Shark fins are yes-yes

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