NEWS AND COMMENT: I’ve insulted pigs because the way the Taiwanese opposition members of Parliament are behaving is way worse than pigs. It is like kids chucking food at each other. Horrendous display of loss of control. It is also insulting to pigs. They threw pig entrails around the Parliamentary debating chamber as a protest to try and stop the government’s decision to allow imports of pork from the United States that contains ractopamine, which is banned in the European Union and in China. It’s an animal feed additive used to promote leanness and increase food conversion efficiency in livestock in some countries. Imports of the pork into the country will be allowed on January 1 under current plans, as I understand it.
Please note that sometimes videos like the one above stop working over a period of time and if that has happened I apologise but I have no control over it.
Chucking around the body parts of pigs inside the debating chamber was intended to stop the Prime Minister from addressing the chamber and taking questions. The protest is unlikely to work. Taiwan’s Parliament has a history of uncivilised behaviour, if that’s the right description. In the past they’ve thrown flour and eggs and water balloons.
The bits of pig were thrown onto the podium and the floor. It doesn’t look good to the citizens of Thailand. Taiwan’s Pig Farmers Association condemned the behaviour as insulting to their members. The politicians are turning what they regard as a delicious food into a political tool. They want rational discussion and not behaviour which may also turn consumers away from eating pork.
Comment: not too sure what the last sentiment means. Perhaps it means that when people see the raw body parts of pigs in such an incongrous setting they may be put off eating it. It reminds me of Sir Paul McCartney’s quote in which he said that if abattoirs had glass walls nobody would eat meat. There’d all be vegetarians or vegans.
