There is one point being missed in this debate. Prof. Harrow did not originate the idea of 'genital cutting.'
Groups of women suggested that 'genital cutting' was a preferred transitional move
away from the old established practice. They believed that even if the practice were to be outlawed and criminalized, and even if lawyers and
policemen were brought in to terminate the practice, they would all fail. The practice would simply go underground.
So 'genital cutting' was seen by them as a transitional mechanism.
The conclusion was arrived at after extensive consultation with a wide range of
community leaders and activists in a democratic setting.
This is the context of Prof. Harrow's argument.
Now, were the community leaders wrong in their conclusion? Can FGM be stopped without this so-called
transitional process? Should Amnesty International consider FGM
a violation of human rights? And if so declared, can it be stopped?
Can humanitarian aid intervention against ebola be placed on the same footing as
an international anti-FGM campaign? Should FGM be criminalized?
I suspect that Professors Mbaku and Ochonu will say yes to most of the above -
but it is important to note the original context.
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
africahistory.net
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
Documentaries on Africa and the African Diaspora
________________________________________
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Moses Ebe Ochonu [meochonu@gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 5:47 PM
To: USAAfricaDialogue
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - RE: Tireless campaigner against FGM dies in London
Ken,
I started hearing about "FGM" being a practice designed to control female sexuality since I was a kid, way before I had any access to Euro-American modernist scripts. This is common knowledge in many parts of Nigeria, which I'm familiar with. It was never about rites of passage only. And Ayo's example proves the point that this was more than about rites of passage. The father of the woman in the story saw through the rites of passage facade and expressed this understanding to his daughter.
but i am saying the beliefs of people have to be taken into consideration. when i state that, you seem to hear me saying that they override other considerations. i didn't say that.
Yes, and this is one of the places we disagree. For me, a consideration of beliefs is important but not important enough to allow this heinous practice to be inflicted on children, scarring many of them for life or even exposing them to fatal risks. You seem to venerate a consideration of culture, of beliefs, and traditions, rendering this consideration a factor at par with or superior to the imperative of protecting these young girls from this dehumanizing practice. I vehemently disagree with your position, but at least we understand each other here.
you want me to document my claim that these practices concern rites of passage, and not other considerations. well, ayo's response concerning the warri state that point, and i think it is very widespread. anyway, that would take me more time than i'm willing to give to this debate. i read it enough, here and there, to remember it. if, however, you want to claim it is now being used to repress women's sexuality, i'd agree that it has become increasingly so that people use that reasoning. i doubt very much that was true in the past; in fact, i'd bet it was never really the case until the modern period. now that logic is used universally in islamic circles, and has become a dominant rationale for the procedure. but times change.
I don't know what you mean by "in the past." I grew up exposed to this rationale for "FGM." Since I'm not that old, perhaps your "in the past" does not include when I was growing up. Care to cite any sources that locate a different justificatory etymology in some distant African past?
but you seem to think there is no risk involved of u.s. thinking or practices as being dominant or hegemonic, and i do.
I knowledge the risk--there is risk in everything we do or don't even do. However, my position is that Africans are not children. They are smart enough to recognize that Western actors in Africa have their own agenda that could be harmful and can sift through the advocacy and interventions appropriately. More crucially, my point is that 1) it should be up to Africans to discern useful Western interventions and assistance from agenda-laden and potential counterproductive or harmful ones; and 2) that it is not the job of Western liberals and progressives to protect Africans from the risks and dangers of neo-imperialist and hegemonic practices and interventions. This attitude infantilizes Africans. I admit that in many cases African leaders have not done a great of job of insulating their people from the harmful effects and aspects of Western interventions and "assistance," but that is squarely an African problem, a blame borne by Africans, and thus it does not warrant the paranoid anti-colonial but condescending attitude of lecturing Africans on the dangers that Western anti-FGM NGOs and other Western activisms pose to them.
As a final comment here, let me say that your last post clearly delineates for me our irreconcilable differences on this issue. You said you have no issue with "symbolic cutting" of the labia or what you call "making a mark on the labia" for ritual/symbolic purpose. I do have a huge issue with ANY form of cutting or marking of the labia, clitoris, or any other part of the female anatomy for symbolic or whatever purpose. Here, too, we can agree to disagree.
Your posit is becoming a lot clearer and with that clarity comes a better understanding of the differences in how we see the issue. Hey, we even agree on one thing: that Euro-American modernist epistemology and ways of seeing and doing color how Westerners view and name African practices, hence their naming of African female circumcision FGM.
