The Grey Lady editors just slipped it right in there–the magazine spread was so big (eight pages,with eight huge color photos), and so unbelievable, that I actually missed it. I am talking about the Sunday New York Times magazine article about female genital mutilation in Indonesia.
Not until Dr. Andrew Bostom called it to my attention, did I stop, look, and let the headline sink in: “A Cutting Tradition.” I probably thought it was a rather long article about a recipe–not for a lifetime of agony, but for another way to cut and prepare a meal. Something Asian, maybe Fusion. The women’s faces were Asian faces.
But, the article is essentially a National Geographic-style photo essay subtitled: “Inside a female circumcision ceremony for young Muslim girls.” The photos are by Stephanie Sinclair, the brief text is by Sara Corbett.
What is a human rights atrocity with life-long and life-threatening consequences is here being presented as a “tradition,” often a harmless one, sometimes not, but always a well-intentioned one.
According to the article, there is “little blood involved”–well, how bad can that be? And, “antiseptic is used”– well, this is not dangerous at all, is it? Finally, afterwards, the child is given a “celebratory gift”–what, am I the kind of westerner who, Grinch-style, would deny the child her gift in order to make my twisted, “racist” argument? As the article states , the child clutching (or drinking) her gift “has now joined a quiet majority in Indonesia.”
These photographs were taken in 2006 on a day where 200 girls were genitally mutilated . In honor of the “prophet Mohammed’s birthday,” the Assalaam Foundation subsidized both the mutilation–and the “gift.” According to the Foundation’s chairman of social services, the cutting/mutilation will “stabilize her libido;” “make a woman look more beautiful in the eyes of her husband’; and “will balance her psychology.”
Ninety six percent of all Indonesian families have sliced their daughters’ clitorises right off.
No orgasms for you, you naughty, wicked hussy of a child.
In the article, an Italian physician who is also a World Health Organization official states: “To judge them (the female mutilators) “harsly is to isolate them. You cannot make change that way. These mothers believe they are doing something good for their children.”
The Indonesian “cutting” is presented as less severe, less “extreme” than African versions. Oh yeah? Then why does one photo show us a child in extraordinary pain. Yes, right there in the New York Times. The caption is: “A girl cries as she is circumcized. ” Well, its like being vaccinated, right? And there is a second photo of a highly anxious child just before the mutilation. This one is captioned: “A girl is soothed by an attendant before her circumcision.”
The photographer has captured a live human rights atrocity in progress and we are seeing it in color with our morning coffee and croissants. Or bagels. Or muffins. Whatever.
Who exactly are the barbarians here? Those who genitally mutilate their daughters or those who deem the atrocity as something of a soft core “tradition” to be “enjoyed” at Sunday brunch?
And why has no one commented upon the fact that it is only women who perform such mutilations? The psychological trauma of undergoing such a painful procedure, (albeit with very different consequences), among both male and female children and adolesecents, is unbelievable. How can a girl ever trust an older woman again? (Actually, she can’t).
I will let Dr. Bostom, who is a physician and the author of the forthcoming book, “The Legacy of Islamic AntiSemitism” (a daunting, compelling, and indispensable book), have the last words. He has written a passionate article titled “Clitoral Relativism-Female Genital Mutilation in ‘Tolerant” Islamic Indonesia. ” Quoting from the British Medical Journal on the subject, he reminds us that:
“Female genital mutilation, also misleadingly known as female circumcision, is usually performed on girls ranging in age from 1 week to puberty. Immediate physical complications include severe pain, shock, infection, bleeding, acute urinary infection, tetanus, and death. Long-term problems include chronic pain, difficulties with micturition [urination] and menstruation, pelvic infection leading to infertility, and prolonged and obstructed labor during childbirth. ”
He notes that FGM is illegal in the United States. He views the above article as “misleading.”
Read Dr. Bostom http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2008/01/20/clitoral-relativism%e2%80%94female-genital-mutilation-in-%e2%80%9ctolerant%e2%80%9d-islamic-indonesia/”>here.
