Posted on 04/09/2019 12:30:44 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Jennifer, a member of the evangelical community in Kentucky, shared her testimonial as a survivor of Female Genital Mutilation(FGM) earlier this week. Jennifer is a white, Christian, American – not the usual face of an issue that is often framed as a faraway cultural practice restricted to rural villages in sub-Saharan Africa.
When I read Jennifer’s story about how her Christian mother subjected her to FGM to protect her purity and chastity, I had flashbacks to when I had been in the same position. I was visiting an aunt in India over the summer when I was seven years old. She bribed me with a Toblerone chocolate bar to follow her down to her clinic. Since she was a physician, I didn’t think to question her. After she performed the cut, I was traumatized. We went back to her living room and never discussed what happened. It was only a decade later when I was sitting in an anthropology class in Texas that the memories I had blocked out came flooding to the foreground. I later learned that she performed FGM without my parents’ consent.
When the jarring memory jolt happened, I made a conscious decision to rebury my story. Given that FGM is often used as fodder for groups with anti-Muslim and/or anti-immigrant agendas, I had always been reluctant to speak out. As a Muslim-American survivor, I didn’t want to add another issue onto an already beleaguered community. Somewhere along the way – and thanks to persistent encouragement from my father – I mustered up the strength to speak out. I talked about the psychological impact and about my conflicted relationship with my faith tradition. For a religion rooted in social justice, it seemed hypocritical to me for this systemic form of gender-based violence to be tolerated.
(Excerpt) Read more at altmuslimah.com ...
Islam is not a religion. It is a political system under the guise of religion.
Muslim apologists have found an American Christian FGM unicorn.
Writer is a Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
I call BS! A Christian mother conducting FGM...yeah right...
An evangelical at that. You called ot correctly.
Their insanity is just breathtaking to behold.
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