On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 2:22 PM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu<mailto:harrow@msu.edu>> wrote:
hi moses
the case of amnesty is more complicated than what you wrote. but i didn't express myself about it to state it was different from others. i think there is, again, gamut of ngos that work with little or no african input into their thinking and are very american or euro-centered in their workings. amnesty had been organized with london as the base from which all researchers and campaigners for the international part of the organization worked. they would go to africa on research missions for a determined period of time, and return to london, write up their reports, and initiate the campaigns. the lawyer and administration were in london. they probably still are, but the campaigners and researchers now have been relocated to various sites located on the continents for which they work. that shift was monumental, and many people left the organization over it.
i have my own criticisms of amnesty, one of which had been this centering of the international org in london; i am glad for the change, but it is, again, not a simple issue. in general i favor african over foreign agencies whenever possible; it doesn't help senegalese children to see Italo- on the ambulances that run through the city, reinforcing the notion that senegal can't produce its own emergency medical services. i don't oppose aid, but i can see the negative ramifications.
you want me to acknowledge the agency of africans like yourself and john in opposing fgm. i never questioned that; african people are divided on the issue, and i've been saying that my position is that i'd prefer outsiders to support african institutions and people in determining the issue. when you express your outrage over it, it might be for many different reasons. i believe when my students do so, it is inseparable from the way they see africa, and it's clear in the discourse they use, basically in seeing african, africa, african ways in general, as barbarous and inferior. that discourse has a history. maybe we all are somewhat enmeshed in it; but i would want my students to be aware of the historical, colonial, imperial history that gave that discourse its epistemology. i didn't say you were driven by that discourse, although maybe it is true that many africans still live by a notion of modernity that is fundamentally grounded in dominant western epistemes with the usual history. we are all caught up in discourses, and inhabit them at times uneasily. i put "fgm" in scare-quotes because i believe it is tendentious and still largely centered in european-grounded sensibilities. that said, i must share in those sensibilities because i am also largely repelled by excision and infibulation.
when it comes to symbolic cutting, i am not repelled by it. sorry, i don't see any reasons to get excited about it. clean knives? sure. when the people of casamance were circumcising boys with the the same razor, sharing the blood of one boy to another, the state came down against it because of aids. there was resistance on the ground because what bound the boys was being taken away. given the threat of aids, however, i think the traditional resistance couldn't be sustained. i note that senegal has a lower rate of aids than the u.s.
i tried, in my response, to suggest we regard these practices relatively. i did state that i favored external intervention in extreme cases, like genocide or slavery. i never stated that the symbolic reasoning for practices trumped other considerations. so why should i defend a position i didn't take? the logic you are using to counter my position is forced. i am not suggesting functionalist anthropological reasons trump others; but i am saying the beliefs of people have to be taken into consideration. when i state that, you seem to hear me saying that they override other considerations. i didn't say that.
you want me to document my claim that these practices concern rites of passage, and not other considerations. well, ayo's response concerning the warri state that point, and i think it is very widespread. anyway, that would take me more time than i'm willing to give to this debate. i read it enough, here and there, to remember it. if, however, you want to claim it is now being used to repress women's sexuality, i'd agree that it has become increasingly so that people use that reasoning. i doubt very much that was true in the past; in fact, i'd bet it was never really the case until the modern period. now that logic is used universally in islamic circles, and has become a dominant rationale for the procedure. but times change.
my last point, moses, is that you seem to want me to impute western, imperialist thinking to africans who oppose the practice. i didn't say or think that. i fully support african people and organizations that work to end it, and i don't think of them as servants to imperial thinking. however, and here is where we might disagree, i feel that american legislative practices and attitudes towards africa are generally condescending, neo-colonialist, and degrading--with some few exceptions. insisting that africans behave as the u.s. congress dictates is a real and present danger; it is manifest in the africom policies and various forms of epistemic violence that continue on levels where popular opinion is being solicited. when it comes to the real everyday relations, things change, and collaboration becomes possible. but you seem to think there is no risk involved of u.s. thinking or practices as being dominant or hegemonic, and i do.
ken
On 10/31/14, 2:07 PM, Moses Ebe Ochonu wrote:
"amnesty is not a western organization. you are right about it being founded in the west and getting most of its funding in the west. its centers for research are now located around the world, with two centers in africa. if its principles date back to the enlightenment, that doesn't mean africans haven't adopted those principles. all african states have signed onto the u.n. declaration of universal rights. but more importantly, ai works by supporting human rights orgs in african countries, lobbies the govts, publicizes concerns, and asks its advocates to write authorities in african states asking them to act on behalf of prisoners of conscience.
not all interventions are the same. what to do about slavery in mauretania is not the same as what to do about journalists being harassed or jailed in burundi or ethiopia. in some cases we write u.s. authorities asking them to bring pressure on a govt, but even there, not all forms of pressure are acceptable. mostly we want to publicize the event and lobby foreign govts to act. that seems to have an impact."
---Kenn
Ken,
What you wrote above would apply to every Western-founded-and-funded NGO working in Africa. I challenged you to name one foreign NGO in Africa that does not operate along those lines and you could not. The difference you're trying to draw between AI and other foreign advocacy organizations in Africa simply does not exist. Really, "amnesty is not a Western organization" simply because it has centers and offices in African countries that employ local staff? Come on, Ken, the anti-FGM NGOs that you rail against also have similar local structures.
