When the mayor of New York City talks at any length about his determination to ban the carriage horses from the city – oddly, this has happened only once or twice – his language is revealing. He speaks in absolutes, in black-and-whites, as if the issue is so clear and simple there can hardly be any real debate or confusion about it, as if there is little question about the need to ban the horses and put hundreds of people out of work.
His words are worth de-constructing, he speaks in generalities so vague and puzzling as to seem detached from reality. This does not seem like comfortable ground to him, he speaks awkwardly and in codes and cliches, as if he is making someone else’s argument, fighting someone else’s fight.
He never speaks of the drivers, expresses any kind of empathy or concern for them, and will not, as it well known, talk to them or meet them, explainable only in the context of his repeated claims that their work is immoral. He never speaks of the horses, or reflects any kind of knowledge or affection for them.
He says that common sense tells us that no one would travel far to come to New York to ride in a horse carriage, therefore concerns about tourism are foolish. It simply doesn’t make any sense to have horses in the middle of the streets in the busiest city in the country, he says, as if it could not really make sense to anyone. The carriage horses are not a tradition worth keeping, he told a reporter, because it would not be moral to do so, and traditions that are immoral do not have to be kept. He never used to think that way, said the mayor, but certain unnamed people have spoken to him in recent years and persuaded him that making the horses work is cruel and abusive. And immoral.
His tone is curious, remote and bloodless, especially for so controversial and – to some – disturbing an issue. If he cares about the people in the carriage trade or the trauma and disruption in their lives and families he is trying to cause, he does not show it. His behavior towards them has been contemptuous and dismissive, as if they are outside of the moral community and not worth speaking to or considering. He made a point of announcing his ban proposal a month before Christmas, as the owners and drivers were planning for their holidays, timing that seemed almost deliberately and gratuitously cruel.
The mayor said this week that his proposal to ban the horses – to be introduced shortly into the City Council – will include a public dialogue about the carriage trade.
When he took office, his rhetoric about the horses was much more heated and intense. They carriage trade would be shut down immediately, he said, from “day one,” it would be his first and most urgent priority. That did not happen. The mayor has in the past described himself as a proud supporter of the animal rights movement, and although he no longer speaks of that connection, he is known to be close to officials from PETA and from the animal rights group NYClass. He seems to have accepted the position of those groups that work for animals like the horses is tantamount to torture and abuse.
Since taking office, his rhetoric has been indirect and muted, perhaps realizing he had greatly underestimated the opposition to the proposed ban on the carriage trade. More than 66 per cent of New Yorkers oppose the ban, along with all three of the city’s newspapers, the Chamber of Commerce, the Teamster’s Union, the Working Families Party, the Central Park Conservancy. But it seems his determination has not wavered or softened. Animal rights organizations like NYClass spent millions of dollars supporting the mayor’s candidacy and opposing his rivals they are widely credited with helping bring about his substantial victory. He is close to them politically, and owes them considerably.
The people in the carriage trade and their supporters are convinced the mayor is in league with real estate developers to take over the horse stables, I have seen no real evidence of that. I take him at his word. The mayor’s behavior is quite consistent with the ideology of the animal rights movement in New York, which believes it is cruel for working animals to work. (I hope they do not get around to my border collie Red, who works harder than any carriage horse ever did moving his sheep around, and without any vacations or regulation.)
But the mayor’s process has been conducted in secret, not in the open. He was given enormous amounts of money for his campaign by NYClass and the other groups supporting the carriage trade ban, he has never revealed or discussed the details of his relationship with this and other animal rights groups or the role they and their money had on his decision to try to destroy the carriage trade. If he is invested in a public dialogue, as he says he is, that might be one of the first items on the agenda. I hope the carriage trade takes the mayor and their accusers to court, if they do, I hope I am there to see their lawyers bring the question of money, politics and the horses into the light.
This week, as the mayor talked about the imminent proposal to ban the horses, he talked of a public dialogue, and it was this phrase that struck me more than any other, although his notions of morality are fascinating, if cloudy and ill-defined. What kind of dialogue can there be when the principal party has already made up his mind and refuses to talk or negotiate with the opposition?
“It’s gonna be a legislative process like any other,” he told a reporter for the New York Observer. “The details of the bill will come in a few days, we’ll begin the process of talking through it with Council members, why we think it’s important for the future of the city to do this right and also engaging in a public dialogue.” So far, and all year, the mayor has refused to talk about the carriage ban, either to the public or to the carriage owners and drivers.