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13 Comments
1. Vince P:In a vivid part of Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book “infidel’ she tells of her growing up in Kenya.. and all her friends would be teasing some girl, calling her the localized word for clitoris, it was like “Klitori” or soemthing I dont have hte book in front of me.
So the girls would tease each other if they thought a girld had not yet been mutilated.
Jan 20, 2008 - 8:54 pm 2. maryatexitzero:The article ended with this statement:
“to judge them harshly is to isolate them. You cannot make them change that way”
The article was followed by an ad sponsored by Earthjustice, congratulating themselves for the results of the intense, expensive, highly organized legal campaign they’ve waged against ‘global warming’
What happened to the idea that you can’t bring about change by judging people harshly? I guess that only applies to people the New York Times respects, like child-mutilating Islamists.
Jan 20, 2008 - 9:31 pm 3. Nancy K:This terrible debilitating, scaring and traumatizing practice is the ultimate method of controlling the female – seeking complete submission. As they come to act out their unacknowledged rage against the Muslim female, they will not hesitate to do like wise to Western women as they have no boundaries.
Jan 20, 2008 - 9:34 pm 4. Marion L:I read this article online, and the photographs speak louder than the words. The photograph of the little girl crying in pain is heartbreaking; as is the photograph of the 9 month old [!] in tears.
This violation of the right to health and bodily integrity -perpetuated by women against girls in a context of male domination – is a violent crystallization of misogyny at its worst.
Thankfully, women’s human rights organizations such as Equality Now
are fighting to end FGM.
See:
http://www.equalitynow.org/
In addition, the anti-poverty organization CARE has taken a stand against it. Their “[FGM] abandonment project” in Somalia is a source of hope and a prototype for work in other regions.
Jan 21, 2008 - 1:20 am 5. marion d s d:http://www.care.org/careswork/projects/SOM068.asp
In addition to the lifelong pain and suffering, the menstrual distress, the hemorrhagic childbirth, the horrendous tissue rupture of intercourse, and the renewed healing and breakage cycling through a woman’s effective
Jan 21, 2008 - 7:29 am 6. Mary Madigan:sexual life, the trauma often leads to fistula, a physical difficulty with retaining bodily fluids and wastes, that mark a woman as “filthy” and engender her ouster from tribal and social life, since she can never stanch the odor or steady drip, drip of her body. She is shunned, and although a simple medical procedure taking less than 10 minutes can fix the problem, few relatives or friends take the trouble, and her life is effectively ended. The transmission of disease is much assisted by the disfigurement and consequent weakening and bruising of the tissues, and the men such women live with often visit prostitutes or other “unclean” persons, then revisit their wives, creating a ready reservoir of bacteria and infection that rarely fails to ignite in the assaulted woman as fatal disease. she is then blamed for the disease, beaten mercilessly, ostracized or killed. Should she be lucky, her spouse/mate will “merely” sodomize her to alleviate the discomfort of vaginal penetration. this of course leads to vast anal infection, chiefly STDs and AIDS; the cycle is revisited from the anal entry. In no case save with nuns is the woman assured of a normal life. If the woman abstains from sex altogether, she will probably live with fewer diseases and discomforts, but of course singledom is not a preferred lifestyle among muslims. Either way, the tale is foreordained: A
woman’s life with FGM forced on her is hideous with pain, disease, lack of sexual fulfillment, grievous difficulties in health and childbirth, or ostracism and early death. And NOW and the NY Times cannot see their way clear to condemn this “tradition.” What champions of the downtrodden these cowards are.
In related news, the woman who wrote this piece, Sara Corbett, also wrote an cover story for the New York Times titled: “The Women’s War”, about female Iraq veterans.
But according to this article, Corbett got some of the facts wrong:
Big trouble at the New York Times Magazine this morning, as an editors’ note reveals that one of the women who appeared in last week’s cover story on female Iraq veterans never served in Iraq and might have made up much of what she told reporter Sara Corbett in her interview.
