I got to see the new mayor of New York, Bill DeBlasio on Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” last night, it was the first time I had seen the mayor speak about his intention to ban the carriage  horses from New York City, I was interested to hear what he had to say and wanted to be open-minded about it. I hoped he would explain his feelings in a way I could grasp them. I think the best way to handle what he did say was to simply pass it along to you – you can see it for yourself here, the extended interview Part 2 and make up your own mind.

The conversation about the horses was quite brief, neither the mayor nor Stewart seemed to want to delve into it too much, but the mayor did say this about the issue: “the waterboarding of the horses has to stop.” He added that New York City was simply no longer a place where horses out to work and live, and he added it would take some time to get rid of them  – he had said earlier he would ban the horses on “day one” of his new administration. The conversation about the horses wasn’t even 30 seconds long, it seemed to be thrown into the interview as an obligation rather than a subject.

But the waterboarding reference stuck in my mind, for sure.

“Waterboarding” is an interrogation technique – first known to be used during the Spanish Inquisition – simulating the experience of drowning, in which a person is strapped, face up, to a board that slopes downward at the head, while large quantities of water are poured over the face into the breathing passages. It is considered a form of torture, according to Wickipedia, both by the United Nations and many human rights organizations. It was used by the CIA and some American military interrogators after 911 and during the Iraqi and Afghanistan conflicts.

Waterboarding can cause extreme pain, dry drowning, damage to lungs, brain damage from oxygen deprivation,  and other physical injuries, including broken bones due to struggling against restraints, lasting psychological damage and death. The practice is now forbidden by American investigators and interrogators.

I was startled to hear the mayor suggest – he said it in a sort of joking way, a line he had obviously prepared  – that the conditions of the horses could be likened to torture,  I was surprised to see Stewart ignore the comment, I was surprised to hear the audience cheer the mayor enthusiastically. I like to think of myself as having a good feel for what people are thinking, I see that I do not, a humbling thing. One can sincerely feel the carriage horses don’t belong in the city but my heart went out to the human beings I met in the stables on Saturday, owners and riders alike. I could only imagine how I might have felt if I were in their shoes listening to such an awful comment, it was as if they were not human at all, but cardboard demons cooked up to throw to the hungry mob.

It was  a cruel comment and such a strangely nonsensical one – I just couldn’t grasp what this analogy had to do with the horses. If there is were evidence that the horses are being tortured in any way that compares to waterboarding, police would be swarming all over the carriage stables.  I would be eager to know why no one has been charged, no evidence has been presented, no action taken to remove the horses from the stables immediately. Sometimes, I guess, one just needs to get a lawyer and trust to some higher sense of fairness and justice.

I thought about the selective empathy the mayor had shown in the interview, he was clearly able to stand in the shoes of African-American teenagers bitterly protesting the NYPD’s “stop-and-frisk” policies, he spoke convincingly about their feelings. It seemed equally clear he had no knowledge or feel or grasp of the carriage industry, the lives of the horses or any sense of their treatment. And surely there was no empathy, compassion or rational understanding.  Stewart muttered some off-hand comment about hoping the horses had somewhere to go – a fairly key part of the conversation – but he didn’t really seem to care about it and the mayor blew him off.

Surely, I wondered, truth and reality has some value when confronting issues like this. Seeing the mayor, I wanted to stand all the more alongside the horses, their riders, the families who have run the stables for generations. Clearly, I belong there.   All kinds of investigators have been monitoring the treatment of the carriage horses for years, not a one has likened their treatment to torture.

The mayor, who has no pets and seems to have little knowledge of animals, wasn’t getting his information from the police or veterinarians. He was clearly parroting the wildest accusations of the protestors who call themselves animal rights activists, the torture charge. Accusations of extreme abuse and cruelty are something a number of them have shouted at the carriage drivers as they work in Central Park. For the mayor to be repeating these completely unsubstantiated accusations in such a callous and insensitive way – insensitive not just to the drives and owners, but to the human victims of torture, likened to working a horse – did clarify the issue for me, although not in a way I could have imagined.

For me, it was a sad and discouraging moment. Am I so out of touch as to be shocked as this, am I wrong to see this as an outrage? As always, the horses are in the middle, no one seems to know are care about what is almost surely in store for them, yet more animals sacrificed and exploited on the altar of human confusion and righteousness.

For a somewhat different view of carriage horses, here’s a poem about carriage horses sent me by Christina Hansen. They do seem to be appreciated in England.