Shark fins are yes-yes

I found that Robert Go's arguments in his letter in The Jakarta Post on July 11, titled Shark fin restos are no-nos, were half-baked, and showed the writer himself to be half-educated or half-cultured.

The overpopulation of sharks does great damage to the sustainable marine ecosystem. Control and selective fishing and finning can help sustain the ocean ecosystem while satisfying our taste buds.

Go also bares his intellectual poverty by stating that one of the reasons not to eat shark fin soup is to protect the interests of scuba divers and those in the tourist industry involved in the sport. But what about the livelihood of all those people association with the whole supply chain of the shark fin industry and restaurants?

If catching and finning sharks is barbaric and a morally irresponsible act, how about the harvesting of sturgeon just for caviar and the killing of geese just to make foie gras.

Go should also read the Newsweek report of July 14, 2003, which states that the major factor behind the decline of sharks is longline fishing (not fishing for shark fins). It also reports about the mammoth factory trawlers and the collapse of cod fisheries in Canada and the North Atlantic, declining tuna numbers and also the aggressive whaling by Japan, Norway, South Korea and Iceland.

Go rightly fits into the category of those who Edward Said refers to as followers of Orientalism, a western-style fallacy of having the moral high ground over Asia and Asians, even about what and how we should eat.

SIA KA-MOU Jakarta