Residents of Denmark’s Faroe Islands, a self-governing archipelago, hunt Pilot Whales on the shores of the North Atlantic Sea in the summer. To enjoy the meat of pilot whales is a part of their ancient tradition…. culture. They consider this practice as a sacred one. Human beliefs are so diversified and amazing! Often, we can’t counter them with mere reasoning.
Officials of Denmark’s Health Ministry are well aware of this fact. They did not give any instruction to stop the practice or oppose the traditional culture. Instead, the Danish health officials have said that no one can ask Britons to stop eating bacon or residents of Faroe Islands to stop consuming whale meat. But, they have issued a simple warning: eating pilot whales is injurious to health. The health officials have argued that the marine environments have been polluted badly in recent times and it can have a terrible effect on whales and dolphins. So, it is better to avoid the whale meat. The Health Authority has advised the residents of the island to abstain from the tradition of eating whale meat for no other reason, but health.
This is not the end of the argument.

The Danish Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries has claimed that the economy of the Faroe Islands depends on the marine animals and various marine products. Some ministry officials want the government to protect and preserve the Faroe culture.
However, the fact is that people often do many things under social compulsion that are not good for them. People do those things because they love to follow tradition and they don’t have the gut to ignore the customs. Sometimes, people don’t even think about their own benefit or they don’t want to think or simply can’t think in that way. The fear of social isolation has always prompted men to control their behaviour and they follow the social norms in the pretext of tradition.

Interestingly, the world is changing. The nature, too, is changing fast. The people will have to take the responsibility for this change, as they have always tried to control (or influence) the nature. Initially, the nature tried to tolerate the torture. Now, it has started reacting adversely. Still, people make attempts to disturb the balance of the nature for the sake of tradition, development and modernisation.
Now, men need to go beyond the tradition and to make conscious attempt to safeguard the nature. They should understand that they can protect themselves only by protecting the nature. They have to stay fit in order to save their tradition or heritage. It won’t be possible for men to stay fit after polluting the sea and then consuming the meat of poisonous whale of the contaminated sea. The Danish government has made a brilliant move and it deserves credit for sensitising people about the current happening.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das