Comments by David G. Littman, NGO Representative at the UN in Geneva:
Association for World Education and World Union for Progressive Judaism

Oral statement (from UN webcast above) reproduced verbatim below

We decided to speak out again on a "traditional practice", whose religious links are vociferously denied, despite irrefutable UNICEF facts and figures. FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) is spreading in Europe with some migrant populations that practise it traditionally. There are now over 1,500 cases in Geneva and nearly 10,000 in Switzerland, with hundreds of thousands in European Union countries. This won't cease until it is strongly penalized, backed by an unambiguous fatwa from the Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar (Cairo) stating, unambiguously, that this 'cultural relativism' is forbidden by all legal traditions in Islam - unfortunately, this is unlikely. The subject is still considered taboo at the UN and an explicit mention of Sharia justification usually leads to an angry denial and rude denigrations, as we have learned from personal experience since 1993.

Written statement with background information on FGM reprinted at end

It is worthwhile comparing our recent statement on this and the minor Egyptian 'point of order' incident of 23 March (as recorded on the UN video above, reprinted below), which occurred on the same subject of Violence against Women as the 'Sharia Affair' of 16 June 2008. Then, the flamboyant, moustached Egyptian delegate Amr Roshdy Hassan succeeded in blocking the Council for 1¾ hours, resulting in a big scandal and wide media coverage by AFP, AP, Reuters, ATS (17-18 June 2008), with Romanian HRC President Doru Romulus Costea and former HCHR Louise Arbour, American Ambassador and Amnesty International, and our joint NGO statement being quoted at length. Our perseverance then and after appears to have been successful in this field. A follow-up You Tube video on the historic landmark 'Sharia Affair', with many captivating moments, is currently being prepared for Jihad Watch next week.

Shipwreck at the UN Human Rights Council: summary of 16 June 2010 event

At about 4:40pm on 16 June 2008, David G. Littman was given the floor by the HRC president to deliver a joint statement for the AWE and the International Humanist and Ethical Union, under agenda item 8: 'Integrating the Human Rights of Women throughout the United Nations system'. Within 22 seconds he was stopped on a 'point of order' by the delegate of Egypt. In all, there were 12 negative points of order - 7 by Egypt, 2 by Pakistan, 2 by Iran, one by Cuba; and three positive reactions: one each from Slovenia (for the EU), Canada and Germany; and 13 explanations by the president, who gave us the floor 4 times. The proceedings of the Council were suspended for over forty minutes, and again for a second recess after the Egyptian delegate and others intervened several times before declaring provocatively: "My point is that Islam will not be crucified in this Council". The German delegate asked the president and the Egyptian delegate whether this term was "appropriate with regard to the question of mentioning religion and its symbols." He received no answer. Pakistan's delegate Imran Ahmed Siddiqui, speaking for Pakistan and the OIC, declared that the statement by the NGO "will amount to spreading hatred against certain members of the Council" - all OIC countries.

When Mr. Hassan threatened to call for a vote if the speaker was not ruled 'out of order', the president announced another brief break to analyse "what the speaker had read." After the 40 minute recess, there had been a capitulation to OIC demands and the president then announced that "this Council is not prepared to discuss matters religious matters in depth. Consequently we should not do it" - and that "declarations" must avoid judgments or evaluation about religion and any mention of Sharia.

Three months later (19 September 2008) we again spoke for AWE on Female Genital Mutilation; so-called "honour killings"; death by stoning; disfiguration of women by acid; marriage of female children, but avoided pronouncing the officially taboo words. A year later (19 September 2009), we used the terms 'edict' and 'ruling' - with 'fatwa' in brackets in our available statement - e.g: "An edict [fatwa] on the website of Dr. Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, President of the International Union for Muslim Scholars, is unlikely to change this ghastly toll; only an unambiguous ruling [fatwa] from Al Azhar might help do so."

FGM: Oral statement of 23 March 2010 / Appendix: Shafi'i fiqh / AWE Written Statement

WORLD UNION FOR PROGRESSIVE JUDAISM
ASSOCIATION FOR WORLD EDUCATION

United Nations Human Rights Council -13th session (1-26 March 2010)
Statement: David G. Littman (37TH meeting) - Tuesday. 12:30 - 23 March 2010
Item 8: Follow-up to & implementation of Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action

[The words in square brackets were not pronounced within the 2 minute time limit]

Mr. President, under item 10 [a mistake - item 8], the Vienna Declaration, we wish to raise once again the question of a barbaric "traditional or customary practice", which is a shameful euphemism for a crime against female children. As is known from UNICEF, more than 3 million female children and girls in 32 countries - including more and more thousands in Europe from an immigration population - are still being brutally mutilated each year. Here in Geneva, it has reached 1500 and more than 10,000 in Switzerland alone, with tens of thousands in almost all the other Member States of the European Union.

Sir, of these 32 countries, 29 are Members of the OIC and in many of them it is the Shafi'i fiqh ruling on female excision that helps explain why the FGM figure in Egypt remains at over 95% [every year], despite the law of 1994 [1996]; and in [North] Sudan over 90%. We have here the Arabic and the English translation of that law [the speaker raises the page in his left hand - see this text below].