Surely when John Mbaku and me express the kind of outrage that your students voiced about what you call "symbolic" cutting or female-circumcision-as rights-of-passage we are not inspired by Western arrogance rooted in Western notions of modernity and civilized culture, are we? We are human and resent certain practices for being morally outrageous and for violating basic human norms of decency, fairness, and protection of the juvenile. You seem to see the hand and eyes of imperialism and post-Enlightenment European modernity in every Western and non-Western reaction to and advocacy on African practices--except of course when it comes to the work of your beloved AI. This, I submit to you, is another kind of hangover.
Perhaps it is cultural relativism run amok; perhaps it is an exaggerated fear of and anxiety about the reach of Western neocolonial power; perhaps it is benign but misguided commitment to multiculturalism. I don't know.
On your labored and unpersuasive effort to distinguish between "small, symbolic" cutting and more invasive procedures, as well as your analogy of male circumcision, I'd say a few things:
1. Should one by the same relativist logic not condemn human sacrifice or other kinds of infractions because they have symbolic import for the communities that practice them?
2. We part ways on your distinctions, which I, like your students, do not agree should mitigate the moral offense that the practice causes and the damage it does to the girls subjected to it. I have not read any piece of anthropology that asserts this rites-of-passage-only explanation for "FGM." Please point me in that direction. And while doing so, give me some proof that even in the case of these symbolic, small cuttings, there is no trauma, risk of infection and long term damage to reproductive systems and capacity. As a digression, this rights-of-passage explanation reminds me of the good old days of colonial functionalist anthropology, in which there was a strong emphasis on preserving every practice encountered in Africa because it was supposedly a component of an undifferentiated African cultural corpus and served a (symbolic) function or purpose, or was a rites of passage ritual. Many terrible African practices were romanticized, sensationalized, and exoticized by the Evans-Prichards of this world in the name documenting (and celebrating) African rights of passage. By the way, in some African precolonial societies, one rite-of-passage requirement was a demonstration of a young man's ability to kill, the criterion often fulfilled with the presentation of a human skull of a victim. Should this practice have endured because it was part of some dark ritual of passage from boyhood to manhood?
3. You seem to suggest that opposing a culture or things done for cultural reasons amounts to imperial, know-it-all arrogance, and that only a medical critique is tenable or sustainable. Here I couldn't disagree more. As I wrote earlier, the medical concern is quite easy to remove and address. Once you've done that, would you then accept the practice of "FGM" and change your mind to support it? Were the missionaries wrong to advocate against the killing of twins in certain parts of Southern Nigeria? If that is imperialism, Africa needs more of it. Or perhaps they should have left it to local groups, who didn't know any better than the practitioners, to do the advocacy. Certain practices and cultures are simply out of step with our world and with the values and sensibilities of our current human conditions. Equivocating on them and nuancing them to me is unacceptable. I guess this is where we differ.
4. On male circumcision, the preponderance of medical opinion comes down on the side of the practice being medically beneficial, providing protection against disease and infection. Not only that, its aesthetic outcome is widely acknowledged. Finally, apart from the risk of infection when the wounds are not nursed probably, I've yet to read of any long lasting risk to male reproductive capacity or sexuality. Moreover, male circumcision is not done anywhere that I know of as a mechanism for suppressing male sexual expression or for controlling male bodies and sexuality. Because of all these reasons, male circumcision, whether religiously commanded or medically recommended, is seen as a practice whose benefits outweigh whatever trauma the child may be subjected to in the process, and the violation of the law of consent. We perform many procedures on children because they are beneficial. Not waiting till the child comes of age in this case is worth it. But in the case of "FGM" what medical benefit can we point to? And then we have to consider the risk of long-lasting bodily and reproductive damage. There is also the risk of psychological damage in a world in which "FGM" is not the norm but an aberration.
Put simply, you and I are on different planets on this issue, and our disagreements run the gamut of all the registers that have been invoked in this discussion. I am not as obsessed with or paranoid about imperialism and Western modernity as you are, especially when I am dealing with African interlocutors. I generally grant Africans the right to express their outrage and values without connecting them to a supposedly omnipotent/hegemonic European frame of discursive reference. I do nuance and complexity when an issue lends itself to such complication. But searching for and highlighting complexity in cases which call for moral and ethical clarity for me amounts to a form of complicity.
