On Cloning

On Cloning

Science has succeeded in cloning a sheep, that’s to say give birth to its duplicate. Cloning man, create its copy will but have to wait some time.

“But what is it to me if they succeeded in cloning me, and so give birth to a younger, healthy, exactly the same me but isn’t the same me to me, while I am still suffering, sick and going to die.” So said a cancer patient.

And I imagined how happy I’d be, could I clone my mother, my dog that had died before to have them alive, young and healthy again, Yet, they are just living copies, not my mother or my former dog.

People would be prone, tend to cloning special persons such as Tyson for his strength in boxing, or some one as Einstein, Hawking for their brains, or Gandhi for his humanity, or Hemingway for his ability to write novels, or Picasso for his artistic talent.

“What about cloning a beautiful woman such as Liz Tailor, or Joan Collins.” said Si Buyung. “Or have a clone of the Bankok Durian without seeds or of a chicken laying a lot of eggs, having much flesh and almost without bones” as he remembered a boneless chicken dish.

And I saw the chickens in the desa (village) with their fine feathers, strong feet, wings, beak in order to be able to run fast, fly, fight, brood and to rear their lovely little chicks.

How sad, unlucky to be born as a clone with the purpose or to be an object for the sake of earning a lot of money, for the benefit, wishes of others. To be reared for fighting, for working, to exploit some one’s brains, talents, strength, to be slaughtered, killed to be served as food and many more with a patent right of the owner.

Only by the intervening of man, can cloning duplicate beings, creatures, favored according to our own considerations, interests, judgments, outdoing Nature’s way of creating the fittest by natural selection independently. Then some species might become extinct, while new species such as the almost boneless, weak, fat chickens that cannot fight and brood, or fruits without seeds, will replace the former.

Nature creates its creatures male and female, masculine and feminine, man and woman, to be happy together and rejoice in each other. That’s her gift in order to maintain, continue the race.

From Jayakarta, April 8, 1997

February 2011