We feel it would be well to consult in document A/HRC/33/67, the report of Mona Zulficar* where she explains, under the heading:

Defense of the Ministry of Health decree of 1996 banning female genital mutilation:

[This was a challenge before the Administrative Courts brought by a group of fundamental doctors against the decree by the Ministry of Health banning female genital cutting, on grounds that such a decree was a violation of Sharia law. She joined the defense of this decree on behalf of three NGOs, including Women's Health Improvement Association which she currently chairs and succeeded to help obtain a court judgment upholding the decree in 1998]

That: Female genital cutting is now banned by law and the relevant decree became immune to any challenges - in 2007, in response to the death of a girl child [while undergoing circumcision, the Minister of Health issued a further decree prohibiting this practice in absolute terms...]

This is correct, sir, but we believe, and have said it now for at least 18 years, that until an Al-Azhar fatwa is passed by the Grand Sheikh, this terrible barbarism will continue because the law doesn't stop it.

Thank you Mr. Chairman [Gavel by vice-president, just as the speaker had stopped after 2 min. 12 sec.]

Vice-President: There's a point of order. Egypt, you have the floor.

Egypt (lady delegate): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Not only is the issue that the speaker's talking about completely outside of the item of the debate - it's completely baseless... although... I don't feel that I'm in any position or requirement to answer what he's saying, but I think it's quite obvious to the Council what kind of measures are being taken in the [inaudible], so that I would please request him to please remain focused on the item under debate. Thank you.
-------------------
* Mona Zulficar is an expert lawyer nominated by Egypt in January 2010 as a Member of the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee. For her Biographical Data, A/HRC/13/67, Annex, pp. 4-12 (on Human Rights) 5.1 (a)

* * * * *

UNITED NATIONS
Economic and Social Council
Distr. GENERAL
E/CN.4/Sub.2/2005/NGO/27
15 July 2005
COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS
Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights Fifty-seventh session
Item 6 (a) of the provisional agenda: Special Human Rights Issues: Women and Human Rights

Written statement* submitted by the Association for World Education, a nongovernmental
organization on the Roster: The Secretary-General has received the following written statement which is circulated in accordance with Economic and Social Council resolution 1996/31. [4 July 2005]

'Traditional or Customary Practices': Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)

1. ECOSOC first raised this grave matter of "traditional or customary practices" in a request to the World World Health Organisation (WHO), where it was rejected in 1959 on the grounds that the "ritual operation in question are based on social and cultural backgrounds, the study of which is outside the competence of the WHO." Due to NGO pressures - such as that by the late Edmund Kaiser, founder of Terre des Hommes, who launched the first campaign against these "traditional practices" - WHO organised a seminar in Khartoum in 1979 when the unambiguous term FGM was first coined. The Inter-African Committee (IAC) came into existence at that time and subsequently many useful studies were organised by WHO and UNESCO. By its resolution 1983/1, the Sub-Commission "began the process of drawing world attention" to this then taboo subject - which had rarely treated it seriously in public until then.

2. In 1996, WHO called "for the prevention and elimination of FGM and other traditional practices harmful to health as soon as possible, preferably before the year 2000." In September 1997, the organisation for African Unity (OAC), the Inter-African Committee (IAC), and the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) organised a symposium at which a crucial declaration was adopted that referred to FGM as "a form of violence against women," and called on Governments to take effective action for its elimination. In its resolution 1998/52, the CHR called upon States: "to condemn violence against women and not invoke custom, tradition or practices in the name of religion to avoid their obligations to eliminate such violence (9c); it also calling upon States, "to eradicate traditional or customary practices, particularly female genital mutilation that are harmful to or discriminate against women..." (11)

3. We first raised the question of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), as an NGO at the Commission on Human Rights 12 years ago, following contacts with Edmund Kaiser (and in an appeal published in the International Herald Tribune on 21 December 1993, and again on 28 August 1996). At that time, measures of a legal nature had been taken in the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, and in Switzerland; and then by the United States, Canada and Australia, who joined the growing list of Western countries determined to legislate against FGM - since followed by most African countries.

4. The term "traditional or customary practices" is a shameful euphemism for a crime against females. FGM has no religious or hygienic justification, yet over two million female children and girls in more than 30 countries - including more and more thousands in Europe from an immigrant population - are being brutally mutilated each year. The goal of outlawing this ageless child torture by 2010, as announced at the 6 February 2004 International Day of Zero Tolerance of FGM - still seems a pious
hope. Over the last 50 years (as in past centuries), about 10% of the world's female population has already been thus mutilated in childhood, and this sober realisation should prompt all world leaders - whether secular or spiritual - and UN bodies to initiate positive education at an early age in schools, including in religious schools.

5. We wish to reiterate that the 2003 Cairo Consultation sponsored by the European Union on the theme, 'STOP FGM,' which took place in the presence of Al-Azhar's Grand Sheikh Muhammad Sayyed Tantawi and two Coptic spiritual leaders did not remove religious justifications or responsibilities in
this domain. UN Special Rapporteur (UNSR) Halima Warzazi, had already implied in her Report in 2003 that this 'event' had removed all doubts as to any religious justification for FGM - and this was reiterated in her 2004 Report, albeit in another context, under §67.