On Fri, Oct 31, 2014 at 11:20 AM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu<mailto:harrow@msu.edu>> wrote:
hi moses
this is complicated. i had thought the exchanges on this topic were pretty much finished, but i always welcome responding to you.
i have been pretty much partly misread throughout this thread. the topic elicits such heat.
i am, as usual, not the world expert on the topic, but i know a few things, and have had long experience in dealing with or seeing the politics of it played out. so, i'll ask your indulgence as i explain my position.
where to begin? the radical excision of the parts of the genitalia that goes by the name fgm, and the infibulation that some also practice, seems quite terrible to me, and frankly most people i know. but, but, there are a few caveats that matter a lot to me. what is the labia is cut simply to make a mark, without any removal of the flesh? what if that is not done to stop women from enjoying sex but to initiate a girl into womanhood? how is that worse than male circumcision? if there is no real "mutilation," why is it shocking?
i screened Warrior Marks at MSU maybe 15-20 years ago, and the msu students (primarily female, as it so happened) were outraged, and had trouble holding back their scorn, dislike, almost hatred of africans for practicing "fgm," and the response i was given to the question i posed above was filled with abhorrence and venom.
why is that? anyone who has been around western reactions to african practices understands that the two cultures frame things differently, and that shapes the reactions. in this case, the western student sees science and medicine as trumping african religious beliefs, which they would regard as backward superstition. the western student is not humble: he or she feels they know the truth, and at best, as a "nice kind missionary" might "sacrifice" their modern comfortable status at home and go out and "save the natives."
i hope you and i agree on how reprehensible this is, and at least has to be a consideration in the issues at stake.
are there any points at which i would hold my nose and say, yes, we have to stop such and such a practice, at all cost; have to intervene as outsiders? of course; i advocate for intervention, for instance, over genocide. when human rights are violated, i advocate for intervention, but there it has to be more nuanced. i would not advocate reintroducing foreign rule, violation of sovereignty, because a govt violates human rights. but i would advocate for pressures to be brought to bear, including withholding funding. an example would be withholding american military aid to rwanda because it has stifled the opposition, jailed the political candidate who opposed kagame, because journalists have been killed, and so on.
as an aside, then, the case of amnesty. it isn't all or nothing: i am not arguing, i did not argue, that we not express our advocacy over "fgm" in africa, but that it should take the form of supporting women's organizations in africa that are working on the issue. that was my experience in senegal, and i found their work exemplary, in contrast to the u.s. congress desire to without funding to senegal until the senegalese govt passed laws against it. i feel the same way still. (to repeat; the senegal govt caved and passed anti-fgm legislation; the women's groups went out, patiently, year after year, and finally made headway. the former approach reinforced senegalese deference to the donor nation; the latter grew organically out of the local population. i favor the latter, applaud it)
amnesty is not a western organization. you are right about it being founded in the west and getting most of its funding in the west. its centers for research are now located around the world, with two centers in africa. if its principles date back to the enlightenment, that doesn't mean africans haven't adopted those principles. all african states have signed onto the u.n. declaration of universal rights. but more importantly, ai works by supporting human rights orgs in african countries, lobbies the govts, publicizes concerns, and asks its advocates to write authorities in african states asking them to act on behalf of prisoners of conscience.
not all interventions are the same. what to do about slavery in mauretania is not the same as what to do about journalists being harassed or jailed in burundi or ethiopia. in some cases we write u.s. authorities asking them to bring pressure on a govt, but even there, not all forms of pressure are acceptable. mostly we want to publicize the event and lobby foreign govts to act. that seems to have an impact.
i want to end by returning to cutting. i am not trivializing what it means to cut a child. however, i want to also not trivialize what it might mean to intervene in a practice where the child is taught in his or her community that not undergoing traditional initiation means not becoming a full man or woman (as i tried to indicate in referencing dogon practices). there are competing issues at stake: not violating the child's body versus not violating the community's beliefs and worldviews. the former, the body, is not an absolutely pure object that shouldn't be touched. i gave as an example facial scarification. we could cite many others. the latter is not an absolute: slavery, in its various forms, can't be tolerated, despite a community's claims that it forms the framework for the society. but when the objection is made, by john mbaku or my american students, that any cutting, even if merely symbolic, is absolutely to be prohibited, i believe we are not discussing simply the child's agency or the dated nature of the practice, but something more, something inherent in the refusal absolutely to hear what the other has to say or believe. that is where i see modernism, call it western if you want, shut its ears to others.
because i am jewish, i am perhaps more sensitive to what this means re male circumcision as well. for a while the germans outlawed it, until there was such a reaction that merkel had to have the legislation reversed. in a play by arthur miller, dealing with the holocaust, at one point a jewish chararacter says to another who claims he will pass as non-jewish, "what will you do when they look down your pants." if jews decide some day to end circumcision on medical grounds, and that that symbol of the covenant is less important than the child's health or agency, so be it. but if non-jews tell them, you can't inflict this on a child, then i would have to say, having seen the act performed (the baby is 8 days old; the cutting doesn't appear to inflict great pain; the child cries briefly, and it is over), knowing all the members of my religious community around the world undergo this ritual, who are you to tell us what to do?
