by Waris Dirie

with Corinna Milborne

Translated by Sheelagh Alabaster

***** (5/5)

Non-Fiction / Memoir

Click here to buy Desert Children by Waris Dirie with free delivery

Book Synopsis:

Desert Children is about Waris Dirie and Corinna Milborn’s investigation into the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Europe. It is estimated that up to half a million girls and women have undergone or are at risk of FGM in Europe.

Presently, France is the only country that convicts offenders. What’s more the threat of female genital mutilation is not officially recognized by any European country as a reason for asylum.

Waris Dirie was a top model and UN ambassador. Her story, Desert Flower, of growing up in Somalia, enduring FGM at the age of 5, fleeing though the desert and being discovered as a model by Terence Donovan was an international bestseller.

In Dirie’s second book, Desert Dawn, she writes about her experience as a UN Special Ambassador against Female Genital Mutilation, and returning home to her family in Somalia.

In this latest book, Desert Children, reveals the appalling truth of Female Genital Mutilation throughout Europe.

My Book Review:

I picked up this book by chance at the Library Book Fair over the weekend. It’s an eye opening, important read. I’d recommend this book to everyone. Men and women. We need to know what is happening to women all round the world, and we need to do something about it.

This book focusses on Waris Dirie’s research into the practice of Female Genital Mutillation in Europe. You wouldn’t think that FGM is widespread in modern Europe, but unfortunately, thousands of women and girls are at risk of this horrific ‘cultural’ ritual. What’s worse, many of the reasons behind the practice of FGM are complete myths. And these beliefs surrounding FGM are so infuriating in their ignorance, it’s unbelievable. Some women even think that they will be unable to give birth naturally unless they are circumcised. Others want to have their children circumcised in the belief that it will keep the girl pure, that she will be dirty if she is un-cut, that FGM is the only way to find a husband.

This book is an education in the reality of the widespread mutilation that is being inflicted on girls in our world today, and along side this, of the plight of African immigrants to Europe who refuse or are unable to assimilate and embrace the country they have chosen to live in.

We have to have compassion for the women who were cut against their will and without knowledge as girls, but it is these same women who are agreeing either wholeheartedly or through family pressure to have their own children cut.

I was shocked to find out that of all the women worldwide who have undergone FGM, about 15% are infibulated. But in Somalia or Sudan, the figure rises to 99%. Infibulation is a severe form of FGM. It involves ‘cutting out parts or the whole of the genitalia, with subsequent stitching together the opening to leave a tiny hole. In this procedure, usually the inner labia are completely removed and the outer labia are sewn together so that scar tissue covers the entrance to the vagina’. (Taken from WHO’s classification of FGM)

FGM operations are often done without the use of anesthetic.

Victims of FGM are often left with the traumatising memory of the incision, and grave psychological and physical damage. What’s more, the cutting of females is still a taboo subject and is often never talked about between women and especially not with men. This culture of silence firstly leaves women to suffer alone, and secondly without any dialogue, this practice will just keep repeating itself generation after generation, without any assessment on what it is doing to the victims, what it is for and why on earth it is being practiced.

Furthermore, FGM has nothing to do with Islam. ‘Many of the countries that defend the practice mistakenly base their arguments on Islam. But there is no mention of the practice in the whole of the Koran, and certainly no recommendation of it… FGM is a phenomenon that pre-dates Islam.’ (Quote taken from Desert Children)

It is so easy to turn and blind eye and not to interfere because it is a cultural belief. Who are we to question someone else’s traditions? It infuriated me to read what this person wrote on a forum site with the topic of Female Circumcision:

CK: “Whilst being terrible to us remember its part of their culture. One of my friends used to shag a circumcised girl and there was no complaints from either party. Whilst you guys get on your high horse about injustices in the world how about feeding the homeless man you walk past each morning.”

There are so many elements that are exasperating about this apathetic and uninformed remark. And if we remain with this attitude, FGM will never stop. Girls clitoris’s and labia will continue to be cut out everyday.

Culture is not fixed, it inevitably changes over time. The reasons for ritualistic practices often get diluted and change meaning. It is so easy to just follow cultural practices because they are ancient and traditional. Old age does not make a thing moral or right. Blindly following culture has resulted in people unquestioningly cutting out a vital part of their child’s body.

As Kadi, one of the victims that Waris Dirie speaks to in her book, tried to explain to her cousin who is in favour of FGM said: “I’ve tried to tell her that FGM is a bad thing and I’ve told her about the health problems that can result. But only when I told her, “It’s like society deciding it’s better for children to live with just one eye, so they cut the second one out” – that made her stop and think.”

Desert Children will make you stop and  think. Is FGM happening in my own country, in my own neighbourhood?

How can we solve this problem and end the practice of mutilation? I am neither Muslim nor of African descent, and I understand how hard it is for people of other cultures to come butting in on other people’s decisions. This is one of the issues discussed in Desert Children, the difficulty of outsiders to intervene, and also the need for sensitivity in this issue.

