A little FYI for FGM…

The Guardian is reporting that Britain is suffering from an epidemic of female genital mutilation (FGM) as they predict that up to 2000 young Muslim girls will be “cut” this summer alone.

Some 500 to 2,000 British schoolgirls will be genitally mutilated over the summer holidays. Some will be taken abroad, others will be “cut” or circumcised and sewn closed here in the UK by women already living here or who are flown in and brought to “cutting parties” for a few girls at a time in a cost-saving exercise.

Then the girls will return to their schools and try to get on with their lives, scarred mentally and physically by female genital mutilation (FGM), a practice that serves as a social and cultural bonding exercise and, among those who are stitched up, to ensure that chastity can be proved to a future husband.

Unfortunately, The Guardian – in an especially hackneyed and pathetic way – ascribes this practice to a generally vague notion of social “conformance,” inferring that this extreme form of misogynistic violence could occur in any English home to any English family, much like being randomly selected for rationing by the National Health Service. It’s left up to the racist, intolerant, Islamophobic reader to determine that this “procedure” is in fact performed in “conformance” to Islamic tradition (The Guardian can’t have anything interfere with their precious golden calf of diversity and multiculturalism, don’t you know).

Islam is notorious for both its emphasis on sexuality as per the strenuous exertions in that regard by the Prophet Muhammad himself while schizophrenically suppressing sexuality through a number of bizarre traditions and fatwas. For example, it’s acceptable for a man to commit bestiality in order to prevent “fornication” with a woman, but if the abused animal is later slaughtered for market, its meat can’t be sold locally, though selling it in neighboring villages is permitted.

Female genital mutilation, especially when the vagina is partially sewn shut, is a particularly barbaric procedure that is designed to enhance the male’s sexual pleasure while, of course, eliminating any reciprocal feelings of sexual pleasure for the woman. The Guardian, noted for its nuance and tolerance, dismissed any possibility that the noble Religion of Peace ™ – with its burqas, stoning of women for simply being accused of adultery, honor killings of women for “apostasy” (usually for converting to Christianity) or for not remaining a chaste and humble Muslim, etc. – could even be associated with such a brutal practice. In fact, The Guardian achieves such duplicity by utilizing the standard straw-man of relativity among the monotheistic Abrahamic faiths:

Cleanliness, neatness of appearance and the increased sexual pleasure for the man are all motivations for the practice. But the desire to conform to tradition is the most powerful motive. The rite of passage, condemned by many Islamic scholars, predates both the Koran and the Bible and possibly even Judaism, appearing in the 2nd century BC.

Although unable to give consent, many girls are compliant when they have the procedure carried out, believing they will be outcasts if they are not cut. The mothers believe they are doing the best for their daughters. Few have any idea of the lifetime of hurt it can involve or the medical implications.

And just in case you remain skeptical that FGM isn’t an Islamic tradition, Asha-Kin Duale will set you straight:

Asha-Kin Duale is a community partnership adviser in Camden, London. She talks to schools and to families about safeguarding children. “Culture has positive and negative issues for every immigrant community. We value some traditions, and most are largely good.

“FGM is not confined to African countries. It has no basis in Christianity, it has no basis in Islam; none of Muhammad’s daughters had it done. For some parents it is enough to let them know that and they will drop it completely. Everyone needs to understand that every child, no matter what the background or creed, is protected by this law in this land.”

Fortunately, these young girls live in Britain and not some stone-age Islamic hamlet, as the British government, under Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone, is not only shouting “You are protected by this law in this land!” But is springing into impassioned, aggressive, and concerted action to stop this horrendous practice!

The coalition government is to put the fashion industry under pressure to stop promoting unrealistic body images and clamp down on airbrushed photographs in magazines and adverts…Lynne Featherstone, the Equalities Minister, who has long campaigned against size-zero photoshoots, will convene a series of discussions this autumn with the fashion industry, including magazine editors and advertising executives, to discuss how to promote body confidence among young people. The first will focus on airbrushing, which Featherstone argues is contributing to “the dreadful pressure that young people, girls and women come under to conform to completely unachievable body stereotypes”.

Wait. Maybe I need to hit a “reset” button or something, but why isn’t she talking about FGM? I thought the British government was going to focus on the real emotional, psychological, and physical trauma a primitive, dark age religion’s “promotion” of “unrealistic body images” is genuinely causing Muslim women, leading many to submissively wear burqas and undergo genital mutilation. Not the hurt feelings of some London teenager who doesn’t think it’s fair that she has a muffin top in tight jeans.

She will push for a Kitemark or health warning on airbrushed photographs, warning viewers that they are not real. “I am very keen that children and young women should be informed about airbrushing, so they don’t fall victim to looking at an image and thinking that anyone can have a 12in waist. It is so not possible,” she told the Sunday Times…

“All women have felt that pressure of having to conform to an unrealistic stereotype, which plagues them their whole life. It is not just the immediate harm; it is something that lasts a lifetime. Young girls are under intense pressure the whole time,” she said, adding: “I was a young girl many moons ago.”

Really? Well, I’ll bet she also didn’t get “cut” those “many moons ago” either. Rather than focusing on reality, the British government is instead focusing on fantasy. While 2000 young girls will be physically disfigured and emotionally traumatized for life, the appropriately named bureaucratic lightweight Lynne Featherstone is instead concerned about whether a girl is trying too hard to look like an airbrushed supermodel’s magazine photograph. Instead of their quixotic tilting at the fashion industry’s airbrushed windmills, the British government could actually be doing something both pro-active and positive in preventing real childhood abuse – with its attendant, life-long trauma – from ever occurring in the first place. A good start would be for the government to place Kitemarks and health warnings against FGM outside all of Britain’s mosques and madrassas.

But what would be even better is for Britain’s multicultural fetish to be discarded on the ash-heap of history where it belongs because if immigrants were conforming to British cultural norms rather than Islamic ones, this would be a non-issue. But don’t fret as Britannia still rules the waves somewhat as Jason Morgan, of the London Metropolitan Police Department’s “Project Azure” FGM Unit says “empowering youth” is the solution. But since most of these crimes occur when the girl is young, it becomes more of a case of “overpowered youth” rather than “unempowered” ones that is the problem. As Britain is proving, when a society loses its self-confidence and relativizes itself to every other culture, no one is “empowered.” Sadly, even more young Muslim girls will be “cut” before Britain, if it ever does, finally snaps out of its long descent into night.