if you explain to me why it is wrong, i will listen, and if you are right, i will have to change my mind. but i would hope that i would have something to say about the matter.
all traditions can be changed; but they are not all the same, and the means for changing them have to be weighed given the circumstances. that was what i was trying to say, and especially i want to say, the decision should be made not "from above" except in extreme cases, like genocide or slavery. mostly it should be made in collaboration.
best
ken
On 10/30/14, 9:07 PM, Moses Ebe Ochonu wrote:
Ken,
I think folks, including myself, were reacting to your seeming trivialization of female circumcision through the use of expressions like "small cutting," "symbolic cutting," etc. One discursive tactic for trivializing a matter is to unnecessarily complicate it, which is what folks read you to be doing when you sought to classify, following the WHO, female circumcision into gradations and varieties, as if to suggest that only some forms of the practice are hurtful, traumatizing, morally wrong, and thus deserving of condemnation. I for one understood your point about foreign activists and actors, but I read it as others did in conjunction with what seemed like your refusal to unequivocally condemn a practice that you now say you oppose.
By the way, if I may ask, if a practice is wrong, what is wrong with foreigners and foreign NGOs using their resources and visibility to spotlight it or mobilize people against it? At any rate, is there a foreign NGO that does not work with local groups and partners that share its advocacy? If you know of any, please let me know because you seem to be erecting a straw man of foreign NGOs who go to Africa to imperially tell Africans what to do and not to do without collaborating with or working through local partners. You're a member of Amnesty International, a group founded and funded in the West, which campaigns against human rights violations in Africa and in many cases prescribe certain notions of human rights protection and violation to African governments and peoples--notions that may in fact be informed by Western notions of rights and personhood. Why don't you see that as a form of imperialism? Why are you involved with them? If your answer is that they work with or through local partners, well, so do the anti-FGM foreign NGOs that you so vehemently condemn. I really see a double standard here with your commitment to AI and its work in African countries condemning and promoting certain practices it deems either morally reprehensible or noble.
My overarching point in all this is to suggest that the idea that foreign NGOs who campaign against FGM in Africa are imperialist and should cede the stage completely to Africans is neither practical nor consistent with your own activist commitments.
On Wed, Oct 29, 2014 at 10:21 AM, kenneth harrow <harrow@msu.edu<mailto:harrow@msu.edu>> wrote:
dear ibk
i agree partly with you, but disagree strongly on other points.
i am an american, so a westerner. i don't see the world in one optic shared by everyone else. there is no single west, no single africa, no single villain out there. there are perspectives that vary, and some of those that predominate in the west are terrible about africa. maybe that means americans are imperfect, and if you can concede that you might agree that there are also views in africa that are not so great. what bothers me is lumping everyone into the same mold.
i raised the issue of male circumcision on this thread as well, and john said, another day for that. fine. but it isn't just jews who practice it; not only muslims who practice it; lots of christians throughout the world do so as well. and as for the "west" not "toying with it" because jews practice it, it is hardly the case that because it is a jewish tradition that it hasn't been challenged. you are imagining a jewish presence and power that doesn't exist. in fact, that is classic antisemitism.
you can google the issue if you want to find enormous attempts to prohibit male circumcision, not only in the u.s. but in europe as well. and in fact in amnesty international as well.
i agree with you, however, that the representation of female circumcision by the west has been part of the long tradition of western denigration of africans as barbarous, and it doesn't help to adopt the dominant western tropes of civilization and barbarism that served colonialist discourse for hundreds of years.
finally, i want to make it plain to john and others participating in this discussion that i agree that the practices of excision and infibulation ought to be ended, but not by outside donors imposing their cultural norms on africans, but rather by african populations themselves taking control of the issue. i support african groups opposed to the practice; i strongly disagree that the u.s. congress should tie its money to africans changing their practices as a result.
even if i don't like the practice, i find that is a form of imperialism.
ken
On 10/29/14, 7:54 AM, Ibukunolu A Babajide wrote:
Dear friends,
This is thye most illuminating narrative I have read on this topic. Coming from a supposed "victim" it is even more compelling. I have three daughters and I will NEVER allow any of them to be circumcised. The issues that we need to address are these:
1. The characterization of the practice by the West;
2. The dehumanization of Africa and recruitment of Africans to do the dirty for them on fellow Africans; and
3. Finding African solutions to African issues without being led by the nose by ignorant non Africans who make money and create their own narratives.
I raised the issue of male circumcision and so far nobody has taken up the gauntlet, afterall it fits samlessly into Jewish tradition and the west will not toy with that tradition.
Cheers.
