Marion D. S. Dreyfus raises important questions in FrontPage (thanks to EPG):
In Frontpage’s recent symposium, The Radical Lies of Aids, I was dismayed and surprised that, in a roundtable discussion on the current state of HIV/AIDS, no mention was made of Islamic cultural habits and African tribal customs….
All viruses and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) picked up from the unfaithful sexually active mate find a hospitable environment in the misused wife and incubate into various forms of sexual disorder or, of late, especially into HIV. Sadly, the now visibly-ill women are frequently blamed for initiating the disease: beaten, divorced or otherwise abused. This is a frequent Islamic reaction from husbands, brothers, fathers, even sons, to the perceived “˜dishonoring” of the family or rape of their (innocent) women.
More relevant in this cultural inplication is that more than 100 million, even as many as 140 million — that is correct — African girls and women are estimated by WHO and ReligiousTolerance.com (among many others) as victim/recipients of female genital mutilation (FGM, also called infibulation). Infibulation in the medical literature or public arena is so widespread and so taboo that it assumes a special place in the history of hushed-up critical problems in the world. Like not mentioning that woolly mammoth smack in the middle of your living room.
Because it is considered a private, ‘social’ or often a “religious” issue, one that riles up many Muslim (male) “authorities” and average healthcare practitioners, infibulation –FGM — is a major third-rail political agenda, one vociferously denied and hotly “debated” in outrage with anyone intrepid or foolhardy enough to bring up such a detonating topic.
Read it all.