A story that made a lasting impression on me, during my formative years, was The Sentinel by Sir Arthur C Clarke, which he later transformed into the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey. In each version, an alien sentinel or ‘look-out’ was discovered on the Moon, keeping watch on Mankind until the day when humans had evolved and advanced sufficiently to begin the exploration of space. The novel 2001 goes on to relate the events of a journey to Saturn, during the course of which the HAL computer goes insane, trying to kill the human occupants of the Discovery One spaceship.
This dark and engaging tale has an ultimately uplifting finale, which may explain in part why the title and the date 2001 became fixed in the minds of million of people the world over for decades as a symbol of a time when our world would become transformed for the better. The mere mention of 2001 immediately brought to mind Earth as some kind of Utopia, where all men lived in peace, where technology had been harnessed for the good of all and where all Mankind could have little else apart from optimism for the future.
When 2001 finally arrived, we were without most of the futuristic benefits we had long dreamed of, but far worse was to come when 9/11 became seared into our memories, on September 11th 2001. We are all too aware of the human cost of the wars and other terrorist attacks that followed afterwards, but it is the nature of most of us to hope and strive for better things, whether they be more effective forms of communication and travel, the eradication of diseases, the furtherance of education, a cleaner environment, dialogue and understanding between nations or other mutually beneficial aspirations.
With all this in mind, I find myself astonished and mystified that in 2011, a decade after the year of 2001, there are still those few who actively campaign for a return to hunting with hounds in this country. They press for repeal because they want their minority pastime legalised once more, assuming maybe that with legality comes approval and respect.
What I find truly shocking is the fact that a minority of people continue to loudly call for repeal, as if the riots that resulted in fires in our cities in early August of this year had never happened. While concerned men and women from every part of the political spectrum are trying to establish what led to the rampages in London, Birmingham and elsewhere, which led to the police being shot at and other men losing their lives during the disturbances, there are those who are nonetheless vocally pressing for their own bloody rampages across the British countryside to be legalised, something that shows a stunning lack of regard for public opinion. Still, they are perfectly entitled to lobby for their cause and I for one strongly support their right to do so, but I suspect that they’re going against the unstoppable tide of history, while they’re patently going against the wishes of the majority of the British people.
The notion of 2001 as representing some form of Earthly paradise may be gone forever, but the idea of the Sentinel remains with me. For as long as there are those who seek to legalise the harrowing cruelty of hunting British mammals with hounds, then there will always be those like me who will act to keep watch over our wildlife and who will continue to speak for those with no voices of their own. And there will surely come a time – perhaps a specific year, in a happy echo of 2001 – when it’s finally recognised by everyone in Britain that inflicting cruelty for sport and recreation on any sentient creature is a thing of the past, along with bear baiting, bull-baiting and other related horrors that tarnish our history as a civilised nation.
