its cause disappears. So, when crime disappeared, the institution of the police was abolished. All this because external discipline was replaced by internal discipline. Of course, in every corner of the globe, with universal consent, it was possible to engage in prostitution, to deal drugs and to commit suicide. However, this happiness did not last long.
In the 1980s, the euphemistically named Humanitarian Nature Lovers Party came to power. Vegetarian activists hid under this code name. At first, they very innocently began to introduce a new and better order. First, under pressure from vegans, the price of eggs was raised. This was soon followed by the price of fish, cheese and other supposedly harmful animal products. Finally, the vegetarians showed their true demands: they raised the price of meat products. People suffered a hitherto unknown, paralysing shock: they had to pay attention to what costs how much.
Cries for reason rang out, but were perfidiously silenced. Even back then, vegetarian propaganda referred to lovers of beef or pork as ‘cannibals’. The vegetarian Inquisition imprisoned and tortured those suspected of savouring venison with stomach washings. The Jews were not spared this persecution either. Followers of the pseudo-scientific macrobiotic doctrine hated them for their traditional kosher cuisine. Above all, the fate of certain X-rays eaters from outer space, who were contemptuously labelled ‘others eating’ and sent back, is appalling.
In February 2093, meat prohibition was introduced. The customary gastronomy went underground. Milk bars triumphed. Not for long, however, as it soon became apparent that milk was a deadly poison. In the name of the slogan ‘healthy food YES, sick freedom NO’, new bans were introduced month after month. Not only that! The bans were followed by injunctions: ‘Not a single day without leafy greens!’, “Start every meal with raw food”, etc. Fearless suppliers and recipients of banned food were threatened with a severe punishment: several years of vegetable and fruit salad three times a day.
The order to eat a daily portion of wheat bran overflowed with measure. It was motivated by a twisted and unpalatable claim that bran was rich in dietary fibre, while the fibre consisted of cellulose, gum, glue and similar abominations. After a few days of this inhumane treatment, on 7 April 2095, at lunchtime, the world officially split into two camps. On the one side stood vegetarians, and on the other the people who were not in the habit of looking into someone else’s plate. This split is commonly referred to as the outbreak of World War III, the successive stages of which are colloquially known as the ‘plate expeditions’.
The armies of the Vegetarian North broke into the territory of the liberal South without warning. The heroes of the Diet Independence Volunteer Army, being unarmed and unfortified, were doomed to defeat. Nevertheless, they defended themselves extremely valiantly, and by no means were these skirmishes over cutlery and toothpicks. Admittedly, vegetarian morality categorically forbids killing, but the fact is that the war took a tragic toll: seven million casualties. These were prisoners of war who died of starvation because they refused to take any plant food into their mouths. A spirit of sacrifice gone to the point of heroism!
After the demise of Africa and Australia, the last bastion of the meat-based culinary art became America – the home of the hamburger. But even here there are no peaceful breakfasts and dinners. Fructan terrorists are damaging nuclear power stations so that the food cannot be cooked in microwave ovens, supposedly having a deadly effect on the nutritional components of the food. Witarian Airborne Brigades drop chemical bombs behind laxatives. The picture of wartime destruction is grim. Field hospitals are running out of beds for the constant stream of patients suffering from gastritis and irritable bowel.
Further compounding the suffering and hunger makes absolutely no sense. Peaceful liberal leaders have repeatedly attempted to reach a truce. The parsley tyrants rejected every proposal, claiming that the envoys were ‘digging their own graves – with your own teeth’. These dietary hypocrites know no mercy. And their appetites are insatiable. Indeed, they demand unconditional surrender and, as war reparations, the supply of inspector vegetables. The vegetarian Supreme Court in absentia has sentenced all slow eaters to a meat-free diet for life.
Nevertheless, the possibility of capitulation was considered for some time. It was not accepted because even such a martyr’s act of sacrifice would not have been able to save human civilisation from the apocalypse. Its foreshadowing was the whole-burning of medical books, pharmacies and pharmaceutical laboratories. This was done at the behest of the most ardent fanatics of the vegetarian philosophy, for in their view, viruses – as living beings – must not be killed by drugs. They decided to correct Mother Nature’s alleged mistake. To this end, they embarked on a disastrous plan for the mass sterilisation of plants and carnivorous animals.
What has this coming to an end of human history taught us? What did the Third World War, the greatest attempt in history to physically and psychologically glamourise man, expose to us? Without doubt, any idea can become the cause of senseless drama. Examples could be multiplied where ideas of mercy and compassion have led to acts of cruelty or mass murder. Where does the cause of this paradox lie? Is it in the lack of tolerance, as freedom politicians try to convince us? Or somewhere deeper: in the nature of the human psyche? Let us consider this for a moment.
People who call themselves vegetarians postulate that sentient beings should not be killed or eaten. But have they experienced the agony of death to be able to make statements about it on the basis of personal experience? No! Like all human beings, vegetarians experience death only from the outside. Thus, like everyone else, the sight pierces them with horror. When they speak of the end of life, they mean the dread of it. It is for this reason – and not out of a spontaneous impulse of the heart as experienced by the first, unattached vegetarians – that they focus their attention so strongly on the preservation of life.
Vegetarianism, a seemingly only practical thing, is one ideology. As a transnational and even transcultural concept, it has the broadest dimension, a global one. However, it would be absurd to accuse the enthusiasts of this ideology of deliberately starting a world war. For it was unleashed by the demons of fear that have dwelt in people since time immemorial. Vegetarians have unwittingly become another instrument of the fear of dying that drove our ancestors so many times to barbarism. Yet it was undoubtedly the vegetarians who proved to be a remarkably effective tool in the hands of fear.
Fear, unlike timidity, is the most human emotion. It begins where humour ends. By imposing seriousness, fear takes away the individual’s ability to perceive reality from a distance. By taking away the ability to think independently, it imposes a black-and-white mob mentality. And by thinking in terms of good and evil, it provokes the individual to take a place on either of the opposing sides. From there, it is only a step to bloody conflict. Once set in motion, this complex process is unstoppable. Ignoring it by all of us leads the human population towards extinction.