6. The FGM figure for Egypt was then, and remains today a deadly 97%, despite the Government's 1997 legislation, in which it is considered as a physical mutilation and therefore is punished under the Penal Law; the Council of State decided on 28 December 1997: "to ban the practice of excision, even when the consent of either child or her parents is given." In Sudan, a law against infibulation was enacted in 1946 by the colonial power, but since this law was imposed by the British, it was never enforced. According to the UNSR's Report of 2004 (E/CN.4/Sub.2/2004/41, §24): "Almost 90% of the female population in the north of the Sudan undergoes FGM which, in many cases, is practised in its most extreme form, known as infibulation."

7. This fact speaks volumes, especially as Egypt's population has nearly quadrupled since 1950, and FGM for northern Sudan is near 90% and the high percentage in thirty other countries - most Islamic - is known to the experts. In her 2004 report, UNSR Warzazi correctly referred to FGM as reflecting male domination, and the importance of "strengthening the status of women in society from the earliest age" - however she noted in her conclusions that "harmful traditional practices cannot be eliminated overnight with a wave of a magic wand," and criticised the British Government for introducing stringent legislation to punish severely anyone performing FGM in the UK ("even outside the country"). The UNSR (§67) referred to a conference on Islam and FGM at the Islamic University of Rotterdam, after which the university released a statement asserting that there is no connection between FGM and Islam.

8. On this overall theme of 'traditional practices,' we wish to draw general attention to a pertinent analysis of "cultural relativism" in the final Commission Report of 2003 by former Special Rapporteur Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, who occupied that post with distinction for nine years. Under section VII: Religious Extremism and Harmful Traditional Practices, § 61 & 62 (E/CN.4/2003/75), she provides a pertinent analysis, which will be our Conclusion:

"In 1994, as well as today, the greatest challenge to women's rights and the elimination of discriminatory laws and harmful practices comes from the doctrine of cultural relativism. While in the public sphere, where men dominate, the Internet and modern forms of economic and social globalization are destroying citadels of cultural exclusivism, in the area of women's rights, especially in matters concerning the home and the family, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is challenged as being a cultural imposition from the outside. This is made worse by the policies adopted since 11 September 2001 by many groups and societies that feel threatened & under siege." (§61)
"Cultural relativism is the belief that no universal legal or moral standard exists against
which human practices can be judged. It is argued that human rights discourse is not
universal but a product of the European enlightenment, and its particular cultural
development, and thus a cultural imposition of one part of the globe upon another.
Ironically, despite these claims, States sign international human rights instruments and
agree to abide by their principles. It could therefore be argued that States have
consented to be bound by certain universal principles. Human rights have become
universal in scope and application..." (§62)

9. The Association for World Education remains convinced that a dramatic change might occur in Egypt, followed by other Muslim countries, if Al-Azhar Grand Sheikh Sayyed Tantawi could be persuaded by a consensus of religious authorities, and the Egyptian Government to issue a fatwa that would effectively clarify or replace the three previous fatwas from Al-Azhar (1949, 1951, and especially that of 29 January 1981 by the then senior Al-Azhar Grand Sheikh). (1) Although no religious backing was given then for FGM, parents were advised not to avoid "parental responsibilities." It is known
that most parents, a majority of whom are illiterate, would automatically choose an Al-Azhar ruling or advice, rather than a secular law of the Egyptian Government.

10. This AWE request should be considered by the Special Rapporteur Halima Embarek Warzazi and the Sub-Commission, and formulated and included in its resolution on Harmful traditional practices affecting the health of women and the girl child.
Note
1 Gad-al-Haq: Khitan al banat, pp. 3119-3125, in Sami A. Aldeeb, Mutiler, in the Institut Suisse de Droit Comparé, 1993, p. 191.
- - - - -
* This written text was prepared by David G. Littman for the AWE

* * * * *

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Lucy Mashua, the Global Ambassador for fighting FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) and standing up for Women’s Rights.

FP: Lucy Mashua, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview.

Tell us about your background and your own personal story.

Mashua: I was born 30 years ago in a small village in southern Kenya in Rift valley province. I come from the Maasai tribe, which is known for its cultural wearing of beads, red ochre and wraps. We are nomadic people and move with our animals from one place to another in search of pastures, as it’s a semi arid area. We have three major groups in Africa: Bantu, Cushites and Nilots.

My tribe falls into the Nilots group and the tribe from which Obama’s father comes from, Luo. We migrated from Egypt in 16 AD, named after the river Nile and most of us are black Jews, but practicing Christianity. I am a Christian.

I love my tribe so much that I want them to treat women and children right by ending FGM and early child marriage. Women and girls are not men’s properties. It is our God- given right not to be mutilated and married off at a tender age. I am the first born of a family of six and underwent FGM at the age of 9 one early morning with a group of other girls. Vaginal genocide was committed on us.

And now here I am living to tell and be a voice for the voiceless.

