FW: Guest

Vivian Salama

It may have come at the expense of 12-year old Badour Shaker’s life on an Upper Egypt operating table, but the Egyptian government recently announced a complete ban on female circumcision, known as genital mutilation (FGM). The new ban is an amendment to a former provision that permits only qualified physicians to perform the surgery. The outdated practice, performed on girls before puberty, is believed by some more conservative families to protect a girl’s chastity and lessen her sexual desires. In a recent article, renowned Egyptian physician, writer and FGM victim Nawal al-Saadawi said the move comes far too late. “Badour, did you have to die for some light to shine in the dark minds?” she wrote in Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Yom following announcement of the ban. “Did you have to pay with your dear life a price ... for doctors and clerics to learn that the right religion doesn’t cut children’s organs.» In an interview with FORWARD Magazine from Ohio University where she is teaching a course this summer called “Dissidence and Creativity,” Saadawi related the act of genital mutilation to what she considers a “similar oppression.” “I connect female circumcision to the policies of George Bush,” she said. “There is a very clear relation between sexual oppression and political oppression.” Nawal al-Saadawi was born in the Egyptian village of Kafr Tahla. In 1951, she left to study psychiatry at Cairo University. She went on to eventually become Egypt’s Director of Public Health at a time when women’s leadership roles were few. She began a magazine called “Health” which addressed subjects relating to preventative medicine. She also began to write about women’s issues, particularly the oppression they experienced in the Arab world. As a result, she was dismissed from her post and her magazine was shut down. The experience unleashed a passion within her that Egyptians would learn cannot be silenced.