Falling for foot & mouth

Although Tony Blair said before the election that the end of the foot-and- mouth epidemic was in sight, this has not yet proved to be the case, with fresh outbreaks in Yorkshire and beyond. James Dudley-Smith turns the early chapters of Genesis into an eco-parable for today.

This is the account of Britain and Ireland when they were created.

The Lord God planted a garden in the world and he called it Britain, and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees to grow out of the ground - oaks and chestnuts and elms. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Thames and the Esk and other rivers watered the garden.

Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name, pig and cow and deer and sheep.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Britain to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man: 'You are free to eat what you wish to eat, but you must not mistreat the beasts I give you to care for, nor are you to feed them wrong things, or put your own pleasure or profit above the welfare of those creatures I give you to care for.'

Now the bacteria were more crafty than any of the other creatures the Lord God had made. They said to the farmer: 'Did God really say that your pigs need all this expensive food?' To the industrialist they said: 'Did God really say you must not illegally import cows' nostrils and monkey meats from oriental countries for the ethnic markets in the larger cities?'

To the politicians they said: 'Did God really say you must do the right thing all the time, and not worry about how it will affect the polls and the newspapers?' To the supermarket bosses they said: 'Did God really say you must aim to provide quality goods that are not produced through the exploitation of people or the abuse of animals?' And to the consumers, they said: 'Did God really say you must not always buy the cheapest foods no matter where they've come from or how they are produced?'

The people answered: 'We are free to eat what we wish to eat, but we must not mistreat the beasts or put our own pleasure or profit above their welfare, or we shall surely die.' 'You will not surely die.' said the bacterium. 'Foot-and-mouth is harmless to human beings! For God knows that when your lives are rich and pleasurable, your eyes will be opened and you will forget him.'

And before long the man and woman had done wrong. Then they realised that they were naked, so they sewed Dutch elm leaves together to make coverings for themselves.

Then God came walking in the garden of Britain, through its farms and its markets and its supermarkets and its streets and its homes, and he said: 'Have you done that which I commanded you not to do?' And the consumer said: 'It's the fault of that supermarket you put there for me to shop in.' And the supermarket boss said: 'Those distributors and abattoirs and packagers -they're never as clean as they should be.' And the abattoir manager said: 'Those farmers - they'll feed their animals on one another, if it maximises the profits.' And the farmer said: 'Foreign meat is so cheap; we have to compete - and it's all the fault of those illegal importers anyway.'

So the Lord God said to the people of Britain: 'Cursed are you, people of Britain; cursed is your land and your animals and your politics and your footpaths and your tourist industry.

'I will put enmity between you and the bacteria; they will cause you much grief, and you will see the consequences of what you have done - of what every single one of you has done.

'But behold I shall not leave you for ever under a curse. A man born of a woman shall come, and he will turn the curse to a blessing. He is the One about whom my people will say: "He was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed .... Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our diseases".'

James Dudley-Smith is minister at St. John's, Wimborne, Dorset.

A parable on the crisis in the countryside

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