FP: Why does your tribe practise FGM? What is its philosophy? And why does it also engage in child marriage?

Mashua: My tribe practices FGM because they are ignorant and brainwashed since the days of Pharaoh in Egypt as they migrated to East Africa with this tradition. The philosophy is that women will be more tame and controllable. When a woman is made to feel like she is an object and not 100% human, she will fall for it. They become puppets and not valued, but it didn’t work with me.

They also engage in early childhood marriage to control and tame women because if you are married off at 12, by the time you are 18 you are just worn out and you will never see the need to explore life. The younger the girls are, the easier it is to control and manipulate them. It’s also about wealth. The more wives and cattle you have, the wealthier you are and you have more property.

FP: I am sorry to ask, but can you kindly share with us the horrible experience you suffered of FGM? Who did this to you? What were the consequences? How did you cope with it?

Mashua: One chilly morning in a group of 29 girls, we were mutilated. I was tied with a rope because I was screaming and begging them to stop. Some girls were considered brave for not crying aloud. But I know their heart cried out loud. I could hear their cry and still do.

It is so hard for me to talk about this. It’s so fresh. I am still so traumatized. They used the same knife on us, not caring about any infections. These are tradition mutilators and midwives that perform this savagery. My mom could not watch this. Up to now, I am scared of any human blood. I scream when I accidentally cut myself. A few days ago I passed out when I cut my finger and I hurt my back as I live by myself. No one could help me.

I have nightmares. I have never coped. I have very painful PMS. I have extra glands growing so I need surgery. I have scar tissues. That’s why my vagina muscles hurt. I will live with this for the rest of my life. I will never cope but one thing for sure I will never stop voicing out against FGM.

One day I will reach the World Court and criminalize globally FGM. I swear I am going to reach there. I am now building a very big network of very committed people. I aspire even to be a human rights movie documentary producer. I am going to get words out there and catch the attention of all kinds of good people. I will kick FGM ass out of this planet. And that makes me smile.

FP: I am sorry that I asked you to talk about this horrible monstrosity that was committed against you. Thank you for sharing it with us. I speak on behalf of Fronpagemag.com to say that our heart is with you and all the victims. We feel your pain and stand beside you in this battle to stop this violence against little girls and women.

You have suffered some persecution and terrible ordeals because of your fight against FGM while you were in Africa. Tell us what happened to you.

Mashua: First I was rejected by my own society, relatives and friends because of my strong uncompromised belief that women are human too and that no one should take a razor, knife or sharp glass to cut off our clitoris.

No man owns a woman and no one has the right to beat or hit a woman. I have watched my mom suffer at the hands of men and I had enough and began my rebellion by not obeying what men wanted from me and I knew then I have begun a war.

As young as 6 years old I would open my mouth and shout to the top of my voice in a gathering to speak my mind out. Of course I would get beatings but I grew immune. I could not cry anymore from the beatings but I cry out when my friends and relatives undergo FGM.

My fight against FGM has landed me in jail as a protester. I have suffered beatings, rejection, sexual abuse, separation from my babies. I have been tortured physically, sexually and emotionally. I have physical scars all over my body. Up to this time there are times my mind goes back and it’s like a horror movie. I suffered a great deal but I thank God almighty for America.

FP: What efforts are you now making to stop FGM? What resistance are you confronting?

Mashua: Since the day I stepped foot in the United States, I have been leading a fight against FGM. I have received help from my attorneys Roy Petty and Daniel Stewart, Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson and many organizations, such as the Center for Survivors of Torture and Human rights Initiatives.

Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson held my hand and stood by me. Annually I am a guest speaker to her World of Peace Women Conference. She even introduced me to President Obama back in 2007. He recognized my efforts on human rights issues and said he was proud of me in a letter he wrote to me.

The Congresswoman is a great friend. She helps me in many big ways that you cannot imagine and they are very personal. She went ahead and introduced me to my adopted brother J. Kendel Johnson, who has always been there for me, even in my hospital bed during my reconstructive surgery. He is an angel.

Parkland hospital surgeons saved my life and reduced my pain and body struggle by 60%. Many individuals groups supported me and still support me with my campaign here in the United States.

I began my campaign officially in 1999 in Kenya by holding demonstrations, speaking in seminars, radio and television programmes and in other East and Central Africans countries. I have currently launched a world wide campaign to stop FGM in Europe.  It’s not always been easy. First, resistance from my own people, then resistance from traditional mutilators who say that I am trying to destroy their only means of income.

FP: How about the Left? They pretend they are for human rights?

Mashua: Leftists pay lip service to women’s rights, but they are full of empty words. They derive fame and recognition from the pain and suffering of women. They only talk and travel just to show off; they do nothing to help or join in the fight against FGM.

FP: Expand for us on why leftist feminists and the Left in general abandons the girls who are the victims of FGM, especially those under Islam? They simply cannot bring themselves to criticize adversarial cultures and religions right?

Mashua: It’s simple: they don’t care about the harmful cultures. All they care about is opening their mouth or scribbling some words online or on paper to act as if they care and so far they have scooped several Grammies for best actors.

