People Are More Important Than Monkeys

So apparently it’s a problem to have monkeys harvest your coconuts. Costco and Walmart have announced that they are no longer supplying a certain brand of coconut milk because the manufacturer in Thailand chains up monkeys and makes them climb coconut trees.

I must admit I’m struggling to understand this. Sure, I’m all for not abusing monkeys; no animal should be needlessly harmed. But is it abusive to make monkeys climb trees? Apparently it is, since Costco and Walmart have gravely announced that this isn’t about just better conditions for the monkeys; no, they will not sell this coconut milk until the company uses human harvesters. 

Um, have any of them ever climbed a coconut tree? Do they realize how dangerous it is for humans? Apparently these executives didn’t read Curious George when they were growing up, because they must not realize that monkeys are perfectly suited for climbing trees. So putting a human’s life in danger is less important than making sure monkeys are able to roam free? Better not tell all those cows and goats and donkeys, all around the world, that they should be standing up for their animal rights and refusing to work for humans. In that case, apparently we shouldn’t be forcing all those chickens to lay eggs for us either. 

I’m scratching my head over here. Especially because right about the same time I read about the boycott of monkey-harvested coconuts, I read the story about the woman from Oregan who bought a cheap, Chinese-made set of Halloween decorations from KMart. Inside the package, she found a note from a man claiming that he was a prisoner in a labor camp in China, that he and other detainees worked 15 hours a day under threat of torture. He asked her to contact human rights organizations, which she then did. 

Though the story had (sort of) a happy ending, with the Chinese government apparently closing down that labor camp and that particular prisoner freed, what I found sorely lacking in the story was any mention of how our purchase of products from China could be fueling these kinds of human rights abuses. In fact, there are well documented reports that the Muslim Uighurs of China are being forced to work in factories disguised as “re-education camps” that supply 83 global brands, including, Nike, Apple, and Dell. 

So we are boycotting coconut milk harvested by monkeys because that’s cruel, but we continue to scoop up products produced in China by human slave laborers living in concentration camps, and nobody says a word.

I don’t get it.

If we say we are pro-life, then this should matter. If we say we care about human rights and equality and justice, then this should matter. If we won’t put our money into a product that hurts animals, then what business do we have putting our money into products that hurt humans? 

Sometimes I wonder how much God is going to hold us wealthy Americans responsible for. In America, shopping is so easy and so fun and such a common pastime, yet we so rarely think about the people who could be suffering on the other end of our brightly-lit, clean, cheap superstores. All the stuff we buy didn’t just materialize out of nowhere. Would we enjoy our iPads and sweaters and new shoes as much if we knew they were made by slaves?

I feel helpless to know what to do about it, but I think it starts by not burying my head in the sand, but caring and thinking and talking about it. I’ve discovered that there are Apps available that can give ethical suggestions about brands. I’ve downloaded Good On You, but I’m sure there are others. My main strategy is to buy used stuff as much as possible, which is my next post. If you have other ideas, I would love to hear them. Let’s do better.