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Friday 4 December 2009

Making Wishes Come True, By Slaking the Goddess's Thirst

Recent events in Switzerland indicate that the West is not as open to diversity as political correctness might require.
Most mainstream commentators in this country, so far as I have read, (which is admittedly not all that far,) have decried the historically neutral nation's (just remembered, John Oliver on the Daily Show last night, speaking with a Swiss ambassador was devastating...,) disdain for freedom of religion.

I wonder what the reaction would be in Switzerland or the USA to this form of religious expression within their borders?
The world's biggest animal sacrifice began in Nepal today with the killing of the first of more than 250,000 animals as part of a Hindu festival in the village of Bariyapur, near the border with India.
The event, which happens every five years, began with the decapitation of thousands of buffalo, killed in honour of Gadhimai, a Hindu goddess of power.

With up to a million worshippers on the roads near the festival grounds, this year's fair seems more popular than ever, despite vocal protests from animals rights groups who have called for it to be banned. "It is the traditional way, " explained 45-year old Manoj Shah, a Nepali driver who has been attending the event since he was six, "If we want anything, and we come here with an offering to the goddess, within five years all our dreams will be fulfilled."...

In the main event, 250 appointed residents with traditional kukri knives began their task of decapitating more than 10,000 buffalo in a dusty enclosure guarded by high walls and armed police.

Frightened calves galloped around in vain as the men, wearing red bandanas and armbands, pursued them and chopped off their heads. Banned from entering the animal pen, hundreds of visitors scrambled up the three-metre walls to catch a glimpse of the carnage.

And I snobbishly look down my nose at NASCAR...

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