Earlier today, this BBC headline caught my eye, “Sierra Leone thrown into darkness.” I made a mental note to look up more on Sierra Leone and went off with my daughter to the organic farm for winter greens and celery root, and then to the animal shelter to pet and play with about 50 cats. Home again, I looked more but just realized that my obsession, Deadwood, begins in 14 minutes.
Quickly. Here is why Sierra Leone is dark. The county is short on oil, and its one “oil refinery, privatised in 1994, … has ceased functioning because of defective machinery. …”
This means rotting food, difficulties getting to work, a rise in the cost of living, unreliable electricity, long queues at gas stations, and more.
Then, I saw this story, and I thought Tom Delay had slipped into Africa to teach them the winning art of politics (snark) — and, most viciously, the art of diverting attention from what is important (the economy) and drawing attention to sex, chastity, and all that:
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But that has not dissuaded Olayinka Koso-Thomas, a gynaecologist in Sierra Leone, from campaigning against the practice for 30 years, ignoring death threats and angry protestors storming her clinic. …
Koso-Thomas … from Nigeria, sees nothing wrong with such ‘bundu’ societies and their initiation ceremonies but, on medical grounds, she and … other women’s rights campaigners want the circumcision ritual replaced by something less brutal and hazardous.
“People got me wrong at first. When I was going to the communities and sensitising them, they thought I was against their society,” Koso-Thomas told IRIN. “But it is as a doctor that I started campaigning and sensitising people about the health hazards, because I saw all the complications.”
“The real meaning of the bundu society is very good,” she said. “It is where they train young girls to become women: they teach them how to sing, dance and cook … girls who don’t go to school learn how to use herbs and treat illnesses; they are taught to respect others.”
“All that I am saying is, ‘Continue with this training, but do not cut.’ This is my message,” said the gynaecologist who has written a book about the practice of FGM in Sierra Leone.
Koso-Thomas joined forces with a group of Sierra Leonean women … to discuss the medical complications they had all suffered following circumcision.
Some … banded together to form a small non-governmental organisation (NGO) called the Amazonian Initiative Movement (AIM), and started having a modest impact. …
Recently, at the lovely, quaint Rose Theatre in Port Townsend, I saw a preview for the film, MOOLAADE. From the preview, the film seemed charming but the preview failed utterly to hint in any way what the film was about. Afterwards, my daughter asked me, “What’s the African film about?” and I could tell her, only because I’d read about it elsewhere, that it was about female circumcision. The “delicacy” with this subject must be handled was striking.
The Rose Theatre, in an attempt to get some audiences to view the film, sent this special notice out — something the Rose never does:
“Powerful is too trite a phrase for the beauty of this film.”
“Outstanding – a must-see for everyone to truly understand the desperation experienced by so many women/children.”
“The experience of this film took me back to the shock of culture I felt when I first watched the “Apu Trilogy;” – a different, so different culture, that I have never experienced before.”
“A fascinating window into another culture that turns out to be not so different from ours. Sembene is an amazing director.”
“A very uplifting and at the same time very painful (movie) to watch. The weapons of the spirit women prevail.”
“What a powerful movie! It depicts the destructive force of perverted religion. But there is some glimmer of hope if women realize their collective power.”
MOOLAADE begins a one-week engagement at the Rose Friday, March 11.
I didn’t get to see the film. I hope that the Rose Theatre got its audience because it, more than most any other theatre, deserves success for the intimacy and history of the surroundings and the quality of films that it brings to the Peninsula.
Have any of you seen Moolaade?
And what about this president’s wife campaigning on the issue of circumcision?
This is just one of these issues that really pisses me off. Sorry for the bluntness, but there it is.
Glad to know DeLay hasn’t heard this is a vote-winner…yet.
Even more disturbing than our inability to influence this practice much elsewhere, is the notion that it is practiced in the U.S. by some groups and that it wouldn’t surprise me if some freepers thought it were the way to go. Ever since I read several threads on Free Republic advocating taking the vote away from women, nothing they’d want surprises me.
Numbers of families coming from some African areas try to maintain these “traditions”.
There have been several trials following clandestine FGM, and usually, when sentenced, the parents don’t understand why.
It is a major educational issue for immigrants coming from these areas.
This is one of those issues where it is difficult, if not impossible, for both sides to even begin to comprehend the other, much less bridge the gap.
In some communities, NOT having one’s daughter circumcised would be the cultural equivalent of American parents offering their pre-teen daughter to the general public as a sex toy. And that’s just for starters.
Like it or not, in many of these same communities, the primary role of women is to become wives and mothers. A woman who can do neither of these things faces everything from social ostracism and shunning, to death.
