Does this happen to girls in england?

[boyfriday]

Or this?

 

Small or large?

 

...will you two stop it please? My stomach's doing somersaults!

[Rupert_Baehr]

The only problem with those metal boxes is that if a ball hits it full on, you have to remove it and bash out the dent. - I think I'll stick with a traditional plastic one with leather edging

[Suffragette1]

Unfortunately it won't.

 

Rather than saying: "Welcome to England, we hope you will be happy here and will be assimilated into our society" successive governments have (in effect) told people: "Welcome to England. You can ignore our culture and our customs. You do just as you did back home. - Anybody who comments about your failure to adapt to our way of life will be called a racist or - at the very least - a cultural imperialist. We in England do not want an inclusive society, we are quite happy to accept any number of cultures co-existing (perhaps sometimes better than others) side by side. Cultures which are equal but separate."

 

Then - when an aspect of one particular groups culture is found to be offensive - there is no effective way of dealing with it.

 

I find female genital mutilation extremely offensive. That's because of the set of values with which I was indoctrinated as a child.

 

Other people do not. Some of those people live among you and they see no reason why they should not behave in exactly the same manner as they did at home.

 

After all, isn't that the message you've been giving them for years?

 

For those who (like me) find FGM abhorrent, may I remind you of the usual answer to your culturally imperialistic attitude?

 

"They haven't really banned Christmas and it won't be compulsory for everybody."

 

Those who sponsored Apartheid in the UK (and Apartheid is the old name for multi-culturalism: 'Separate but equal') have a lot to answer for.

 

I believe in the Stuart Mills 'Harm Principle' (I posted a long reply about this earlier but it seems to have disappeared and I can't be bothered to retype it all in full).

 

I couldn't care less what cultural values people wish to retain provided that they do not harm anyone else. Some things are universally wrong and should not be tolerated and as far as I'm concerned, this is one of them.

[Suffragette1]

...will you two stop it please? My stomach's doing somersaults!

 

I think that the Vatican could do with ordering a job lot of these.

[quisquose]

I've got one of those already

The NEW CB-6000 ..?

[Suffragette1]

...and I'll be donning me burka

 

And you'd still have to strap it down in some way, or we'd all have to burqa'd up, otherwise given the male uncontrollable urge and response to visual stimuli, you could find yourself wandering around looking like you had a flagpole under your tent.

[boyfriday]

Unfortunately it won't.

 

Rather than saying: "Welcome to England, we hope you will be happy here and will be assimilated into our society" successive governments have (in effect) told people: "Welcome to England. You can ignore our culture and our customs. You do just as you did back home. -

You're buying into patty's and 1ofthesedays doctrine...nobody in the UK has said this practice is acceptable, in fact it's been illegal since 1985.

 

Anybody who comments about your failure to adapt to our way of life will be called a racist or - at the very least - a cultural imperialist.

"Ooh, you're a racist" That hurt didn't it?! They can call me whatever they want, but that won't detract from doing what's right..end of story. Usually to be called a racist or anything else for that matter requires evidence, if it's not forthcoming, it only weakens the name callers position. I'm also suspicious of people that trot it out as excuse for their own inadequacies, black or white.

We in England do not want an inclusive society, we are quite happy to accept any number of cultures co-existing (perhaps sometimes better than others) side by side. Cultures which are equal but separate."

I thought you didn't live in England or is it the royal 'we' you're referring to?

Then - when an aspect of one particular groups culture is found to be offensive - there is no effective way of dealing with it.

That's like saying there's no effective way of dealing with paedophilia, it's universally condemned, but like female circumcision it's something that generally goes on behind closed doors, we do the best we can.

I find female genital mutilation extremely offensive. That's because of the set of values with which I was indoctrinated as a child.

I don't think you need to be indoctrinated with any values to realise quite simply it's wrong, that's why it's only something a minority of the world population believe is acceptable. Your childhood experiences aren't exceptional.

Other people do not. Some of those people live among you and they see no reason why they should not behave in exactly the same manner as they did at home.

For the time being only.

After all, isn't that the message you've been giving them for years?

Is that the royal 'you'?

For those who (like me) find FGM abhorrent, may I remind you of the usual answer to your culturally imperialistic attitude?

Have you read my contributions to this thread? I think Ive fairly well condemned this practice unconditionally, but unlike some who simply want to vent their spleen at foreigners, I'm more interested in what will actually make a difference to these children.

"They haven't really banned Christmas and it won't be compulsory for everybody."

 

Those who sponsored Apartheid in the UK (and Apartheid is the old name for multi-culturalism: 'Separate but equal') have a lot to answer for.

Yes, of course, well I actually live the multicultural life quite well, rather than sit on the sidelines moaning about being overwhelmed by it.

 

..and to answer your initial point, it will only be through assimilation of Western culture that these communities will bring about change, it will be a change in attitudes where woman and mothers will question this practice against their experiences of people not from their communities..they've been here less than a generation, I guarantee female circumcision will not be an accepted procedure by the next one.

[1ofTheseDays]

Thank you Suffy, that's pretty much what I was saying.

 

Multiculturism hasn't created the problem, as 1ofthesedays suggested, it was there already in the home countries of these girls, and hopefully will be got rid of, once we get our collective heads around it

 

Of course it existed already in the home countries of these girls...but multiculturalism HERE, brought it HERE.

[taxman]

Of course it existed already in the home countries of these girls...but multiculturalism HERE, brought it HERE.

 

So your argument is about the country in which the mutilation takes place rather than the mutilation itself?

 

What a weirdo.

[Artymags]

The only long term effective measure of stopping this sort of thing is by the education and enpowerment of girls. They, and their mothers, need see that marriage and motherhood is not their only possible future.

If the girls are educated alongside boys to the same standards and given equal career opportunities to earn a good living and support themselves, then a whole lot of new choices will be open to them.

At the moment girls in these societies are really only bred to service the men. They are very much second-class citizens. They are brought up to believe that unless they marry they will have no future (and this is probably true of many at the moment). An unmarried woman is an outcast and a burden to her family.

Their mothers know that it is imperative that their daughters get a husband to support them and they will do whatever it takes to secure a marriage.

If the men desire a servile, obedient, circumcised wife - well that's what their daughters must be. They think they are doing the right thing by their daughters - cruel to be kind etc.

Of course the men are reluctant to change this status quo. It's all in their favour. It's in their interests to keep the women servile, faithful, dependent on them. They seem terribly afraid of women getting any power at all.

I am sure that this is why, in so many of these countries, girls are denied an education and women are denied any job outside the home and even forbidden to drive. They want to keep the women at their mercy and wholly dependent on their whims.

It's a vicious circle.

Of course there are some enlightened men in these cultures but they are supressed if they are found out. Wasn't one young man recently sentenced to death for merely downloading an article on women's rights from the Internet?

Genital mutilation is only one facet of the general dark picture of man's inhumanity to women in some cultures and until that wider picture is addressed such barbarities will always go on.

In the meantime, for the protection of girls, the laws against it must be tightened up and rigorously enforced.