The Attorney General has accomplished a very worthwhile task here in raising the issue of female genital mutilation in the mainstream media, as many in the United States likely don't even know the practice exists, let alone that it is so widespread. Mukasey himself probably doesn't know it is considered obligatory in the Shafi'i school of Islamic jurisprudence (cf. Umdat al-Salik e4.3), and justified with references to ahadith.
But there is much more Western countries could be doing to eradicate this practice, from speaking out against it more frequently to tying aid to meaningful and verifiable steps in outlawing the practice and punishing the perpetrators. And above all, no sense of "cultural sensitivity" should stop them from making every effort to keep immigrants from those countries from continuing the practice in the West.
"AG: Don't deport genital mutilation victim," by Terry Frieden for CNN, September 22:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The U.S. attorney general is trying to prevent immigration authorities from sending a Muslim woman to her home country, where she was a victim of female genital mutilation.
In a stinging order overriding federal immigration courts, Mukasey blasted a decision that said a 28-year-old citizen and native of Mali should be expelled "because her genitalia already had been mutilated [so] she had no basis to fear future persecution if returned to her home country."
Calling the rationale "flawed," Mukasey sent the case back to the Board of Immigration Appeals with orders to reconsider.
The woman, a native of Mali, begged the court not to send her back to her Bambara tribe.
The 28-year-old said if she returned and had a daughter, the child also would be subject to mutilation. The woman also said she faced forced marriage if she had to go home.
Mukasey cited what he concluded were two significant factual errors in the court's rejection of her appeal.
"Female genital mutilation is not necessarily a one-time event," Mukasey said. He noted that the board in a previous case had granted asylum in to one woman whose "vaginal opening was sewn shut approximately five times after being opened to allow for sexual intercourse and child birth."
He also concluded that the Board of Immigration Appeals was wrong to assume that the woman "must fear persecution in exactly the same form [namely, repeat female genital mutilation] to qualify for relief."
Mukasey had been urged to look into the matter by angered members of Congress in the wake of the January decision.
"This recent action taken by the Board of Immigration Appeals is a step backward for the rights of women worldwide," declared Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan, in a January letter.
"Female genital mutilation is a gross violation of a woman's human rights and has traditionally been grounds for the granting of an asylum claim," Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-California, said in the letter.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, issued a statement applauding Mukasey's action, and declaring female genital mutilation a "barbaric practice widely regarded as a human rights abuse."
The Justice Department acknowledged it is extraordinarily rare for an attorney general to jump into a relatively low-level immigration case. The immigration courts decide about 40,000 cases a year, and an attorney general has issued an opinion on a case only three times in the past three years.
Female genital mutilation is common in parts of Africa, Asia and in some Arab countries, according to the United Nations. The operation is viewed by some ethnic groups as a means to control a woman's sexuality and is sometimes a prerequisite for marriage or the right to inherit...
No mention of Islam, of course, but the rest was good, more public exposure to the evil of FGM is needed. Enough of that and people will figure where Islam fits in with FGM on their own...
Yeah, let's save all the Muslim women so they can come here and destroy our countries! Let's save every one of them who lives her life as a sex slave, who is molested by her nuclear famly, who is forced into marriage, who is over-force-fed so she can breed at 9, and who undergoes female genital mutilation! They're not just as sick and evil as the people who did that to them! Female genital mutilation is a phenomenon unique to this generation. Surely these women won't hold their own daughters down while some illiterate old skank with 3 teeth chops her goodies off with a razor sans antiseptic or anaesthetic for 5 dollars, all the while singing a sadistic little song about how empowering she finds the experience! ANd there's no way she'll pimp all 35 of her daughters into incestuous Sharia sex slavery before they reach the age of consent in the free world! Besides, I'm sure she's got lots to offer our country and the uptmost respect for our laws and way of life.