In the original article, 27-year-old Amorita Randall (pictured) claimed to have been stationed in Iraq during 2004. She also said that she suffered a brain injury during a roadside attack, in which her Humvee was hit by an I.E.D. Today, the Times writes that, “Based on the information that came to light after the article was printed, it is now clear that Ms. Randall did not serve in Iraq, but may have become convinced she did.”
Apparently Corbett doubted the information, and covered her tracks by using “hedge-words and qualifiers”
It’s hard to trust what you read in the Times nowadays.
Jan 21, 2008 - 10:56 am 7. Jim K:It was particularly disturbing that they call it “circumcision.” There may be multiple motives here: To airbrush the barbaric practice, but to the extent readers see through that, to associate it with (and thereby cast aspersions on) Jewish male circumcision, which has about as much in common with FGM as a manicure has with getting your hand chopped off (Muslim-style).
Jan 21, 2008 - 11:49 am 8. DoktorNo:Surprised? Post-modern relativity at its best… The facts are unimportant, the ideology is the most important, even when facts are against it.
Jan 21, 2008 - 12:15 pm 9. Fausta:I was actually shaking with outrage when I read the article in the dead-tree NYT.
Jan 21, 2008 - 1:15 pm 10. David Thomson:What a despicable excercise in moral equivalence and disregard for the truth.
“It’s hard to trust what you read in the Times nowadays.”
Nowadays? You fail to go far enough. The New York Times has for at least the last eight decades played fast and loose with the truth. Ever heard of Walter Duranty? He lied on behalf of Joseph Stalin within the pages of the Times. It is very fair and accurate to minimally compare this newspaper’s approach to truth with the attorneys who represented O.J. Simpson in his infamous murder case. The reality is that many liberals looked the other way while the New York Times lied on and slimed on a daily basis—as long as it helped the “cause.”
Jan 21, 2008 - 1:32 pm 11. USpace:Hating The NY Slimes’ Sara Gilbert and the other appeasers, and those who practice such terror is very healthy and a necessary emotion to combat this barbaric and extremely cruel and insane procedure.
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe says
mutilate little girls
KILL their sexuality
it threatens weak men’s egos
.
absurd thought -
God of the Universe wants
clitorectomies
little girls must be subdued
prepare them for slavery
.
http://absurdthoughtsaboutgod.blogspot.com
http://haltterrorism.com/
Jan 23, 2008 - 1:35 am 12. John R:.
Another sign that the West is doomed. That FGM is not loudly and where necessary, violently condemned stands in stark contrast to the manner the British handled the similary barbaric practice of suttee – the stacking alive atop a funeral pyre of the wife of her deceased husband. (General Napier’s “You have your custom and we have ours…”). Instead, we have international “peace” organizations staffed with wimps and apologists for this outrage.
Jan 23, 2008 - 12:43 pm 13. Fawzia Usman:To John R.
This same West was doing female circumcision to cure precocious masturbators less than 50 years ago. Read below:
C.F. McDonald, an American physician wrote in a 1958 paper titled “Circumcision of the Female” “If the male needs circumcision for cleanliness and hygiene, why not the female? I have operated on perhaps 40 patients who needed this attention.” The author describes symptoms as “irritation, scratching, irritability, masturbation, frequency and urgency,” and in adults, smegmaliths causing “dyspareunia and frigidity.” The author then reported that a two-year-old was no longer masturbating so frequently after the procedure. Of adult women, the author stated that “for the first time in their lives, sex ambition became normally satisfied.” Justification of the procedure on hygienic grounds, or to reduce masturbation, has since declined. The view that masturbation is a cause of mental and physical illness has dissipated since the mid-20th century.Granted that it never reached the same level of popularity as male circumcision, but still it did happen, and the belief was that it cured everything from nymphomania to divorce.
