Lionizing Cecil - No Lamentations For His Murdered Countrymen.............from Daniel Thomas

Let me say from the outset that the killing of a magnificent beast like Cecil the lion for a trophy is an indication that some of our fellow human beings have no appreciation of Mother Natures' endless capacity for beauty, nor do they have any concern that they are robbing other human beings of an opportunity to view these animals in their natural habitat.

Rational people will understand that sometimes individual animals have to be culled in order to preserve the genetic diversity and general health of the pride, in that case it can be done the natural way by introducing a younger male to evict the incumbent leader, or the humane way by shooting.

Four bolts from a cross-bow, with an armed guide as back-up in case of a miss, is not going to be the most popular method of animal husbandry in this age of soppy animal worship.

That said, the reaction to the demise of Cecil must give grave cause for concern, least of all because of the mass hysteria it has engendered across the comfortable parts of the world. In the rest of the world where it isn't quite so comfortable they couldn't give a rats a*se about the unfortunate Cecil.

Dignified mass mourning at the death of a prominent person is a mark of respect in the civilised world and is quite normal, but this is being slowly replaced by public outpourings of uncontrollable emotion that can only be described as mawkish mass hysteria.

This phenomenon is common in the less civilised parts of the world such as North Korea or Iran, where emotional immaturity manifests itself by a lack of self control over ones public actions.

 In the more civilised parts of the world this mass emotional insecurity started in earnest with the death of Lady Diana and has now become a universal reaction to the passing of prominent people, especially celebrities, whether they deserve adulation or not.

The emotional reaction to the death of a human or an animal is highly selective and dependent upon the celebrity status of the deceased; it is this selectivity which is rightly bringing charges of gross hypocrisy upon the public mourners, especially the more prominent ones.

It must be understood that some unscrupulous celebrities will jump on any passing bandwagon if it gets them into the public eye, with a view to keeping the royalties rolling in, but serial high profile animal defenders such as Ricky Gervais, Brian May and Ginger Spice et al. deserve an extra dose of opprobrium for their unadulterated hypocrisy and disregard for lives of innocent men, women and children in Cecil's home country of Zimbabwe and elsewhere.

It's only right and proper that these celebrities speak up against animal cruelty but it is also incumbent upon them to use their celebrity status to speak up against people cruelty and denigrate its perpetrators with the same venom they spat at Cecil's killer, Mr. Walter Palmer.

One lion is no comparison to the thirty thousand or more innocent people massacred by Robert Mugabe in Metabeleland as he consolidated his position as Zimbabwean Prime Minister in April 1980.

Since then he has waged war and committed atrocities in neighbouring Congo and destroyed the country's agricultural base using the resultant starvation as weapon to control his internal enemies.

Ricky Gervais and his pals could be forgiven if these events, which occurred before their time, had been consigned to history but they haven't; Robert Mugabe is still there in Zimbabwe, brutalising, starving and killing his enemies with the full knowledge of the international community including the UN and the EU.

As a measure of the dedication of the UN and the international community to human rights, they appointed Robert Mugabe, known by his own people as 'Butcher Bob", as an Ambassador for Tourism as part of their World Tourism Organisation.

The emotionally retarded celebrity Jimmy Kimmel, choked up live on air as he described the death of the lion as a 'disgusting tradegy' while the equally retarded model Cara Delevigne went completely over the top ranting that Walter Palmer should have his citizenship taken away.

If they had any sense of decency or common humanity, Jimmy Kimmel and Cara Delevigne would lead a celebrity campaign on behalf of the dead and dying people of Cecil's homeland, but the silence is deafening. Animals mean more than starving children in the eyes of the modern celebrity and their followers.

In conclusion, the global hysteria surrounding the death of Cecil the lion and the corresponding silence on the starvation and deaths of tens of thousands of his fellow citizens is a sad indication of how the priorities of humanity have shifted from the serious to the frivolous; by drawing attention to the actions of Walter Palmer while by turning a blind eye to the actions of 'Butcher Bob' Mugabe shows just how desensitised and callous the human race has become.