They bow down and worship the women haters to achieve favors and recognition. It’s high time we smoke these hypocrites out. I cannot stand them anymore I even don’t want their money to support my campaign because it’s blood money and evil-haunted money.

I would rather crawl and beg in the streets to sustain my campaign instead of working with such people.

The leading member of the Women Development Organization in Kenya, the vice chair, said this about FGM: “Unlike other gender issues, such as access to education, FGM is viewed as cultural practice, which, if threatened, endangers the cohesion of an entire community.” Her name is Rukia Subow and she is a supporter of the mutilators and of mutilation. She is the vice chair of Maendeleo ya Wanawake Organization–or MYWO–a leading Kenyan women’s rights group based in Nairobi. She writes: “FGM is considered most significant rite of passage to adulthood, enhancing tribal cohesion, providing girls with important recognition from peers.”

This is an organisation that is funded and works with the leftists in the West. I went to court to sue this organisation and its leadership with other 10 women and we lost and ended up in jail. We were beaten up and threatened just because we wanted them to womanup.

Another example is Ricken Patel of AVAAZ who grew up in Kenya. He told me that FGM is not an important issue and cannot beat climate change and his organisation will not help us to protect girls from FGM. Believe me, religion is a playing card here because this pretender doesn’t want to step on the toes of religion leaders and haters of women. Then a few days later he put a cause on Facebook that he cares about sex slavery. I told him these girls run away from their home to escape the crude culture of mutilation and child brides and end up in the streets where they are captured by educated heartless people for sex slavery and it’s so painful because it happened to someone very dear to me. She disappeared for years. She was only 11

In the Washington Post, Secretary Clinton wrote a column “Fighting Modern Slavery” lamenting worldwide sex trafficking. The root causes of sex trafficking are poverty, illiteracy, and powerlessness. Gender inequality is the basis for all three. I am hoping to represent the Department of State in a two week conference next year in Sierra Leone.

FP: You come from a tribe that is made of up Christians, and yet there was FGM. This is strange as Christianity would be completely against this kind of thing. It is in Islam where this is most occurring and Islamic theology sanctions it. Tell us also about your experience with Islam and Muslims in terms of FGM today.

Mashua: Yes my tribe is Christian and also full of traditional believers. I don’t know why they practice it because there is no single Bible verse that says to mutilate women. As I said earlier, it’s a way of controlling women. It has nothing to do with Christianity and they do not point to Christianity. They carried this tradition from Egypt in 16 AD (days of Pharoh). As Nilots, we immigrated to East Africa.

My experience with Islam on FGM is very sad. As you correctly point out, a majority of people who practice FGM on women are of the Islamic faith and in the Muslim countries that I have visited their women and children have encountered the worst form of it, and many reconstructive surgeons can testify to this. It is a form of control and manipulation in the name of religion.

The good news is that there many Muslims who are rising to end any form of torture against women.

FP: That is great but the problem is that Muslims point to traditional Islamic teachings that sanction FGM. This is the way they keep it in placed. That is why when Egypt, for example, banned FGM in 1996, an Egyptian court overturned the ban in July 1997 after Islamic clerics went on a rampage to bring it back, pointing to Islamic teachings and ideology. Islamic tradition, for instance, records the Prophet Muhammad emphasizing that circumcising girls is “a preservation of honor for women.” A legal manual endorsed by Al-Azhar University of Cairo, which is the oldest and most prestigious university in the Islamic world, states that circumcision is obligatory for both boys and girls.

The sexual mutilation of girls is in the interests of those who control the structure of Islamic gender apartheid. Keeping FGM legitimized and institutionalized is one of the most effective means that Islamic gender apartheid keeps women subjugated and caged.

Yes, let’s hope that Muslim reformers can be empowered to fight FGM, but in order to do so they have to confront the misogyny and demonization of female sexuality that is embedded in Islamic theology.

So where does your battle stand now as we speak?

Mashua: We all read the harmful Muslim remarks on Beyonce after she said she was going to perform in Egypt:

“Beyonce, queen of the crusader whores and puppet of the Zionist entertainment complex, plans to bring her filthy sex act to the heart of the Muslim world with a concert in Cairo. Not since al-Malik al-Adil Nur ad-Din Abu al-Qasim Mahmud Ibn ‘Imad ad-Din Zangi fought the crusaders in Damascus has the Muslim world faced such a threat.”

“If Beyonce is allowed to go ahead with her insolent sex party, all of our daughters risk growing up whores. Soon, they will dare to show their ankles in a public setting, or sit in a room with a grown man who is not an immediate family member.”

“If Beyonce insists on traveling to Egypt, she must be met with fierce resistance. She should be arrested and made to have a female circumcision in order to correct her wicked urges. If she objects, she must be stoned to death. Only then can our daughters be safe from Western vice and debauchery.”

Wow, tell me what kind of religion it is that hates women so much to the core? It’s simple: women are not allowed to enjoy sex or laughter or just the gift of life because of these Islamic attitudes and teachings. Look what happened at the Fort Hood shooting. The authorities knew about Nidal Hasan’s jihadist views but they were afraid to report him because of political correctness. And the fear of not taking action cost us our blood and lives. Believe me there are so many of the major Hasans out there. It’s high time we call a spade a spade.

