Musings from Brian J. Noggle: Counterpoint: Let's Keep The Mother Fighting Tradition Alive

Counterpoint: Let's Keep The Mother Fighting Tradition Alive

Some people argue that mother fighting is a brutal sport that civilized nations should prohibit, since in many mother fights, the mothers are often wounded mortally or to the point where they are euthanized. While this might be the case, mother fights are conducted in the most humane fashion possible, without the use of spurs or other sharpened implements to increase bloodiness.

While some people don't like mother fighting, it's important to recognize the cultural import of the sport to many nations. In some underdeveloped countries, mother fighting provides much need entertainment in relief of hardscabble lives where people lack sports teams that charge $100 a ticket, concert venues where washed-up acts charge $100 a ticket, or functioning democratically-elected legislatures whose entrances cost millions of dollars. It remains an inexpensive sport participated in village greens, small outbuildings, and wherever like minded individuals gather to gamble, drink, and enjoy the spectacle.

And what a spectacle it provides! Brilliantly-plumed hens strutting and preening as they enter the ring, only to circle on another as in a ballet and come together in a whirling, flashing dance of life and death. Tallons, teeth, and elbows fly through the air gracefully, with the sensuous motion of lovers until one triumphs over the other. The arena bursts into applause at that great cathartic moment!

Mother fighting, unlike many of the organized sports of the upper classes, does not require expensive equipment nor time and minivan commitment. All a boy needs is a mother, time to train, some grain, and a dream. And what dreams the boy has; he can feel the warmth of the lights and the lightness of head that comes when his mother enters the ring and emerges victoriously. The boy's name will live forever, and the boy will become a proud man.

Some opponents of mother fighting think that it's barbaric and want to institute prohibition. They seek to transmute Mother's Day, the annual festival of mother fighting and the day of some of the largest, most festive carnivals and biggest mother fights, into a day of peace, a day set aside to preserve and honor the mother. This foolishness cuts to the very heart of tradition and seeks to impose a set of beliefs not held by the majority onto the world at large. We should not let this come to pass.

(Read the Point, Let's reclaim Mother's Day for peace, by Jordan's Queen Noor.)

- posted by Brian J. @ 7:16 PM