feb 27th, 2012 CE
there is a by-election coming up in piravam near cochin. this is crucial for the survival of the oommen chandy UDF government in kerala. this is why the 'catholic ministers in the kerala government' (not my usage, this was reported by Fides, the vatican spokepaper, as the phrase used by newly-anointed cardinal alencherry or cochin) have had to tell the eye-talians to not brazen it out.
if the UDF loses piravam, their majority in the kerala assembly will be 71-70, not a tenable situation.
and the UDF knows that the LDF (the communists) will shout from the rooftops that the congress is protecting italians because sonia is a catholic and an italian.
this explains the great enthusiasm and vigor with which the coast guard and kerala police and the kerala courts have moved to detain the ship and the sailors.
which is also why john dayal and the vatican have kept very very quiet. no breast-beating about catholic fishermen being shot -- i guess it's kinda okay with them if white guys do the shooting.
let us note that piravam is part of kerala's bible belt. no non-christian (non-catholic?) can win from there. (isn't it amazing that only catholics can win from catholic-majority areas?). note the names of the candidates:
LDF; jacob (yep, a catholic communist. not so strange as it sounds)
UDF: anoop jacob
no, these are not jews.
i actually feel sorry, in a way, for the eye-talians. they must have calculated that with a catholic italian in power in delhi, a catholic chief minister and various others (one of alencherry's companions to the vatican was another minister, thomas or something), and a newly-anointed catholic cardinal from cochin, and with the history of quatrocchi's antics, they could just hit and run.
sorry, boys, you got caught up in an election drama in a catholic constituency.
to be honest, though, i am happy to see that these italians are dragged through the grime and sloth of a first class judicial magistrate's court in little kollam. in a way, this is a metaphor for the lowly status of the PIIGS of europe -- portugal, italy, ireland, greece and spain -- of which at least three were major implerialists, are now treated as pond scum. schadenfreude? be still, my heart.
there is a further irony. a wise person told me that the LDF actually does not want to defeat the UDF in piravam, because if the oommen chandy government falls, and the LDF has to form a government, they have to bring back old CM achuthanandan. now the communist party secretary pinarayi vijayan just loathes achuthanandan, and so he'd rather have the congress' oommen chandy continue in power than bring achuthanandan back!
wondrous are the ways of the catholics and their close cousins the communists!
(further note: the 'catholics' referred to are the syro-malabar church. the syro-malabar guys, whose mythology which may even be true, says they precede the very establishment of the catholic church post the council of nicae circa 345 CE, were at loggerheads with the catholics ever since francis xavier showed up on the malabar coast circa 1600 CE and forcibly converted all the fishermen at gunpoint. the portuguese then proceeded to massacre the syro-malabar guys, who had never heard of the pope and followed the patriarch of antioch in syria. but a few years ago, there was a friendly M&A, and the syro-malabar guys suddenly became part of the vatican!
wondrous indeed are the ways of the catholics -- both old ones and new ones!)
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