IBK
_________________________
Ibukunolu Alao Babajide (IBK)
(+2348061276622<tel:%28%2B2348061276622>)
ibk2005@gmail.com<mailto:ibk2005@gmail.com>
On 29 October 2014 09:57, ofure aito <ofureaito@gmail.com<mailto:ofureaito@gmail.com>> wrote:
May I add my voice by sharing my experience on FGM conversation. First, I understand the position of Mr/Dr/Prof Kadiri and Samuel as well as Prof Mbaku's strong opposing position. I was genitally mutilated in what is called 'circumcision' at age 5 along with my elder sister at age 8. I recall a middle aged woman coming to our house one late afternoon and asking my mum to buy her new razors. Thereafter, my sister was taken to the bathroom. When she returned she walked astride. I worried and was transfixed by the way she walked after a simple visit to the bathroom. I didn't understand what was happening but within me I said I will not go to the bathroom. So I went to our room and hid under the bed, in fear and rejection of walking like my sister. My father came to lure me out to the bathroom where I was given my 'skin cut' and walked like my sister. When I returned to the living room I overheard our neighbor's son in our house explaining to my brother the reason why were walking like that was because we had just been circumcised. The point in this recall is that, I was born in the city and grew in the city, yet my parents felt it was necessary, even when I was already conscious of my environment. My parents never explained. My understanding came from what the neighbour said.
I do not subscribe to fgm or circumcision, but I wonder how much damage that has cost women in African societies since the 60s to date in terms of diseases and sexual deprivation? Our arguments usually take cue from western prompting. The symbolic sexual control it is expected to pose has not limited women's potentials in so many areas of self achievements and actualization (even in the precolonial that the practice was strongest and a thing of pride, women were leaders, partake in policy making, decision makers at home, during war and peace). Even promiscuity has never been affected or controlled, because in my growing up days we hear about women: married or single, who were described as 'wayward', putting it mildly. It has not stagnated women and their identity, sexuality and sensuality.
>From my experience, the change in the 21st century like Prof Mbaku clamour for is subjective and dependent on individual choices. My parents did not choose to do what they did until we were almost in our teens.
I stand on the argument that it is a societal tradition, not culture that may have outlived its implication, especially, in the age of technological consciousness. The interpretation and practice are subjective but the age-old view is to control women's sexual power and identity vis-a-viz male dominance. Has this actually been the case. Another point is that change is a natural, evolutionary process (Darwinian law) that must come. Whether, we clamour for it or not some of these anachronistic and 'perverse' practices will become obsolete and without people necessarily demanding the change. Even the culture of piercing and tattooing in the west as fad is fading.
And I do agree with Samuel that until the west has given a name and approval, Africa does not come up with her on opinionated view. For instance, the issue breastfeeding in the 70s was disdained by the west in order to sell baby formular and now, exclusive breastfeeding for at least six months is ideal. Africa is the dump site of various ideological tests and we Africans do not see anything good done in, by or come out of Africa.
Ofure
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Friday, October 31, 2014
Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - RE: Tireless campaigner against FGM dies in London
This is to us all:
As mentioned earlier FGM operations are illegal in Sweden and will probably, gradually be eradicated in the countries of birth, where it is still prevalent as a cultural or religious practice. Up to now I don't know what happens in the Bondo Society . In February 1970 I had to read an essay on rites of passage which I was supposed to have researched, and there was Kenneth Little sitting in the seminar room at the Institute of African studies Accra, Ghana, leaning forward with some expectation maybe to hear some personal testimony and first hand experience from the horse's mouth. I'm afraid to say that for lack of any reliable information about e.g. the Bondo Secret Society or the mysteries of the Poro Society, I am still as ignorant today, as I was back then about these specific matters – for which reason I resisted joining the Arochukwu when invited to do so - mainly because since I espouse the philosophy of " Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain" I lack the spirit of inquisitiveness necessary for delving any deeper into such matters that do not greatly interest me – and so , we should ask those who know( people who are members or have gone through such processes as they can be touchy about outsiders pontificating or even showing any signs of "Western" cultural arrogance or imperialism from the outside...)
Within Judaism where the brit milah is a sign of the Covenant I have come across the idea that this shows that we have to help the Almighty – otherwise if the Almighty had so desired , we would have all been born already circumcised.
In the absence of an Almighty type of religious authority for FGM, with the globalisation and spread of Western notions of culture and ideology ( including homosexuality) it's a question of time before the WHO , the church and the mosque legislate that FGM be classified as Child Abuse and Cruelty to children. In about a hundred years time they will be throwing parents in jail for fulfilling any such divine nor not so divine commands... even as tattooing ( forbidden in Judaism) is legally on the increase on the basis of people can do what they like with their own body. Reminds me of Cyprian Lamar Rowe in Ghana (he was a great fan of Achebe , putting him on a pedestal far above what Ayi Kwei Armah's two first novels could ever earn in his estimation) well Cyprian who was very much a man of traditional African fashion when it came to clothing would say in his usually very unctuous tones, about rainbow dashikis, and his palm oil colours in contrast with the British navy blues and greys, " The body is an aesthetic instrument!"
The body!
That was some mind over body.
