Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Piggie in the middle?

Yes, it’s indeed a rough life these days if you’re a pig in Italy. In Padova (aka as Padua), where St. Anthony also lived the last days of his life, the “Lega Nord”, the somewhat xenophobic “Northern League”, has come up with a rather "novel" idea of impeding the construction of a new mosque in that city: a handful of NL members have created a "Pig Day" in which they march around dragging a (live) pig on a leash over the construction site of where the mosque should be erected! By doing so (and hoping that the pig’s prostate is weak too), they hope that the area will be desecrated and therefore local Muslims will be so disgusted as to not want to construct their new mosque there.

Politics comes into the picture (no, really, in Italy?) as the NL members in Padova have stated that thanks to the left who gave the plot of land to the Muslim community in the first place, they have triumphantly marched with their small swine and “blessed” the land under their feet and under those of the Muslim community. Naturally, the left-wing mayor of the city is disgusted by the NL’s peculiar gesture and feels that his fellow citizens are too. The tiny piglet’s official title by the way is “the anti-mosque pig” (no official uniform though has been given to the swine).

Once all the hoopla will be over with and the pig’s work is no longer needed, I wonder just how many slices of fine prosciutto will end up on the tables of NL members (washed down naturally with some fine Italian red wine)?

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