I’m an ex Muslim from a non circumcising country(majority of Muslims, like the majority of Jews and Christians do not circumcise women)and I know many women from Indonesia. Have you actually seen an Indonesian female circumcision before rushing to condemn it? I’ve seen one and I was much horrified before but its far better than any male circumcision I’ve seen.The Indonesians contrary to your assumption DO NOT,repeat do not slice the clitoris right off, at worst it is pricked to draw maybe a drop of blood. IMO, both male and female circumcision is harmful and unneccessary,not to mention painful for the baby\child, but surely,drawing a drop of blood from the clitoris is far less painful and permanently harmful than slicing a boy’s foreskin right off.Male circumcision is routine amongst all Jews and the majority of baby boys in U.S.A. are circumcised.Have you seen pictures of male circumcision or when the Jewish mohel pulls out the baby boy’s foreskin with his mouth? The baby boys is just as horrified if not more and cries as much.Even if we were to calculate the damage of circumcision by the harm caused due to it, when a baby boy loses his foreskin, he loses a lot of nerve endings and a lot of sexual pleasure.When a baby girl loses her clitoris, she suffers immense pain for life, and if all her external genitalia is cut off, its far worse for her. But pricking the clitoris to draw blood? Extremely painful and unneccessary, but better than loss of male foreskin.From where has the author of this piece,undoubtedly also a Western supremacist like you, got the idea than the clitoris is sliced off? He’s never seen any Indonesian female circumcisions, thats’ just his assumption.
Also female circumcision, even the worse forms practiced in say Egypt, was an invention of the Pharaohnic period.Egypt was majority Coptic Christian before it became Muslim, and the Muslims inherited the practice from Christian converts to Islam, and even today it is widespread amongst the Christians in the world’s oldest Christian nation Ethiopia, as well as amongst Ethiopian Jews.The Coptic Church of Egypt and U.S.A. refuses to baptise uncircumcised girls!An extensive UNICEF Study undertaken in Africa showed that there is no link to any specific religion, and it is much more cultural than religious,equally widespread amongst African Christians, Muslims, Animists and Jews.
I’m a former Muslim but commenters such as you make me want to rush to defend the Islamic faith.
Yeah sure the West criticised suttee, while burning their women as witches after third degree torture, according to the instructions in “Malleus Maleficarum” aka Handbook of catching and Killing “witches” which was their next bestseller after the Bible,not to mention catching African men and women as slaves, and sleeping with their African female slaves.Anna Godi of Switzerland was officially burnt as a witch as late as 1781,while sporadic witch hunts continued into the 19th century.
“Wimps” and “apologists” must have witnessed some female circumcisions firsthand, unlike you.Hoodectomy is a cosmetic surgery procedure actually performed in the West, to open or pierce the clitoral hood for better sexual sensation.Indonesian female circumcision isn’t harmful at all, far less so than male removal of foreskins, which is legal and routine in the West, and also performed on baby boys without their consent.I’ve many good Indonesian friends,and many have had sexual relations and extremely pleasurable ones.
Barbaric customs, whether witchburning or suttee,need to be banned, but one should always completely ban their own evils before banning others’ right? Also, one should gather complete knowledge of any allegedly harmful practice before criticising or banning it.Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s circumcision is horrible,but had she been an Ethiopian Christian or Jewish woman or an Egyptian Coptic Christian woman, she’d very likely have suffered the same fate, but of course, she couldn’t get this mileage out of it, which she does by narrating her sob story as a Muslim woman.Why not first check out some Indonesian female circumcision ceremonies?Or ask Indonesian women about their experiences ?Have you even seen any Jewish male circumcision ceremony and seen a tiny baby boy screaming in pain?
Wimps and apologists are probably less dangerous than colonizers who enslave and impoverish millions to apparently cure their “barbaric” customs while practising similar barbarities themselves, or blame customs and practices they’ve extremely little knowledge about.
Cheers!
Jan 24, 2009 - 7:13 am