Five hundred thousand women are still dying in childbirth every year and the promise of universal access to reproductive health and family planning made at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, Egypt in 1994 has been more honored in the breach than in the implementation. A.majority of women’s deaths in these cases are caused by early women rights violations (i.e. FGM, child brides, etc.)

On Common Ground must expand the discussion to the entire planet. What we do here in this country has an effect on the entire world’s view of women, on their status, on their role in human affairs. America, we are the hope of the world. Let’s stand together and lets not be scared of the haters and leftists.

FP: Thank you Lucy Mashua. Final words?

Mashua: When the world takes care of women, women take care of the world. What does taking care of women mean? It means that people rejoice equally at the birth of a girl or a boy. Every single human being ever born has come from the womb of a woman. Women risk their very lives to ensure the propagation of the species.  If women lack health and education and choices in their lives, humanity suffers. If women disappear, humanity disappears. It is really that simple. So take care of women.

FP: Lucy Mashua, you are an inspiration to us all. We encourage all of our readers to help join the fight against FGM.

*

[To get the whole story on why the Left won't lift a finger against Female Genital Mutilation and Islamic Gender Apartheid, read Jamie Glazov’s new book, United in Hate: The Left’s Romance with Tyranny and Terror.]

My recent NewsReal blog on Naomi Wolf and female genital mutilation (FGM) – also posted at Frontpagemag.com and Jihadwatch.org — has triggered a heated debate in the blogs’ comments sections on all three sites. The key arguments in these three sections personify some of the Left’s key tactics in its romance with tyranny and terror. It is crucial to shed light on these arguments in order to crystallize the malice, dishonesty and heartlessness which lie at the center of the leftist agenda. It also helps strengthen our efforts to fight on behalf of tyranny’s victims, which, in this case, are the hundreds of thousands of young girls who face the barbarity of female genital mutilation yearly around the world.

The recent controversy surrounds a Frontpage interview I did with Ines Laufer, an anti-FGM activist. Along with Lucy Mashua, a Kenyan victim of FGM, she is presently leading a new campaign, sponsoredgirl.com, to protect girls from this barbarity.

In my NewsReal blog, I raised the question of whether Naomi Wolf, who postures as a feminist concerned with women’s rights, will be at all interested in joining Laufer’s and Mashua’s campaign. The issue at stake here is that leftist feminists pretend they care about women, but when it comes to women who suffer under adversary cultures, they refuse to act, since doing so will legitimize their own societies which they despise and work to destroy. Thus, millions of women under Islamic gender apartheid have been abandoned by  leftist feminists, whose devotions lie with their anti-Western and anti-American faiths. The scholar and true feminist Phyllis Chesler has documented this phenomenon powerfully in her book The Death of Feminism.

To stress the main essence of this problem regarding Wolf and the hypocrites in her “feminist” camp, I asked in my blog:

“Will Naomi Wolf join the battle? For instance, will she denounce the Islamic theology and teachings that lead to the mutilation of Muslim girls in Islamic countries?”

My critics who seek to delegitimize my main point have now come forward and think they are scoring a powerful blow against me by, typically, pointing out that FGM is not exclusively Muslim. This is a key traditional tactic of the Left. In order to whitewash the barbarity of adversary cultures, they consistently exonerate it by pointing out that some kind of injustice exists somewhere else — and, especially, of course, how it exists in our own society and civilization.

Thus, some of the critics revel in how Lucy Semiyan Mashua, who is leading the new campaign against FGM, is from Kenya and comes from the Massai, a Christian African tribe. This is how their mental gymnastics work: FGM is not just an Islamic practice, so we can’t say anything critical about Islam when it is connected to FGM. This way we can’t say that anything is really better than anything else, and we especially can’t say that our civilization is better than Islam’s or that we have anything to teach Islamic societies.

This kind of thinking deliberately incapacitates any action that could be implemented on behalf of Islam’s victims. If you try to do something on behalf of the victims, which begins with honesty about who is perpetrating the crime and why, the critics come forward and say: “Hey, but it isn’t just Muslims that do it.” Then the critics feel really good about themselves for pointing this out and, yes, go home and do nothing about the subject at hand. So in the case of FGM, the leftist feels self-satisfied that he’s pointed out that it’s not just Islam that does it, he engages in no action to help the victims and the mutilation of girls under Islam continues.

Naturally, Muslims are not the only ones who perpetrate FGM. Of course, FGM is practised outside of Islam, including under non-Islamic African tribal cultures. I never said anywhere that FGM is only practiced by Muslims. But the key issue here is that Muslims are the principal religious group that practices this sexual violence against women. And the reality is that if you are a victim of FGM, then the chances are very high that you live in a Muslim household and in a Muslim culture.