Seriously, send her back. Yeah, that sucks, but in a way it's a necessary evil. Women will be the undoing of Islam. Iraq taught us that the free world can't be unless we nuke Mecca and Medina. SO let it happen. Plus Type I fgm leads to a 15% increase in infant mortality and death in childbirth, 32% for Type II, and 52% for Type III. That's a good thing from our standpoint. Cheese and rice. If we let this bitch stay every Egyptian chick is going to try to come here and bring her incestuous Sharia cousin/slave owner. That is not a reality I'm willing to deal with. 4 Egyptians in the IUB Ling Dept and nobody gets to learn a damn thing, and we have to attend extra Friday sessions because of all the time wasted on the endless retarded questions they ask because they don't speak English, can't follow a lecture even in Arabic, and are simply retarded. As if it weren't horrible enough that I have to sit in class and listen to their 10 seconds of goat-bleating which punctuates every syllable while staring at the symbols of slavery and genocide they wear on their heads. The boot! Islam is as Islam does. That being the case, we can't afford to save a single Muslim. Ever.
We cannot accept hundreds of millions of Muslim women simply because they are 'victims of genital mutilation', there must be other reasons, as in the case of Ayaan Ali Hirsi who was a genuine asylum seeker, a serious escapee from the madness of this insane cult.
No. The above argument doesn't hold water. If this woman still adheres to the belief-system of islam and follows it while in the US, then that's simply not good enough to grant her asylum. If she's an apostate and has to fear for her life, fine. But she's already been mutilated, they can't do it a second time, so what has she got to fear when she returns?
And who is to say that she doesn't change her mind when she has children later on? Perhaps she becomes an even better Muslimah and makes sure that whatever was done to her will be done to her daughter.
Isn't that how the psychology works?
Sheer frustration over Islamicisms like genital mutilation can, quite frankly, make people temporarily crazy.
It's true that what's been done to this woman has been done. It is also very possible, once her own safety is assured in America, that she will rediscover the joy and peace of Islam in a Muslim "community" and perform this abomination on her own children. When an imam in Canada produces nothing but weasel words about the honor murder of a Canadian teenager over hijab, it is difficult to trust the idea of the essential lawfulness of Muslim communities, or overestimate the power of Muslim shame-hiding and peer-pressure.
With that said, it's promising to see the response of governmental officials to at least one aspect of systematic Muslim savagery toward women. Maybe we should go one step at at a time.
Well, I can still speak of the unspeakable evil of islam.
PLEASE READ:
http://www.challenging-islam.org/articles/circumcision.htm
scroll halfway down:
http://middle-east-info.org/gateway/genocide/index.htm
WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES
http://middle-east-info.org/league/somalia/fgmpictures.htm
http://www.londonschoolofislamics.org.uk/DiscView.asp?mid=864&forum_id=2
This is going on in MY SUBURB of the TWIN CITIES. Authorities are looking the other way even though it's against State Law.
This barbarity is happening in the USA!
I can only say everyone of yoiu are 100% right
But if every such "victim of female genital mutilation" or of any other practice that is encouraged by Islam were to be given such asylum, this country would sink under the weight of immigrants who will not have left Islam at the door, even if they have suffered from it. Look at those who leave Muslim lands because of the despotism and economic backwardness, both of them attributable to Islam, but these people bring their Islam with them, and make life, as a result, very difficult, and ultimately represent a permanent danger to the continued existence of our legal and political institutions of our own country, for the Sharia flatly contradicts the spirit and letter of the American Constitution. And even now, with relatively small numbers, they show every sign of aggressively using the power they do have, in the numbers they do have, to persuade or intimidate the Infidels among whom they have come to live into not discussing or finding out about Islam or disseminating what they have found out about it to other Infidels.
Sentimentalism, of the wrong kind, cannot justify this kind of immigration policy. Spend the time better ridiculing, mocking, attacking the policy of FGM (as it is now so conveniently referred to), and those nations that practice it. The Infidel Man's Burden is getting heavier and heavier, and we just have to lighten the load.
With that said, it's promising to see the response of governmental officials to at least one aspect of systematic Muslim savagery toward women.
Posted by: Marwan'sDaughter at September 23, 2008 3:24 AM
However, it is not prudent to enter into something wihout thinking the problem through.
- Has this woman from Mali renounced Islam?
- What mosque did she go to?
- Did she get any help from her mosque?
