CLITORAL RELATIVISM­FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION IN “TOLERANT" ISLAMIC INDONESIA

Figure 17.1. Female Circumcision. A young girl cries while being circumcised in Bandung, Indonesia, on April 23,3006.

An August 1993 report in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) stated plainly, in its summary conclusions:

Female genital mutilation, also misleadingly known as female circumcision, is usually performed on girls ranging in from 1 week to puberty. Immediate physical complications include severe pain, shock, infection, bleeding, acute urinary infection, tetanus, and death. Long-term problems include chronic pain, difficulties with micturition [urination] and menstruation, pelvic infection leading to infertility, and prolonged and obstructed labor during childbirth.¹

Not surprisingly, FGM is outlawed in the United States and most Western countries, and there are concerted efforts to eradicate this barbaric practice globally.²

But just today, the barbarism of FGM is indeed referred to “misleadingly” as “circumcision” in a quintessential culturally (or if you prefer, clitorally) relative depiction by Sara Corbett published in the New York Times Magazine (January 20, 2008).³ Ms. Corbett's approximately one-thousand-word essay even omits any discussion of the basic acute (“severe pain, shock, infection, bleeding, acute urinary infection, tetanus, and death”) and chronic (“chronic pain, difficulties with micturition and menstruation, pelvic infection leading to infertility, and prolonged and obstructed labor during childbirth”) medical complications described in the 1993 British Medical Journal report.⁴

Corbett acknowledges that in “tolerant” Islamic Indonesia, its progressive Muslim women denizens take their preadolescent daughters (infants, toddlers, young girls) to “free circumcision events,” apparently in droves, as “96 percent of families surveyed reported that their daughters had undergone some form of circumcision by the time they reached 14.”5 Yet, here is Corbett's nauseatingly reverent account (salvaged only by the accompanying narrative's photos—like the one above—which capture the actual horror experienced by the victimized young girls):

When a girl is taken—usually by her mother—to a free circumcision event held each spring in Bandung, Indonesia, she is handed over to a small group of women who, swiftly and yet with apparent affection, cut off a small piece of her genitals.

Foundation, an Islamic educational and social-services organization, circumcisions take place in a prayer center or an emptied-out elementary-school classroom where desks are pushed together and covered with sheets and a pillow to serve as makeshift beds. The procedure takes several minutes. There is little blood involved. Afterward, the girl’s genital area is swabbed with the antiseptic Betadine. She is then helped back into her underwear and returned to a waiting area, where she’s given a small, celebratory gift—some fruit or a donated piece of clothing—and offered a cup of milk for refreshment.⁶

POSTSCRIPT 1: WHY FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION VIOLATES THE PRINCIPLE OF NONMALEFICENCE

Below I have summarized (and referenced) key conclusions from the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Bioethics, published in the journal Pediatrics 102, no. 1 (July 1998), pages 153-56, which covers all forms—including type 1 FGM (which by definition “removes all or part of the clitoris”)—of this medically unwarranted, misogynistic barbarity:

The physical burdens and potential psychological harms associated with FGM violate the principle of nonmaleficence (i.e., not doing deliberate harm), a commitment to avoid doing harm, and disrupt the accepted norms inherent in the patient-physician relationship, such as trust and the promotion of good health. More recently, FGM has been characterized as a practice that violates the right of infants and children to good health and well-being, part of a universal standard of basic human rights.⁷

Parents are often unaware of the harmful physical consequences of the custom, because the complications of FGM are attributed to other causes and rarely discussed outside of the family.⁸

Furthermore, parents may feel obligated to request the procedure because they believe their religion requires female genital alteration.⁹

Less well-understood are the psychological, sexual, and social consequences of FGM, because little research has been conducted in countries where the practice is endemic.¹⁰

However, personal accounts by women who have had a ritual genital procedure recount anxiety before the event, terror at being seized and forcibly held during the event, great difficulty during childbirth, and lack of sexual pleasure during intercourse.¹¹

POSTSCRIPT 2: CLARIFICATION OF ISLAMIC LAW SUPPORT FOR FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION

Dr.

Dr. Durie has also studied the Acehnese (i.e., from Aceh, Indonesia) and published many articles and books on their language and culture.¹⁵

Dr. Dure writes:

In Februrary 2007 Dr. Muhammad al-Mussayar of Al- Azhar University, referring to reliable hadiths from Muslim and al-Bukhari, stated: “All jurisprudents, since the advent of Islam and for 14 centuries or more, are in consensus that female circumcision is permitted in Islam. But they were divided as to its status in the sharia. Some said that female circumcision is required by the sharia, just like male circumcision. Some said this is a mainstream practice, while others said that it is a noble act.”

Of the four Sunni schools of sharia, it is the Shafi’is who have said that circumcision of girls is compulsory. The Reliance of the Traveller, a respected manual of Shafi’i jurisprudence,¹⁶ states “Circumcision is obligatory (for every male and female) by cutting off the piece of skin on the glans of the penis of the male, but circumcision of the female is by cutting out the clitoris” (section e4.3). [The English translation by Nuh Ha Mim Keller (certified by Al Azhar University) disguises the true meaning of the Arabic text by offering the following bogus English ‘translation’: “For men it consists of removing the prepuce from the penis, and for women, removing the prepuce (Ar. Bazr) of the clitoris (n: not the clitoris itself, as some mistakenly assert).”]

As Indonesia is a country in which Shafi’i Islam predominates, it is hardly surprising that female circumcision is commonly practiced among Indonesian Muslims, from Java to Aceh. There is a close correlation between Shafi’i Islam and the frequency of FGM. Regions where the Shafi’i school predominates are also the places where FGM is more frequent. These include Egypt, southern Arabia, Bahrain, Kurdistan, Somalia, Brunei, Malaysia and Indonesia. The oft- recited claim that FGM is not a religious practice is proved false, not only because it is more frequently found in Shafi'i areas, but also because it was introduced, along with Shafi'i Islam, into Southeast Asia, a part of the world where it had previously been unknown.

It is only the teachings of the sharia which account for this practice being followed in Bandung Java today, and specifically the doctrinal formulations of the Shafi'i school of sharia. Imam Shafi'i may be long- dead, but he has a lot to answer for to the Muslim women of the world.¹⁷

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