RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - RE: Tireless campaigner against FGM dies in London

Thank you very much Professor Mbaku. This is a very sensitive discussion for some people and I appreciate your intervention out of concern. I hope in the name of defending mother Africa, sometimes we Africans do not condone something that is not actually healthy. Male circumcision  has  helped in controlling the speed of infection of HIV/ AIDS. One factor that partly contributed to the spread of the virus in some parts of Africa is the huge number of people not circumcised. But that aside, from an anthropological point of view, what some people seem to be saying is that simply because a practice is in existence, it must necessarily have a value and the value must be healthy for everyone in the society. Ruling classes or powerful people can initiate an act and institutionalize it even though the act serves some people more than others. My vision of a society is one of shared risk and shared prosperity. 

I think we should work hard, as difficult as it may be, to come up with principles or criteria for healthy and dignified human existence that takes into cognizance solid scientific knowledge. And there are persons with impressive scientific credentials: male and female.  Once we have that, we can use that to evaluate a situation and arrive at whether it is healthy for our people or not. In my view, even if we go around the world and find out that poor people are oppressed in the U.S., Middle East, China, India, Europe or Latin America, that is not a reason why we should condone the oppression of poor people in Africa, if our sense of judgement rooted in solid scientific evidence says doing so is bad for our people. In the same, even if women are treated like second class citizens in other societies, we should use our solid sense of judgement rooted in science and human dignity of the person and ask whether simply because it is happening in all societies, it is a reason for us to go and and hold a party to celebrate what is happening to women  in Africa. The African should be able to judge if something is not healthy for his or her people and not wait for the outsider to help us make the call.

I truly believe that as Africans we are able to, with a sense of humility, commitment to justice and fairness make the right decision about what truly dignifies our people and on that basis stop what dehumanizes them. Constantly blaming someone else for our problem is not in the long run going to help us. To ignore what oppresses fellow Africans or any group of human beings in the world for that matter, because someone in the U.S. or somewhere is doing it also or did it in the past, suggests to me more a lack of courage to face one owns reality, as in defending Africa, the person is still relying on foreign models.

In any case, there are educated women who are trained and informed and can give fellow Africans honest assessment about this problem of genital mutilation. As a sociologist, to me, it is a weak argument to say it is part of our culture. There are hundreds of things that used to be part of African culture but now such things are not practiced. There are reasons for that. 

Some years ago, I was part of an educational tour to South Africa for two weeks. As part of it, the organizers took us to a Black theatre where Black women and men are performing traditional South African dance, often the Zulu type. My seat was in front and amazingly, the women came out almost naked with their chest open. It is true there were men on stage but the real attention was on the body of the women. It was a "free pay per view." At the end, there was a debate in our group and some used African culture to justify it. My response is why is it that the Zulu have stopped practicing many aspects of their culture that used to be existing three hundred years ago but the one that allows women to expose their bodies in a global culture that commodifies sex and women's body is justified to continue? Of course because someone sees it as an industry of making money. Without the women exposing themselves, the attendance would not be as high as it was. The point is not that Zulu people should not practice their culture, but culture is dynamic, and people with power in a culture can influence the change more than others. So, simply hiding behind a cultural argument as such does not help if we cannot as Africans think deeper. 

We should remember that many women are not granted same rights as men in Africa. At least in the conference I attended in Sokoto Nigeria, where Professor Falola was the keynote speaker, this issue came up and it is glaring. In one session, in spite of being careful about what I say, I had to intervene to say that scholars attacked a woman's presentation on the representation of women in Nigerian literature was a veiled attack on any concern about gender; even though the frame of argument used by Europeans to put down we Africans down or to put racial minorities down is the same used to justify keeping women down: i.e., biology, intelligence, culture, emotional expression etc. 

 Promoting the rights of women does not mean as some think that one is promoting an anarchic society because I know in the part of Nigeria I come from, some think this way. To say that it is also western suggests that we Africans do not have the capacity to think of our fellow Africans as full human beings. Any society that denies a  portion of its people to develop their full human potential is losing something very important. The idea that education or freedom can lead someone astray is not a uniquely female problem, but a human problem. Young men can get educated or have freedom and be irresponsible with it and ignore the wisdom from the elders. Frankly this is not a uniquely female problem. If it is a female problem, it is because most people judge the woman differently in the first place. And this boils down to: what does it mean to be HUMAN?