- If not, why not?
- What aid is US giving to Mali?
- Did US State Dept summon Mali ambassador over his issue?
- What is CAIR's doing (not saying) about this?
If not thought through, this "sentimental pardon" can be exploited by the enemy to invade USA without any resistance, much like muslim immigration.
If not thought through, this could bring the very terrorists into US soil, who the president/commander-in-chief said, we should no thave to fight here. And we all know where going into Iraq, without an 'exit strategy' got us.
Muslims should be permitted to emigrate to the US, as long as they announce that they are apostics. Then, they would truly be in danger if they returned to their country of origin.
Everyone-- I share your concerns, and you'll notice I didn't call for flinging open the gates for more asylum-seekers.
What I tried to emphasize in my commentary above is 1.) that it raises the profile of the issue in the mainstream media, and 2.) there's so much more that the Western governments could be doing to eradicate the practice overseas, thus eliminating the issue of asylum-seekers because of it.
I probably could have made that clearer. Mea culpa.
"as long as they announce they are apostics..."
-- from a posting above
A happy mistake, born of a marriage between "agnostic" and "apostate," leading to a word that may come to be adopted: "apostics." And we happy few can tell our grandchildren that we were Present At The Creation.
I think there is more of a case for blocking the migration of mutilated women, and their families. Make it a liability, and they will have an incentive to avoid FGM.
"they will have an incentive to avoid FGM.
Posted by: Monty ""
FGM in Muslims countries is rarly voluntary...
If, as stated in CGW's first link, all Somali girls are subject to FGM, I now understand the Swift Rage unleashed by the Somali women.
I'd be mad at the world, too.
CGW
why don't you show us more islamic product,like a beheading video
too bad about her genitals, when the women have had enough, they will do what European women did to get the vote
work for it
......send her back, what we do not need to do is make sure the muslim population in USA grows
A happy mistake, born of a marriage between "agnostic" and "apostate," leading to a word that may come to be adopted: "apostics." And we happy few can tell our grandchildren that we were Present At The Creation.
Posted by: Hugh
LOL!
Hugh -
Sorry for mangling the English language. My only defense is the lack of Coffee and/or sugar early in the morning.
You know, "The Apostics" would be a good name for a rock band.
Perhaps if we referred to FGM as "extreme hazing," we could get liberals and government officials to sit up & take notice, and not dismiss this barbarity as a mere cultural practice.
"You know, "The Apostics" would be a good name for a rock band."
-- from a posting above by the creator of the word "apostics"
I had been thinking exactly that.
Okay, so we (in the US) don't want to sink ourselves in refugees. I can buy that. It's prudent, and a valid defense of an already overburdened country and its welfare system.
But, does it have to be either/or? Do we not have a responsibility to our ideals of human rights, and to those who are being denied same, to exert ourselves to find a solution that works?
Surely, "send them all back" isn't the best we, as a nation, as the United States of America can do. Sure, the FGM is done, but is that the only danger these women face? We know it is not.
No, I'm not full of answers, yet I think the question deserves more exploration by people who are smarter than I am. Taxpayer money is wasted every day on far less worthy pursuits.
Frankly, some of the dislike for women--just because they are "other"--that I've read on this thread, makes me a bit sick.
What? We'll encourage apostasy from male and female Muslim alike, but send damaged and endangered females back to their opressors?
Go ahead, call me sentimental. I don't deny it. Take cheap shots at my spelling, grammar, and ineloquence, too. What the hell, I've been laughed at by better people. Being laughed at and abused by people who despise women who have been made freakish, without their consent, is something I can live with.
Hugh -
I'm never living this down, am I?
More butchered English -
jihadorist - when one term is better than two
halalyadoin' - popular greeting in Mecca
fatwata - not for someone on a diet
taquiyo - a new Mexican food idea
kitmon - a denial of Jamaica
Abscedere,
I agree, something should be done
It would take some leaders, or a lot of people, with honesty and integrity to speak out against FGM. Which means they would have to attack the religion behind it. So far, no one of any stature has the guts to do it, they are all dancing around talking about peaceful religions while ignoring all the violence and oppression Islam brings to everyone.