Already in Sweden and some other countries in Europe they are making moves to ban ritual Jewish and Muslim circumcision of boys, insisting that an anaesthetic must be used and even going further than that, trying to outlaw the tradition altogether on the grounds that it is a cruel and barbaric custom...
So moral relativity or not, it's the religious and culture tradition practitioners of the various circumcision, the small cut, the big cut or even " the most unkindest cut of all" versus those who oppose on modern atheistic and required anaesthetic and humanitarian grounds.
Over here, we will continue to watch and pray. I haven't read this over. I usually don't.
On Wednesday, 29 October 2014 22:55:38 UTC+1, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:
...
It looks like we're treading water...
I do not say like Lakunle,
"A savage custom, barbaric, out-dated,
Rejected, denounced, accursed,
Excommunicated, archaic, degrading,
Humiliating, unspeakable, redundant.
Retrogressive, remarkable, unpalatable...""An ignoble custom, infamous, ignominious,
Shaming our heritage before the world...."
Even those words are not enough to convey the tragedy of the what's done that cannot be undone and for some people to understand that yes, that even if that was a phase of someone's great culture since a few thousand years ago when Jesus rode upon a donkey, much progress has been made in many other spheres as well, since the advent of Lucy...Nor do we need to be futuristic or prophetic to observe today, that in this twenty-first century, every enlightened being who espouses freedom and gender difference or equality and even some of the primitives know that FGM is a danger to all women – to womankind as a whole and not just to African women. For at least two decades now FGM has been a recurring topic of discussion in many Africa & Diaspora fora and by now we are all familiar recycling of the various arguments for and against stamping out this wicked practise. Old customs die hard. In the areas of the world where the various types of FGM still persists has it been a rite of passage imposed by patriarchal authorities – authorities who are still the law makers in the societies where FGM is still being practised ? If so, there is hope that with the rising tide of feminism the world over, the chances of FGM being imposed in Western societies the way that tattooing is now spreading,will remain remote - but there is an ever present danger since the African Diaspora West is growing and it is still the wont of some of the first generation immigrants from FGM cultures and countries to continue their FGM practice in their new homeland. So in Sweden efforts are being made to educate people out of this practice. Although, most unfortunately even among some of our intelligentsia there is still some support for FGM by the culture Chauvinists among both the men and women as you cans see here and elsewhere...Much is made of the virgins in paradise( faithfully waiting for the faithful after they leave this bodily existence in the grave) but there is no mention of FGM in the Qur'an or Bible or any of the scriptures or religious fables in Judaism or Islam. Since FGM is not sanctioned in Judaism or Islam (and I don't suppose that it is sanctioned by Jesus or St. Paul either) - any kind of totalitarian opposition will not come from adherents of the Abrahamic, but if any of the religions of the FGM practitioners sanction FGM then the adherents of those religions would invoke article 18 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights for their right to practise their religion in full for spiritual and not just for the rewards of sexual pleasure ( in this God-given life) or for upholding cherished notions and ideals of morality by amputating penis or clitoris...We could pay some attention to Fuambai Ahmadu weighing in on these matter and apart from discussing we could contribute to the eradication of FGM in even more practical ways such as supporting anti-FGM groups who are raising awareness about its dangers....
On Tuesday, 28 October 2014 03:00:32 UTC+1, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:Dear Wofa Akwassi,
It's good that you mention some of your experiences in Sweden where the Swedish woman generally still has a right to decide over her own body. The African Diaspora in Sweden has increased considerably since you were last here, to the extent that when in the last government, Sister Nyamko Sabuni was appointed Minister of Integration and Gender Equality one of her first acts was to address the pressing issue of FGM being practised in Sweden, as we have a large numbers of immigrants from some of the countries where this practice is still prevalent and even after their re-location to Sweden some of them have continued this practice here - to the extent that some people who live in such tightly knit, enclosed national communities and still adhere to such traditions may experience difficulty in finding suitable marriage partners either in Sweden or their home countries if such potential partners have not undergone an FGM operation. So Nyamko Sabuni courageously called for an obligatory gynaecological examination of all schoolgirls to ascertain that they had not suffered FGM and also to prevent such operations taking place in Sweden where it is now illegal.
Up till now, some families - ( just like the guy you mentioned) send their daughters to their home country or to some non-medical quack to undergo the operation which is some sort of rite of passage. Girls have been known to die as a result of the primitive conditions and instruments with which the operations is performed – rusty knives, no anaesthetics etc...
Here's part of some of our discussions of the matter in a Gambian list serve...
Needless to say, some of the traditionalists are very faithful to this aspect of what they call ancient African culture. I was once almost unfriended by an African friend - and this was in Swedish female company when I took the anti-FGM position in a discussion which one of the ladies started. I was so surprised because he was exceedingly angry with me shouting that FGM had been practised for " thousands of years in Africa, before the white man came!" etc. Well even in Africa there are diverse cultures with regard to this , the Wolof woman for example hails from an FGM free zone of Senegal.