A public dialogue would certainly be the democratic way, the right and moral thing to do. It is past time for a discussion and debate on the future of animals in our world, especially in crowded cities,where horses have long lived and worked, but have been replaced by machines. As horses and other domesticated animals have vanished from sight and work and consciousness, they have been replaced by pets, mostly dogs and cats, highly emotionalized animals that live in the center of people’s lives, sleep in our beds, are given expensive food and medical care.
The life of the dog has changed radically in America as the nation’s disaffected, polarized, and stressed citizens turn more and more to these animals for love and emotional support. Increasingly, they are being seen as child surrogates, and more and more, the people who own them are coming to see all animals, including the proud and work-centered horses, in that way. In purely anthropological terms, dogs are no better suited for New York City than horses, and many of them fare much worse and do more harm.
But no one is seriously going to question their existence in the city, there are too many votes and far too many donations at stake.
The result has been a widening schism between people who have pets and people who live and work with animals. People who live with animals are shocked, even outraged at the horse ban. The mayor has never owned a dog or a cat, the City Council President, who supports the ban, says frequently that her knowledge of animals comes from having a rescue cat. She believes hat it is cruel for horses to work. Her election was also strongly and generously supported by the same organizations seeking the horse carriage ban.
The protestors and demonstrators I have met live in apartments in Brooklyn and Manhattan and will not go near the horses or touch them, and have never owned or lived with any.
Thus, the public rhetoric is shockingly misinformed and emotionalized. The horses are sad, work is torture, the horses need freedom, they are kept in cells, harnessed in chains, they are lonely, they are overworked and neglected, they are dangerous, they are slaves, exploited and sent off to die when used up.
None of these accusations make any sense at all or are considered valid or true by veterinarians, behaviorists or trainers. But they do make sense if you think of the way people see their dogs or cats. If you substitute the horse for the dog, it suddenly makes sense. Since urban people no longer live with animals like horses, many of them simply have no idea what they really need. When I can laugh about it – those days are dwindling – I sometimes imagine what would happen if people tried to ban horses or donkeys or border collies and heelers from the farms around me because it is cruel for them to work in the summer or winter.
Any mayor who tried that would get a dialogue he would not soon forget. I have not met a soul in my county who does not shake his or her head when they hear about the carriage horse conflict and wonder what the mayor and the people in the animal rights groups are drinking.
The horses, like so many dogs and cats, have become emotionalized in parts of New York, the subject of victimization and child-care identifications and fantasies. It is impossible for people who see animals in this way to have any kind of meaningful dialogue with people who live and work with animals and see them in completely different way. Horses have worked in cities with people for thousands of years, they have been bred to work and need to work, just like my border collie.
How does one engage in a dialogue across so wide and emotional a space? The mayor is in a good position to initiate the dialogue he says he wants to have, but here’s the problem. He doesn’t mean it.
He won’t speak to the horse owners or drivers, won’t visit their stables. He will not meet or speak with the many experts – veterinarians, equine advocacy groups, animal lovers, trainers – who have offered to share their research into the carriage horses with him or meet to talk their healthy and safety.
Carriage trade representatives – lobbyists and members of the Teamsters Union in particular – have repeatedly offered to meet with the mayor and explore alternatives to a ban: new traffic lanes, new stables, deals with developers for grazing land or outdoor space. He has refused to meet with any of them or speak with any of them.
The real time for a dialogue, sadly, has passed. It should have come before the ban was formally proposed, when the controversy became a conflict that almost surely is heading to the courts. If the mayor was being honest or sincere – or as moral as he says he is – then he would have listened to the carriage trade and many of their supporters and advocates, the very people he has dismissed as having no common sense or reality or moral judgement.
I am not a prophet or a City Hall insider, but I believe the mayor’s ban will fail, either in the City Council or the courts. It is unjust, irrational and arrogant. The people in the carriage trade have broken no laws, committed no crimes, violated no regulations. They are not the people who abuse animals, the horses are not the animals in need of rescue. The process seems to me a blatant overreach of government power, the work of an ideologue, not a leader. It has been conducted more like a Kangaroo Court than a fair and legal process.
The mayor’s pledge of a true public dialogue is a myth, it is not truthful, it has not occurred, and the mayor seems to have made it certain that it will not happen in the future. The carriage trade will have to fight for their lives, the horses still waiting for their true rights.