Wait...in Mali? I just read an article about how Mali is poor, but a true example of a "moderate" Muslim country where they don't take their Islam too seriously, where they drink and socialize and don't hate America...yada,yada, yada.
You know, the type of article that is supposed to provide us with hope that Islam doesn't have to be violent and jihadist, if only we could bottle what it is they have in Mali and bring it to the Middle East.
The article also mentioned how all the "extremists" are in the northern deserts and are Arabs from the North African countries.
First we learned after Sept. 11 that our moderate ally Saudi Arabia isn't so moderate nor much of an ally, that they teach hatred of Jews and Christians in their schools and promote jihad in their mosques. Then we realized that just because Egypt and Jordan have "peace treaties" with Israel and accept American aid and weapons, those two countries are among the most anti-American and anti-Semitic in the world.
We "liberated" Afghanistan from the Taliban, only to learn that there really is no concept of being an Afghani, with responsibility toward one's fellow countryman, only loyalty to tribe, warlord and Islam. Our great democratic friend, Karzi, said he agreed with the Malaysian prime minister's rant about all the problems in the world being the result of the Jews. A fan of Mel Gibson?
Then we discovered that our anti-Communist friends in Pakistan, who helped defeat the Soviets in the 1980s, are as duplicitous as the Saudis, and in many cases, take their Islam even more seriously. In fact it was the same Pakistanis who created and supported the Taliban. Why are we still told that Pakistan is our crucial ally in the war on terror?
However, there was some encouraging news from the Arab world. We were informed by "experts" that Iraq has a secular, modern, moderate, educated, urban population. Once liberated from Saddam's tyranny, Iraqis would build a democracy in the heart of the Middle East that would serve as an example for its neighbors, ultimately causing the dominos to fall and democratization to spread throughout the Muslim world.
It turned out that suppressed below the surface of Saddam's police state were not modern-day Washingtons and Jeffersons, but Shias much like those in Iran and Lebanon and Sunnis much like their co-religionists in Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Just as in the other Muslim states, Iraq is a bastion of tribalism, violence, corruption, religious fanaticism, superstition and bigotry. Iraq's Christian minority--whose roots predate Islam--is now worse off than they were under Saddam.
There has always been one option when all else fails: perhaps if tiny Israel would surrender more of its territory to the Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza, then all the peoples in the world could finally live in peace and harmony. After all, don't most Israelis and Palestinians want to live in peace? If we could just rid the Palestinians of Arafat's corrupt leadership and terrorist-supporting gangsters, then the Palestinians could finally express their will to live in peace with their Jewish neighbors. No longer would the "terrorists" be able to "hijack" the "peace-process."
After Israel withdrew from Gaza, the Palestinians finally had their democratic election we were all excited about. Much to our surprise, the Palestinians voted for a terrorist group, Hamas, to "govern" their territory. Since then, thousands of rockets shot from Gaza have fallen on neighboring Israeli communities, just as they did from previously Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon during the war there two years ago.
At least we still have some hope for moderate Islam. Indonesia, where Obama enjoyed his childhood, and Malaysia are diverse and moderate east Asian land. Millions of Indian Muslims participate in a democracy. Democratic Turkey is a member of NATO; Bosnia and Kosovo have populations that should be eternally grateful for our support in the 1990s. There must be plenty of moderate Muslims in the southern Philippines and southern Thailand held hostage by the terrorists who act in their name. Sadly, a quick look at the recent headlines from all these places reveal major trouble for non-Muslims, but also for Muslims born into Islam not wanting to live according to its precepts.
Unfortunately, the script is similar in spite of differences in language, ethnicity, geography, political system or ruler. Where ever Muslims live in significant numbers, including in parts of Western Europe (and even the USA), the trend is to push--sometimes nonviolently and sometimes violently, though typically through all possible means--forward an agenda of Sharia law, discrimination against non-Muslims and women and a radicalization of the local Muslim population through jihad-promoting Imams and Saudi-sponsored curriculum at religious schools.