Now within the context of Islamic FGM, the barbarity is kept alive and legitimized by Islamic theology. This is the case in Egypt, where this crime against girls is waged on a massive scale. The Egyptian government banned FGM in 1996, but an Egyptian court overturned the ban in July 1997 because of the ferocious uprising of the Islamic clerics, who fervently pointed to Islamic teachings to re-implement this war against women’s sexuality. The Muslim mutilators pointed to traditional Islamic teachings that sanction FGM, which include the Prophet Muhammad’s instruction that circumcising girls is “a preservation of honor for women.” Also, a legal manual of the Shafi’i school of Islamic jurisprudence, ‘Umdat al-Salik, which is endorsed by Al-Azhar University of Cairo — the oldest and most prestigious university in the Islamic world — states that circumcision is obligatory for both boys and girls.

Keeping FGM institutionalized also helps the Islamic mutilators keep the structure of Islamic gender apartheid in place. Keeping FGM legitimized and at work is one of the most effective means of keeping women subjugated and caged. After all, the strategy behind amputating the clitoris is clearly to kill the woman’s sexual desire and pleasure, which, in this diseased misogynist mindset, reduces the chances that she will ever toy with the notions of autonomy, equality and self-determination.

Question: How can we possibly help Egyptian girls, and other girls who are targeted for FGM under Islam, if we do not confront the philosophy behind the institutionalization of this violence? You cannot save Muslim girls from FGM without crystallizing what it is within the religion that gives fertile soil and legitimization to FGM. The way to save human beings from this violence is to isolate those teachings and to have them nullified – and this involves confronting certain Islamic teachings.

Nowhere am I saying that we don’t work against FGM in non-Muslim environments. We do that too. We do it all. But we can’t save the victims of Islamic mutilation if we are not honest about the Islamic impulses for that mutilation.

So the main point of my Newsreal blog, where I asked whether Naomi Wolf would join the battle against FGM, was to point out the hypocrisy of the Left’s silence on this matter. It’s a silence that stems from the fact that leftists like Wolf know that admitting the inferiority of an adversarial culture will legitimize Western civilization, a recognition that they cannot make without risking their entire identities as social critics. That’s why the leftist forces in our society do their best to excuse FGM with the tired old mantra: it’s not only Muslims that do it – as if inaction to save human beings from evil is somehow justified because a sin might exist somewhere else.

What a revolting image: the smug leftist turning his or her back on the victims of Islamic FGM because a non-Muslim somewhere perpetrated FGM. How does this self-satisfied inhumanity save the Muslim girls who will be mutilated in the future? How does it help the non-Muslim girls?

Hypothetical question: if we could have saved the Jewish inmates from Auschwitz before they were murdered, would it have been right to abort the rescue operation (which would have involved an honesty about Nazi doctrine) upon discovering that someone, somewhere, in some other place, said or did something anti-Semitic? Hey, it’s not just the Nazis that do it. Would that have sufficed to justify not lifting a hand to rescue Auschwitz’s inmates?

Some other connected tactics surface in the debate in the comments sections on my blog.  One critic thinks he is making a big point by stating that Morocco, one of the countries that Wolf visited during her political pilgrimage, does not practice FGM. But whatever the extent to which FGM is practiced or not in Morocco, the point is that it is practiced in Egypt and Jordan – where Wolf visited and says she found a vibrant sexuality lurking under the veil.

Another critic thinks she has scored a knockout blow against me by revealing that she did a Google search and found that Wolf has written about FGM. The issue is not whether Wolf has written about FGM. The issue is whether she has condemned the societies and cultures within which it is practiced, and whether she has done so on the premise that our society is more humane and has something to teach those societies and cultures. She has not. In The Beauty Myth, for instance, Wolf makes a critique of FGM only in passing, with a “everyone is guilty” theme that ends up comparing FGM with modern-day breast surgery.

The core issue is that Wolf does not voice her moral indignation against Islamic FGM and the Islamic theology that serves as its fertile soil. She does not condemn African tribal FGM for its African tribal roots, but in the context of how a universal misogyny is somehow responsible.

Thus, in the Islamic context, for instance, it is clear that someone like Wolf will never act, because protecting little girls’ genitals is less important for her than protecting herself from the charge of being Islamophobic. Her anti-Americanism, ultimately, has to be prioritized in a sacred and protected place.

In essence, because of Naomi Wolf and her like-minded feminist comrades, here is the situation: if you are a victimized girl being abused in a Muslim culture, then you have the unfortunate distinction of being part of a group that the West and FGM activists have difficulty helping, because the lib-Left has made sure that the Muslim culture and religion can never be criticized and, therefore, that its victims can never be protected or saved.

This is just another chapter of a long, dark and grotesque story – the story of the Left, with its hands drenched in human blood, sacrificing human beings on the altar of utopian ideals.

[Editors' note: Read more about the Left’ complicity in Islamic gender apartheid in Jamie Glazov’s new book, United in Hate: The Left's Romance with Tyranny and Terror]

Naomi Wolf, Lucy Semiyan Mashua

I have a little follow-up to my run-in with Naomi Wolf over the sexiness of the burqa.

As our readers will be familiar, Wolf went on a political pilgrimage to Morocco, Jordan, and Egypt and found a thriving sexuality behind the veil.

I have been wondering ever since if Wolf was at all concerned about what state women’s vaginas were in within the sexual paradises that she visited and praised, seeing that the barbaric crime of female genital mutilation is perpetrated with high frequency in the areas she visited.

