When One Voice was first created 25 years ago, the sponsorship of the association by Theodore Monod became obvious. No other actor of thought was so involved in the fight for animal life. Committed to the abolition of hunting, against animal experimentation, he has, after lengthy correspondence with Muriel Arnal, agreed to support us, to come to our gatherings, to march against bullfighting, the fur trade, to illuminate our speeches and that of our presence.
Théodore Monod, who died at the end of 2000, was a light, a spirit, one of those which is irreplaceable and of which is lacking today, to demand respect for life in all its forms. Humanist, man of faith, Theodore Monod is committed to our side and we cannot forget his vivacity of spirit that marked his time and that of our own path.
Born in 1902 in Rouen, Théodore was the son of Dorina and Wilfried, born from a line of very militant but liberal Protestant pastors. This allowed him to chart his own path of engagement. It is on the ground that he decided to live, to experiment and to mix with humans and animals, in the wide open spaces of the world.
In his youth, he resided in Paris near the Jardin des Plantes, which he visited regularly ... At the age of fifteen he created a Society of Natural History and a magazine, where he argues that wearing feathers on Parisian hats costs the lives of exotic birds. What early clarity! He chooses the natural sciences, enters the Sorbonne, and becomes a Fellow of the Museum of Natural History, discovers Africa, travels across the Sahara, of which he becomes an eminent specialist, as a humanist and naturalist all at the same time. Under the Popular Front, he initiates in Dakar the creation of a French Black African Institute, of which he will become the general secretary and then director until the 60s. His public engagement against the origins of the war in Algeria will cost him his place, without preventing him from being appointed to the Academy of Sciences in 1963.
Zoologist, ichthyologist, botanist, oceanographer, desert explorer, writer ... Theodore Monod alone is a monument to scientific work, faithful and permanent non-violent oppositions to nuclear weapons, war, poverty, racism , torture, all the injustices and especially the destruction of the environment or any form of animal abuse.
If a name rhymes with "compassion", it's his. "What we should put into place for animals are the gifts that we have received, from the heart or from intelligence, respect, protections, healing, in short consider them as a creature of God, but what do we do? Are we not too often to him a cruel enemy, a pitiless master?
