Because it bears repeating: I don't believe in manifestos, either.
So, in one of the not-enough-for-a-minor-by-like-four-credit-hours African Studies courses I took, the professor gave us some readings on female genital mutilation.
FGC is a term used to refer to any practice which includes the removal or the alteration of the female genitalia. There are three main types of FGC that are practiced through the world : Type I or Sunna circumcision, Type II or excision, and Type III or infibulation. These three operation range in intensity, from the "mildness" of Type I, to the extreme Type III. Type II is a recent addition to FGC. I will explain in the next sections what each of these practices involve, and outline some of the short-term and long-term effects that they have.The only reason you're not currently clicking frantically to get away from some extremely disturbing photographs is because I'm not quite as evil as people seem to think.
The procedures are also sometimes called female circumcision, which has led some well-meaning but hideously stupid men to compare them to male circumcision. Yes, and we can also compare rope burn to third-degree burns over 80% of your body. I do applaud the tendency of idiots to speak up, though. It makes them easier to identify for later attention.
So while we're all sitting there horrified, the professor began explaining about a group that visits villages and provides the (usually) women who perform the procedure with surgical implements, and teaches how to sterilize them. . .
And we all, predictably, expressed shock and revulsion at the idea.
And she gently explained that you don't stop people doing something they've been doing for centuries before you showed up by cloaking yourself in self-righteousness and telling them they're barbaric savages. Oddly, that tends to make people defiant, and at best will only drive the practice underground. At worst, you end up creating fundamentalists who hate your Western fucking guts. The sterile surgical gear at least reduced the chances of girls developing infections.
And some of us, predictably, expressed shock and revulsion at her acting as an apologist for barbaric savages.
In our defense, we were kids.
Some of us grew up.
Any Americans feeling self-satisfied about how we would never allow something like that to take place here, pay more fucking attention. What's more, we don't, as a matter of policy, consider fleeing here to escape the procedure an adequate reason to grant political asylum.
I don't think I've ever identified myself as a liberal. People assume I am, because I don't bother hiding my absolute hatred for conservatives and libertarians. This is because I find liberals generally pleasant, occasionally annoying, but Mostly Harmless.
Conservatives and libertarians, on the other hand, are evil and must be destroyed.
And that's about the closest you're going to get to a manifesto around here. Now if you'll excuse me, I found a copy of Ozma of Oz from the good people at Project Gutenberg.
I should make sure those links still work. . .