But I want to do what I can. If we all take on the attitude of ‘CK’ in the online forum, taking a back seat in the name of culture and remain uninformed and uninvolved, tossing a few coins to the homeless, the mutilation of girls will go on and on.

Upon reading Desert Children, I can’t help but feel the need and the passion for wanting to help and be involved in this fight. To protect other girls and women from suffering this fate. I am now trying to find out what the status of FGM is in Singapore and if there are laws in place to prevent FGM.

Please do leave a comment on this page and tell me what you know or think about this issue. Even if you are for FGM, I’d like to hear your opinions. And if you are against it, what we can do to help end FGM?

x Julie

Online Bookstore and Book Review Site

- Reading Like Rabbits -

Here are some websites I came across about FGM in Singapore:

“Muslim rite is modernized”

- Overview:

1) ‘There are no laws regulating the practice in Singapore’

(Article was published in 2002, I don’t know yet if the laws have changed or not)

2)  ‘In Singapore’s small Muslim community, female circumcision involves nicking the prepuce, the skin covering the clitoris. It is markedly different from the practices of some Muslim communities in Africa and the Middle East decreed by human rights activists as female genital mutilation.’

3) ‘most Muslim women go along with the practice. They say it does not affect sexuality nor cause discomfort.’

What I want to find out is: What exactly is this procedure? Does it really differ from what we call FGM? and Does it really not affect sexuality nor cause discomfort?

Article ‘Female Circumcision’ on Singapore’s AWARE website

- Also, have a look at the video on ‘Labiaplasty’ and though the contents of the video may be disturbing to some viewers, it’s an eye opener to how we, modern women, view our nether regions.

Inside a Female-Circumcision Ceremony

- a slide show of a female circumcision ceremony in Indonesia

Expat Singapore’s discussion forum: Very Sensitive topic – Female Circumcision in Singapore

- People’s discussions, questions and opinions on the issue.

by Colm Toibin

***~~ (3/5)

Fiction

Click to buy Brooklyn by Colm Toibin with free delivery

Book Synopsis:

Work in 1950s Ireland is hard to find. Eilis Lacey does what she thinks is best and makes the long and arduous journey across the Atlantic to Brooklyn, America. For the first time, Eilis is on her own, in a strange city, living in a boarding house filled with other working girls and a scrutinizing landlady. Eilis is isolated and far away from home.

Gradually, however, as Eilis gets used to her new life, her job working in a department store, taking evening classes in book keeping, Friday night dances in the church hall, and maybe an American man… Eilis starts to realize, she’s found a kind of happiness.

But where does Eilis belong? In Ireland with her family or in her new found home, Brooklyn?

My Book Review:

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin was recommended in the Straits Times News Paper (Singapore’s national newspaper) as one of the Best Novels of 2009. (Also recommended was The Housekeeper and The Professor by Yoko Ogawa)

Upon reading Brooklyn, I was surprised that it received such a high recommendation in The Straits Times. Colm Toibin’s story is indeed interesting, and at times very absorbing. His protagonist, Eilis, was identifiable in her loneliness. However, I wouldn’t put it on my best book recommendation list.

Towards the beginning, I thought uh oh… this is going to be a depressing book. You know there are some books that start depressing and remain down in the dumps with no light at the end of the tunnel? Those books bug me, as they have a strange effect on my mood and make me think dreary thoughts, just like the characters. I sometimes have to stop reading those books. Stories should have light, dark and moments of shade. Luckily with Brooklyn, it did not stay in a rut for too long and elements of light and love came to the fore. Thank God!

I enjoyed the way Toibin writes, but I found it strange yet interesting that he seemed to skip over important moments in the story. For example, Eilis’s farewell to her mother is skipped in the chronology of her journey. I would have thought this would have been one of the most important moments. Yet, I understood why this was skirted over – so it could be left to the imagination, as a reader, you know what it’ll be like, so the writer felt he didn’t have to spell it out. I found this approach interesting for me, a wannabe writer, to take note of. Skip the boring bits. Having said that, Toibin’s penchant for little, almost disjointed, anecdotes about Eilis’s settling in period was frustrating, interrupting what could have been a nice flow. I don’t know, I’m not a writer (yet), but this was my opinion as a lay-reader.

In the synopsis, I have left out the last paragraph that gives away the ending. So if you hate spoilers as I do, don’t read ahead:

Mini Spoiler Alert!

I’m still going to be a bit vague and broad about the actual contents of the story. I am a person who will not be excited about reading a book, or watching a movie if I already know the ending. I know some people who are completely different, who can’t stand the suspense and have to read the last page or chapter of a book first in order to decide of they are going to read it at all. (Absurd in my opinion!)

Anyway, back to Brooklyn.

There is a devastating event that occurs towards the end of the book and causes Eilis to be put in a situation where she has to choose between two worlds. I think the clever and trapping aspect of this book is that both choices are right, and yet both choices are wrong. Whatever decision she makes, she is going to hurt someone.