If only our leaders in both political parties would take time to read about the Koran, Hadith and life of Muhammad, learning how all three are viewed by Muslims throughout the past 1400 years of Islamic history, and how all three are still equally relevant today. Then perhaps we would develop policies based on a realistic appraisal of the enemy and not on fantasy, platitudes and sentimentality.
I think the dislike for some women that Abscedere identified is born, like other remarks, from sheer frustration. How can a culture allow this practice to continue in the 21st century? How could anyone, especially women, allow this to be done to their daughters?
But hanging the resolution of aggressive Muslim immigration around the necks of mutilated, practically enslaved women doesn't seem very equitable either. Didn't Ayaan Hirsi Ali flee to the West to avoid a forced marriage after she too had been mutilated? Is asylum dependent upon the risk of being killed by a government only, or do honor murders count -- especially that we know that Islam is not just a religious practice, but a total way of life?
Finally: Every now and then I really wish my screen name was "Ta'ala Boomdieh."
Marisol wrote "there's so much more that the Western governments could be doing to eradicate the practice overseas".
There's only one thing we can do to do that, and that has to do with eradicating Islam. I doubt that UNESCO programs with nice Peace Corps type volunteers are going to eradicate anything that's Islamically based. Or economic sanctions are hardly going to change what the Muslim people want in their hearts. This attitude of thinking Muslim people somehow don't really want all their cultural claptrap that we find so horrible, and that all we have to do is point them in the right direction, maybe with a little "tough love" now and then -- this attitude is so naive.
No, the only reason to point out the horrors of Muslim culture is to wake the rest of us up so we can fight against it in every way including violently. Let's stop thinking we can "save" the Muslims, like they were some animal species caught in some environmental circumstances beyond their control. Save the Whales! Save the poor Muslim women!
Muslims are responsible for their horrors. Muslims are in control of their horrors. Too many Muslims, men and women and even children (remember the 12 year old sawing off a head in AFghanistan, the kids in the Middle East vowing to "kill Jews"). How many Muslims? I don't know. It doesn't make a difference whether it's too many or all. The number certainly isn't low enough so that we should think there's not a global problem whereby all Muslims are potential dangers. And so they are dangerous to us for that reason. We have to fight them until the danger they threaten us with is subdued. As long as we don't see this clearly, we won't be fit to defend ourselves.
Period.
Abscedere, I'm not sure why you think that being against allowing FGM victims into this country is necessarily indicative of being anti-woman. And yes, on a specific-case basis, it's an either/or question. She's either let in, or not. And given that letting one person in leads, under the system as it stands, to chain migration, this is not a good idea .
Now, can the Western world apply pressure via hold-backs, no-seat-at-the-world-body tables, etc., as long as recipient countries allow this practice to go on? Of course it can. But we've been consistently backing down from doing this in our short-sighted political correctness. Not a lot of hope there. (But it what should be done.)
Bottom line is, we need to protect ourselves.
A lot about this case doesn't make sense:
Mali is a backward country and Islamic
How did that woman ever get away from her family?
How did she get to America?
How can she say she fears a forced marriage when she is apparently 28 years old! She would have been married off very young.
I don't think that FGM is a basis for asylum. It is too late for her and as has been said there is no guarantee at all that she won't inflict it on any children she may have.
In many cultures the men won't marry a girl if she hasn't been *cut*.
Don't get me wrong - FGM drives me crazy. Not enough is done to educate people in the west to its horrors.
I think it was Channel 4 that did 2 programmes on FGM, it must have been back in the 1980's and they were years apart. IIRC they were both on Somalia. The butchery was truely shocking and at the end of the first programme (over the end titles) there was audio of a little girl undergoing FGM. You didn't have to understand the language to recognise the terror she felt and the screams of pain. That will haunt me to my dying day.
At the time there were some charities who were working to try to change the cultures in sub Saharan Africa by people who had suffered. I have not been able to find any web sites. I believe that David Bowies wife and a model are working at the moment in this area.
The only way to save little girls from this horror is to try to eradicate it from the cultures concerned. In Britain the Somalis are terrors for it and the social services and teachers have to keep an eye out for these people sending the girls *home on holiday* and now to try to catch the *cutters* that they are bringing over to Britain to do their work.
