Kindness

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” Mohandas Gandhi.

Walking down Bliss Street the other night I passed by a white kitten that caught my eye. It was beautiful to be sure, but the thing that captivated me was its lack of tail, completely severed from the base, as well as its evident limp.  My heart broke a little as I wondered how this little kitten could have been so grievously injured. Surely no person could have done this? Yet the kitten was obviously domesticated.

I bring up this story to remind us all to treat the world and its creatures with kindness. Some people don’t like animals, and that’s fine, but it is beyond cruel to treat their innocence with malice. AUB is filled with animals, namely cats, and many of them have sadly endured their own cases of cruelty, at the hands of none other than our students. 

If we must judge a person, we should judge them based off of how they treat their inferiors, a truth that applies very much to our treatment of animals. Never forget that our world belongs to not just ourselves, but a diverse plethora of plants and animals alike. It’s the least we can do to treat them kindly.