A girl who is not circumcised will not be considered a suitable candidate for either marriage or motherhood. Her best hope for a livelihood will be as a prostitute, or just a sex slave. Her family will be shamed. Her parents may lose their livelihood because no one will do business with them, they too will face ostracism, people will not want to marry her sisters or her brothers.
The west has not positioned itself well in terms of making its customs attractive to the Majority World, and Africa is no exception. Far from it.
There are local, indigenous movements to change practices, and those are probably the best hope for progress on this issue, though being seen as western-originated or western proxies would be counter-productive.
People who want to contribute to those movements should probably start making discreet inquiries with orgs in Egypt, where female circumsision is practiced, but not in such an extreme form as in much of Africa, and having it done by a doctor in a hospital is more accepted.
I caught the story about Sierra Leone a couple of days ago as I churned through my daily news round-up…
I just want to add that a more accurate term here is female genital mutilation.
Male “circumcision” does not remove any critical functioning elements of the male genitalia…
Female “circumcision” however usually includes the complete removal of the clitoris, severely reducing the “pleasure” aspect of sex. The practice of what constitutes female “circumcision” varies from location to location and sometimes includes more drastic measures…
I was about 12 years old when I saw a documentary on female “circumcision”. I assumed it was something similar to male circumcision, a basically cosmetic and painless operation… it’s not.
I think calling it FGM is a more accurate term and although I respect other cultural traditions, this is one that completely horrifies me.
Pax
Nor is it correct to state that it does not reduce sexual function.
Yes, I’m one of those “anti-circumcision freaks”. Not something I normally bring up on Kos (or any political site); but when I see this kind of misinformation I cannot let it ride.
This is a world blog, right? Let’s ask our European friends what they think of the idea of cutting off the most sensitive part of their penis and drastically altering its function (there’s a reason it was built the way it was via evolution, or “God” if you prefer!).
While you are correct that the extreme forms of FGM are obviously worse, my understanding is that there is a type called “sunni” or something like that which is equivalent to male circ (or what I wish would be called MGM). In this procedure, “just” the clitoral hood is removed.
People are right to get outraged over FGM. But to pretend as though we do not have our own ugly skeletons in our closet with the millions of male circumcisions performed annually on helpless babies…that drives me up a wall.
Alan
Maverick Leftist
…that fear of FGM is now in the U.S. automatically grounds for the asylum procedure to move forward.
“The fact that persecution is widespread” does not make “a particular asylum claim less compelling,” the court said in a 3-0 ruling, adding that a woman who has been forced to undergo the procedure has suffered a “continuing harm.”
It was perhaps 6-8 years ago, but physicians at the University of Washignton had quite a debate about aiding FGM because they wished to be sensitive to the cultural practices of immigrants. I don’t know the University’s present views/practice, but was shocked that MDs would even consider the practice.
It was touched on in the comments, but I would like to disagree a bit. Male circumcision is another that should get more attention. Just as female circumcision is wrong, so is the male version.
There is no reason for it. And how any mother can sit by and let her baby be harmed in such a way, that is truly amazing. And wrong.
Yes, it may not be as extreme as the female version. But it is still harming a child for no medical reason.
Perhaps we should look at ourselves and what we are doing to our own children, before we pass judgement on others.
I practically lived at the library when I first became pregnant and decided if I had a boy, I’d decline circumcision. Going to La Leche League meetings during and after my pregnancy helped reinforce this decision.
This is the kind of thing that reaches the limits of my beliefs in cultural relativism and tolerance. It’s just wrong. Somewhere out there are basic human values common to all of us, and this practice violates that common ground.
That was really the beginning of my transition to “maverick” status within the left: I could not get behind the absolutist cultural relativism I saw. It sometimes struck me as “if you’re nonwhite, you’re right”–even if you subjugate your women, enforce fundamentalist religious moral codes on your people, severely restrict freedom of speech and association, etc.
I don’t of course believe that the West is right on everything–far from it. In particular, our consumerism and gluttony, and the environmental devastation and medical/psychological problems that come along with them, are shameful. But we are doing better than most of the rest of the world when it comes to protection of rights for women, atheists, accused criminals, and assorted minorities and iconoclasts. We could definitely do much better–but a lot of places are doing much worse.
What we need to do, ultimately, is take the approaches to various issues that work best: civil liberties from the West, sense of community responsibility from the East, etc. And junk the rest!
Alan
Maverick Leftist
I am to see Moolaade next week, with some students. We have a number of African women attending school, from various countries, and I sometimes wonder if any of them have experienced the horror of this practice.
I hope you’ll consider a diary about your impressions and any ensuing discussion among the students.