For those who  have the time and patience, below is a weblink to a documentary film from the series: "WHY POVERTY?" It shows how cultural assumptions can suppress people from discovering their full potential, in this case, a Jordanian woman. Of course, as she realized something new about her, it changed her sense of what she is or capable of doing, contrary to where her husband and people categorized. This is true of all humans.  If looked from the point of view of pursuing human dignity and potential, this is a very inspiring film. I am not sure that I can do what the woman did in terms of accomplishment.  Here is the link: "SOLAR MAMAS"

http://video.pbs.org/video/2296683172/

I suggested to the president of Northern Nigerian association in the U.S. (Zumunta Association) to screen it during the last annual convention and he did. It generated very much discussion. What the woman accomplished in the film is phenomenal if you look at it in context. And there are Masai women too in the training to produce solar energy.

Samuel

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Date: Sat, 25 Oct 2014 12:11:30 -0600
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - RE: Tireless campaigner against FGM dies in London
From: jmbaku@weber.edu
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Salimonu Kadiri wrote:

"Gynecologists in the nineteenth century Europe and America used to remove woman's clitoris in order to curb female masturbation. It was called CLITODECTOMY. When the same thing is done in Africa, it is derogatively Called, FEMALE GENITATAL MUTILATION. Males and females are circumcised in some African countries but if it were to be in Euro-America it would have been propagated as GENDER EQUALITY! Males' circumcisions in Africa are never referred to as Male Genital Mutilation probably because the Jews and Arabs also circumcise their males. However, both males and females in Euro-America nowadays are engaged in what is called PIERCING OF THE GENITALS (VAGINA AND PENIS)."

Please, Salimonu Kadiri, what  do you mean when you say "derogatively Called, FEMALE GENITATAL(sic) MUTILATION"? Are you by anyway implying that FGM, as a practice in Africa, is justified? I hope you are not trying to justify FGM on any grounds, including those you appear to state above.

Please, explain yourself.

On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 12:39 PM, Salimonu Kadiri <ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com> wrote:

Gynecologists in the nineteenth century Europe and America used to remove woman's clitoris in order to curb female masturbation. It was called CLITODECTOMY. When the same thing is done in Africa, it is derogatively Called, FEMALE GENITATAL MUTILATION. Males and females are circumcised in some African countries but if it were to be in Euro-America it would have been propagated as GENDER EQUALITY! Males' circumcisions in Africa are never referred to as Male Genital Mutilation probably because the Jews and Arabs also circumcise their males. However, both males and females in Euro-America nowadays are engaged in what is called PIERCING OF THE GENITALS (VAGINA AND PENIS).

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Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 10:32:53 -0600
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - RE: Tireless campaigner against FGM dies in London
From: jmbaku@weber.edu
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

FGM=Female Genital Mutilation; centuries old, not new.

On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 6:36 AM, Mario Fenyo <MFenyo@bowiestate.edu> wrote:

PLease forgive me for being so ignorant.   FGM ---  is it some new (or old) disease?
 
Respectfully,  Mario

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Assensoh, Akwasi B. [aassenso@indiana.edu]
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2014 2:11 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Cc: anthonyakinola@yahoo.co.uk; minapeggy@yahoo.com; Charles.Quist-Adade@kpu.ca; dmwhiteh@iupui.edu; Afoaku, Osita; Nnaemeka, Obioma G; Obeng, Samuel Gyasi; McCluskey, Audrey T.
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - FW: Tireless campaigner against FGM dies in London

 

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/oct/22/efua-dorkenoo

May she rest in peace.

 

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JOHN MUKUM MBAKU, ESQ.
J.D. (Law), Ph.D. (Economics)
Graduate Certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law
Nonresident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Attorney & Counselor at Law (Licensed in Utah)
Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor of Economics & Willard L. Eccles Professor of Economics and John S. Hinckley Fellow
Department of Economics
Weber State University
1337 Edvalson Street, Dept. 3807
Ogden, UT 84408-3807, USA
(801) 626-7442 Phone
(801) 626-7423 Fax

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JOHN MUKUM MBAKU, ESQ.
J.D. (Law), Ph.D. (Economics)
Graduate Certificate in Environmental and Natural Resources Law
Nonresident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Attorney & Counselor at Law (Licensed in Utah)
Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor of Economics & Willard L. Eccles Professor of Economics and John S. Hinckley Fellow
Department of Economics
Weber State University
1337 Edvalson Street, Dept. 3807
Ogden, UT 84408-3807, USA
(801) 626-7442 Phone
(801) 626-7423 Fax

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