As a woman, my disgust and contempt for this is absolute.
This appears to be an international human rights issue that the international community should be dealing with firmly, loudly, and incessantly. Why do nations want to sweep this under the rug? Is it too "indelicate" for the rest of the world to digest? The US included? We should start howling about the case of this woman, whether we allow her to stay or not, and in our vocalization of the situation we could include eduacation about the cult that supports this type of torture. This issue is really almost a secret. Until I started coming to this site I was under the mistaken impression that FGM was a thing of the past. Not at all so, is it?
Vee,
What I'm saying is that I see no reason that an asylum can't be set up, somewhere, for these unfortunate women. It doesn't necessarily have to be in the US. Or, if it does, God knows it's a big country, with lots of uninhabited terrain.
If we can set up a prison for enemy combatants at Guantanimo (and yeah, that didn't quite work out as it should have, but that's politics at work, more than it is a flawed idea), is it not possible to create a space for willing asylum-seeking women?
Could this not be a quarantine, of sorts, with criteria that must be met before hand, and other criteria that must be met before any thought can be considered of immigration to another country?
It's not impossible that they could be largely self-reliant, growing their own food, making their own clothing from materials provided, etc.. This is not a perfect answer, but is it a bad one? Is it a hopeless one? As I said, earlier, I'm not the "go to" gal, when it comes to good answers to huge problems.
It's true--almost none of these women would have nearly as much to offer as Ms. Hirsi Ali. I don't have as much to offer my country or the world as does she. I'm merely fortunate enough not to have been born in a land where this horrendous violation of body, mind and spirit is practiced!
I didn't mean to say that the tone of some of the comments were anti-woman, though in re-reading them, I can see how it might have sounded so.
What I meant was that the tone I was hearing was anti-mutilated woman. From a Western aesthetic, this mutilation is icky. However, it's not like volutarily getting one's clitoris pierced, which I see (despite my own piercings) as "icky".
Many men here, and lesbians, for that matter, would consider it repugnant to attempt to have a sexual relationship, with a mutilated woman, and I understand that. The revulsion is natural, by "our" standards (non-Muslim standards).
But these women are amputees, when you get right down to it. And, while it's uncomfortable for some "whole" people to interact with amputees, I don't think anyone blames an amputee for his or her lost limb.
There's as much disgust in some of the postings for the victim as for the practice. Plus, the victim is being blamed for having the same thing done to her daughters, who have not yet been conceived!
Are victims likely, if returned to subject their own daughters to the same mutilation? Maybe not. It'a hard to say, as women and girls are frequently told that if they don't submit to being cut, their entire existing families, mothers, fathers, siblings, will die.
But even if the women in question (the asylum seekers) do not volunteer their daughters for this "sacrifice", you can almost be certain their husbands, or other relatives will. This is what happened to Hirsi Ali, in fact. The "circumcision" took place on her grandmother's watch, when her mother left her three children in grandma's care.
Vee, I agree wholeheartedly that we must protect ourselves. Can we, though, turn our backs on this horrible mutilation, and hope it stops on its own? The only cure for this idiocy is education, and we all know how well education goes down, in Muslim lands.
If, however, we are in a position to educate, control the movements of, and vet the behavior of women seeking asylum from FGM, is it not our obligation--not as Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, or Pagans, Agnostics or Atheists--but as enlightened human beings, to do what we can?
Protect ourselves, yes--by all that we hold dear--but do not give up the dearest thing of all, humanity and compassion.
Don't be so happy about this. First it will be used by Muslims as an easy way to enter the U.S. even if they support female genital mutilation. The Chinese are using the one child policy as an excuse in a similar way to get around limitations on immigration. Next thing you know there will be millions of West African Muslims in the U.S. These women will bring their husbands and their husbands will bring their other wives. Both will bring children. There will be more demand for the Islamitization of more neighborhoods in the U.S. All because you thought that there would be some moderate Muslims against female genital mutilation, but, in fact, women perpetuate the practice more than men. Just say no to more Muslim immigration, no matter what the reason.