But not that a fellow traveler would care about anything like that.

Who does care is Lucy Semiyan Mashua, a freedom fighter from Kenya who survived several kinds of genital mutilation, slavery, child abuse, rape and torture. Today she is leading a new global campaign against female genital mutilation. Will you help? It might just take signing a petition. Please enter the fight by reading all about the new effort to save girls from this genocide.

Will Naomi Wolf join the battle? For instance, will she denounce the Islamic theology and teachings that lead to the mutilation of Muslim girls in Islamic countries?

Should we hold our breath?

FP: Ines Laufer, welcome back to Frontpage Interview.

In our last discussion, we focused on how Germany has exposed a young girl to female genital mutilation and how Germany, and Europe in general, is not protecting young girls from this barbaric crime.

Today I would like to talk to you about a new campaign you have started. Tell us about it.

Laufer: Thanks Jamie.

Our research brought to light that to up to 400,000 sponsored girls who are marketed by the big development organizations PLAN International, World Vision, Kindernothilfe and ChildFund do not receive protection from female genital mutilation. We have started a new campaign, at sponsoredgirl.com, to protect the girls from female genital mutilation. We invite your readers to come join us.

These children are marketed in order to acquire money from trustful donors. The donors pay about 30 Euros per month – which means 360 Euros per year, in the belief that the organizations do all they can for providing a better life — including health for the sponsored children. PLAN International for instance, acquires about 72 million Euros every year, just by marketing the 240,000 concerned girls.

But asked about female genital mutilation on the sponsored girls, these organizations openly and publicly claim that demanding the safe protection of the girls would be against their approaches and against their policy.

So, by failing to demand, to stipulate and to control the protection of the sponsored girls from FGM, the organizations must be considered complicit in every single crime perpetrated against a little girl in this regard.

We are The Alliance for Protection of Girls from Female Genital Mutilation. We consider this simply scandalous and unacceptable. It is a crime against the girls and also a system of defrauding the donors.

That’s why we launched this campaign. It is suited to go the largest step forward in the direction of an end of FGM since the beginning of the fight against these practices. It could lead to true and immediate protection of a few million girls.

FP: Ok, what concretely does the campaign demand?

Laufer: It demands that all organizations who work with the sponsored-child-system, should make sure that all girls in their projects – in the relevant regions – are safely protected from violence like female genital mutilation.

This demand is based on the cognition that it is not only possible but very easy to achieve that goal – and even more: It does not cost any money.

It is just about the change of the attitude, approach and policy of the organisations. We call for:

[1] The stipulation of the safety and protection from FGM of the sponsored girls in the preconditions for support for the communities – and regular check ups.

[2] A careful selection of the project partners, which means that only those communities that support children’s rights will be targets of help. This means an investment of donations in the most economic and effective way.

[3] The complete solution – the two steps to safe protection – you find here.

FP: How do the mentioned organizations react to your activism on behalf of the victims of FGM?

Laufer: To be honest, Jamie, they all react quite similar so far, with a mixture of ostrich behavior (putting their heads into the sand) and helpless efforts to defend their current policy of tolerating and accepting the mutilations of thousands of sponsored girls.

But in fact, they deliver us one proof after the other that confirms how much this campaign is needed – how important it is and that it will have a deep impact to truly stop FGM.

To the people who sign and send the petition letters, they send standard-answers which make clear that they did not even read or understand what we demand. They still refuse to admit that they are fully responsible for every single mutilated girl in their projects because of their failure to implement the adequate protection measures. And they do not have any scruple to simply tell tales.

We can sum it up as following: There is much ignorance and denial and no adequate seriousness or goodwill to even understand what should be changed and how.

But I am sure this will change soon.

Only, it doesn’t lie in our hands anymore. Now, the world public – every person who feels concerned and disturbed by the knowledge that every day, thousands of little girls are mutilated by FGM – is asked to help the campaign.

FP: What exactly can people do to help the campaign? Is it about money and donations?

Laufer: No, Jamie – it is absolutely not about money or donations. It is about something much more important: It’s about the power of everyone’s voice. By investing exactly two minutes of time and a few clicks, everyone can help – while comfortably sitting in front of the computer. Every reader can help free this world from the nightmare of female genital mutilation. It has never been so easy.

At the www.sponsoredgirl.com website, you find four prepared letters, addressed to PLAN International World Vision, Kindernothilfe and ChildFund, see here.

Every person who signs and sends the letters – and who even steps back from current sponsorship-contracts, enlarges the pressure on the organizations. And this helps us to strengthen our efforts in demanding them to consequently protect the children.

That’s why: Please sign the letters and send them to your friends that they can do it too.

FP: So how has the campaign been going?

Laufer: Well, let me tell you this. In the last ten days, more than 750 letters have been sent to the organizations already. But we would like to achieve at least 5,000 to put the campaign at the next level of public pressure.

FP: Ines Laufer, thank you for joining Frontpage Interview. I encourage all of our readers who want to help stop this genocide against girls to go to www.sponsoredgirl.com.