BBC HARDtalk: No place for "FGM" in the 21st Century says President Barack Obama - My Response1/13/2016
My goal was to represent and legitimize, for the first time in history, the voices of empowered, smart, and sexually confident circumcised African women who utterly reject and resist the label Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). The fact of my appearance on HARDtalk engaging with another African woman who represents the legitimate experiences of those who consider themselves victims or survivors of FGM, ironically, achieved this end. There was so much to talk about, from differences in personal experiences, issues of informed consent and criminalization to forging a way forward and negotiating through our disagreements; twenty-five minutes was not enough to scratch the surface! My hope or appeal really is that myself, Nimko and other women who are directly affected can continue the conversation outside and away from the gaze of the global media, far from the limelight and the fixation of outsiders - many of whom have their own personal and political agendas. And, I am confident that we can achieve this. The walls that have kept us divided - to ensure that we do not talk to one another or compare notes or connect our shared experiences or importantly, to whisper to one another our vision for our future and the future of our sisters, nieces, daughters and grand-daughters - have been shattered with this important global broadcast. That we - all African women - own and shape our own destiny is the aim of African Women are Free to Choose and I hope, the Daughters of Eve.
But not all or even most women who have experienced customary genital surgeries experience themselves as mutilated or identify with the horrors of FGM. Surely, there is a place for circumcised women who, like myself, have a positive genital self-image, who are sexually confident, healthy and proud of their cultural and religious traditions and hope to carry their identity over to future generations of girls from the same ethnic groups. Surely, there is space in the 21st Century for women who do not see themselves as victims of patriarchy but celebrate their ancient matriarchal traditions and beliefs in the centrality, sanctity, privilege, authority and preexistence of primordial motherhood like the women of Bondo in my country of heritage, Sierra Leone. Surely, global feminism can make room for African women who boldly play out the rituals that situate them as reproducers of men, as mothers of patrlineages or rather as the maternal origin of patriarchy.
It is morally unjustifiable that white or western women – and their underage daughters - can legally opt for anatomically and aesthetically comparable genital surgeries for “cosmetic” or “comfort” or “hygienic” reasons while we are labeled as “mutilated” and denied our full rights, dignity and autonomy in the 21st Century. So, the question for me is not whether there is a place for FGM in the 21st Century – I can agree with the world, Nimko, and other anti-FGM activists that absolutely not! We should continue to listen to and understand the experiences of FGM victims and survivors in order to prevent another girl from the experience of mutilation or growing up as a mutilated woman; in my view one obvious way forward is informed consent, at least for certain forms of genital surgeries. The question for a proudly circumcised woman like myself is whether there is a place for the continuation of a positive tradition, handed down through our grandmothers, that is thousands of years old and most likely predates even male circumcision? My answer to that is an unequivocal yes! At a time when the demand for female genital cosmetic surgeries in western societies has increased tenfold in the last five years; when smart, educated, wealthy, elite white women are opting (less and less quietly) for labiaplasty and clitoroplasty or clitoral reduction (both procedures fit WHO Type II FGM/C) as well as clitoroplexy (WHO Type I FGM/C), vaginal rejuvenation (read: tightening), how on earth can feminists denounce comparable female circumcision practices among my African sisters? When the popular media reports and anecdotal evidence from practicing physicians indicate that western girls as young as 10 and 11 are being taken for labiaplasty, which is paid for under the National Health System in places like the UK and Australia, how can western women justifiably condemn our African mothers as mutilators and child abusers?
As some other observers have indicated, it is time to end the moral hypocrisy in relation to female and male circumcision and I would add as well as to female genital cosmetic surgeries and other forms of modern, 21st Century sex changes or body modifications. It’s time to stop infantilizing African and other non-white women who uphold various forms of female circumcision and treating them as antiquated, brainless, masochistic “prisoners of ritual” and begin a reasonable discussion on informed consent, bodily or sexual preferences and genital aesthetics. What needs to happen in the 21st Century is the complete liberation of African female bodies from the gaze, fascination, fetishizing, policing and manipulation of others – African men, white men, all men; and especially white women or benevolent feminists (hiding behind our African sisters) with their own political agendas and psychosexual fixations. What needs to happen in the 21st Century is an end to the “divide and conquer” of African women, pitting daughters against mothers, younger sisters against older sisters, uncircumcised women against circumcised women.
The 21st Century has launched “The International Decade of People of African Descent”. As African women, this is our time to define ourselves and to decide for ourselves who we are, what we want to be and how we want to live our lives. For an African sister like Nimko Ali this means rejecting an ancient tradition and preventing other girls from being subjected to what she experienced as patriarchal torture. For me, this means rejecting the label FGM and embracing an ancient African tradition that embodies an ideology of female empowerment or Matriarchy. We need to talk directly to one another. So, I invite the Daughters of Eve on this soul searching journey with African Women are Free to Choose so that we can pave the way for our liberation as complete, entirely equal and wholly autonomous, grown ass women in the 21st Century. CLICK HERE TO WATCH FUAMBAI AND NIMKO ON BBC HARDtalk
3 Comments
Raed Kahaby
1/13/2016 12:01:48 pm
Clearly there are more shades of gray to the topic than the usual binary analysis that we usually hear. What I am most disturbed about is the hypocrisy.
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Mike
1/14/2016 05:55:02 pm
“The first time in history” could possibly be an overstatement however, to the best of my knowledge, this is the first time in the UK that any broadcaster or, for that matter, any other mainstream media organisation, has given a balanced presentation of this topic. HARDtalk is a high-profile programme with a wide audience in many countries, and the BBC production team deserves great praise for departing from the established practice of totally biased reporting and thus fulfilling its duty, enshrined in the BBC Charter, to be impartial.
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MZ
7/19/2016 03:19:00 pm
I appreciate that it can't have been easy for the BBC to air a balanced debate on FGM in an environment where the view for female circumcision is silenced. And am glad that it did, in a civilized debate.
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