In Alexandria in Egypt my engineer friend – an advanced Sufi - was singing the praises of a young lady that he wanted me to meet it sounded interesting ( those that your right hand possess etc) but I got completely turned off when he arrived at the punch line of his long pitch and the punchline was that I would find that she was "completely sealed!" - that is she had been sown up. like leather...
There's Waris Dirie (a Somalian model ) and her anti FGM activism....
Please remember us in your prayers..
Best Regards,
Cornelius
On Monday, 27 October 2014 11:27:07 UTC+1, Assensoh, Akwasi B. wrote:Ken:
Is it old age or bad eyes making it hard for you to type? It is good that you did not type more because there is no justification for FGM (or FC). As a student at University of Stockholm several years ago, I had the opportunity of witnessing some conferences about and by African women (or female scholars), including one in Denmark (UN Decade) and another one in Nairobi, Kenya. Alice Walker, Angela Davies and other radical feminists were very active at those events.
It was when "war" broke out at these forums between Muslim women speakers and non-Muslim speakers that I started to learn about the horrors of the practice called FGM. There were tearful female victims, who were ready to expose how they had no "romantic feelings" left for them after what you call the "small cutting" of that precious part of their female organs; it was no longer an African issue but a real human rights issue!
Recently at a Berkeley, California, conference, my spouse and I took a taxi cab driven by a Somali national, who told us that he was "reading" his two young daughters to be taken home (to Somalia) for Female Circumcision (FC), what Western feminists call FGM. I was so appalled that I later approached a policeman to see what could be done to stop the man: the policeman's backward reaction was that no offence or crime had been committed yet! "Really?" I asked him. "Yes, really; and that is not my problem," he added.
Maybe, the UN should pass drastic anti-FGM laws with punitive punishment or consequences for those, who flout them, regardless of one's religious background!
A.B. Assensoh, Oregon.
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Sam Andoh [ando...@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, October 26, 2014 6:58 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Cc: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - RE: Tireless campaigner against FGM dies in London
Really? Only small cutting?--does everyone on this thread know that female circumcision doesn't take all one form; that in some cases there is only small cutting made to the labia; that radical cuttung and infibulation is not the only form? hard for me to type now, so i'll be brief. outsiders should support african women in dealing w the issue--unlike alice walker in her semi-imperialist WarriorMarks. i hate u.s. people telling africans all about how awful they are for practising fem gen cutting
and i resent outsiders doing the same to jews and muslims over circumcision
ken
On 10/26/14, 2:38 PM, John Mbaku wrote:
IBK:
Sorry, but I do not care about what the Europeans are doing to their bodies--that is their problem. What concerns me is what is happening to girls in Africa--this is my main and only concern. I really do not care what anybody calls it--FGM or some more acceptable name, it is a practice that imposes unnecessary risks on our girls and provides them with absolutely no benefits. Comparing male circumcision to FGM is unfair and totally inappropriate. For one thing, I doubt that the people who circumcise their male children are doing so because they are afraid that without undertaking the exercise their children will grow up to be promiscuous. Yet, it is the fear that the female who is not subjected to the barbaric practice of FGM will grow up to be promiscuous that drives the practice.
Sorry, but I do not agree with you and S. Kadiri. FGM must be stamped out. It is a barbaric and horrific practice that does not belong in today's Africa. No girl should be subjected to such inhumanity. By the way, FGM or female cutting are appropriate names--they describe accurately the nature of the practice and what actually takes place during this barbarism.--
On Sun, Oct 26, 2014 at 4:10 AM, Ibukunolu A Babajide <ibk...@gmail.com> wrote:
Cornel is,
I know you claim some Jewish Ness. Who has the right to remove child's foreskin?
Cheers.
IBK
On 26 Oct 2014 13:07, "Cornelius Hamelberg" <cornelius...@gmail.com> wrote:--
--Talking about HUMAN RIGHTS,
WHO has the right - but whatever name, " to remove woman's clitoris in order to curb female masturbation"?
That is the question dear Salimonu....
On Friday, 24 October 2014 23:22:29 UTC+2, 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).
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2014 10:32:53 -0600
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - RE: Tireless campaigner against FGM dies in London
From: jmb...@weber.edu
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
FGM=Female Genital Mutilation; centuries old, not new.
On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 6:36 AM, Mario Fenyo <MFe...@bowiestate.edu> wrote:
PLease forgive me for being so ignorant. FGM --- is it some new (or old) disease?
Respectfully, Mario
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Assensoh, Akwasi B. [aass...@indiana.edu]
Sent: Thursday, October 23, 2014 2:11 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Cc: anthony...@yahoo.co.uk; mina...@yahoo.com; Charles.Q...@kpu.ca; dmwh...@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
May she rest in peace.
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