As a reader, I made my choice of who she should choose, but then at the end of the book when she did choose, I was not left with the satisfaction that she chose ‘right’, but with the sense that all of it was wrong. Whatever decision she made, it would leave her empty and incomplete.

Having said this, I was distinctly unmoved by the ending. I think this goes back to the author skipping over bits of the story,  skirting over the character’s emotions and reactions that the readers want to know, and probably should know. For example, (Again, vague. I’m sorry, I cant help it! I just don’t want to spoil the ending for you!) when Eilis betrays someone, we see her actions, but we don’t hear her reaction to what she is doing. I think my involvement at the end would have been fuller, if I had been given this insight. To hear more of her thoughts would have helped me be more empathetic.

I did enjoy reading Brooklyn, I liked the character of Eilis and the journey she went on, but I certainly wouldn’t call it my best book of the year.

x Julie

Online Bookstore and Book Review Site

- Reading Like Rabbits -

by Jonathan Safran Foer

****~ (4/5)

Adult Fiction

Click to buy this book (free delivery)

Book Synopsis:

Oskar Schell is nine years old, and had begun a vital and secret mission that will lead him through New York’s five boroughs. Oskar has found a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died on September 11th in the World Trade Centre. In his search for the lock that fits his key somewhere in New York, a task that seems like looking for a needle in a haystack, Oskar meets survivors of all kinds. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a moving, funny and healing journey.

My Book Review:

I had heard wonderful things about Extremely Loud and Incredible Close. Friends of mine had said it was one of their top 10 books of the year, so I was really looking forward to reading it.

This book suprised me. Jonathan Safran Foer is a really interesting writer. The characters he creates are out of the ordinary, and the way he reveals their story and their inner workings is delicate and intriguing.

His child character, Oskar, is hilarious and so endearing. Foer deftly balances the child’s innocence and naivety with his intelligence and acute understanding. There is one incident in the book, when Oskar is at his psychologists office, that had me laughing out loud (several times) whilst reading in public. Embarrassing, but I couldn’t help it. It was just too funny to keep inside.

Oskar’s grandfather, after the trauma of losing everything during the war, also loses his speech and is only able to communicate through writing notes in notebooks. He tattoos ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ on each palm to make communication easier for him. His journey spans many decades, and readers follow him from his youth in Dresden to the present day. His relationship with his wife is bizarre but when you learn what they have been through, understandable.

I love the layout of Extremely Loud and Incredible Close – there are photos, words circled in red pen and pages with only one sentence printed on them, scattered throughout the book.

If I compare this book to a movie, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close would be a great independent movie. It’s unique, unpredictable and poignant.

x Julie

Reading Like Rabbits

Book Shop

by Ayaan Hirsi Ali

***** (5/5)

Autobiography / Non-Fiction

Click to buy this book (free delivery)

Book Synopsis:

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is among today’s most controversial yet admired political figures. She made international headlines when her friend and colleague Theo Van Gogh was assassinated in the Netherlands for making the film Submission with Hirsi Ali. His Islamist murderer stabbed a note to his body threatening that Hirsi Ali would be next.

This celebrated writer of The Caged Virgin, and courageous champion of free speech has led an extraordinary life.

In her astonishing memoir, she tells of growing up in Somalia in a staunch Muslim household, to escaping an arranged marriage, to her intellectual re-birth in the Netherlands, to becoming a member of the Dutch parliament, and finally of her life under constant security protection because of her open critique of Islam.

Having made the immense and dangerous ideological shift from a devout Muslim to an outspoken atheist, Hirsi Ali now fights for the rights of Muslim women and the reformation of Islam.

My Book Review:

The journey that Ayaan Hirsi Ali has made up till now is nothing short of amazing.

To be honest, it’s been about a year since I read this book, but the power of the incredulous journey that Ayaan made from the traditional life with her family in Africa to escaping into the Western world without a penny or a friend, to being elected a member of the Dutch House of Representatives, has remained firmly in my psyche.

The most astonishing aspect of this autobiography is in observing Ayaan’s development and her changing, progressive way of thinking.

Ayaan is now an activist who made the open conversion from Islam to atheism. She is very critical of Islam, speaking out especially about the place of women in Islamic societies.

This is an important, current and true life story. Ayaan speaks up loudly for what she believes are grave injustices in this world and suffers the consequences – constant death threats and the threats carried out with the murder of her friend Theo van Gogh. But still she speaks out.

x Julie

Book Shop and Book Reviews

-Reading Like Rabbits-

by Jhumpa Lahiri

****~ (4/5) Fiction / Short Stories

Click to buy this book (free delivery)

Book Synopsis:

9 short stories that reveal the lives of Indians living at home, or abroad, but nevertheless isolated, steering their way through the murky path between tradition and the new world that has evolved around them. These stories which are eloquently and subtlety told by Indian-American writer Jhumpa Lahiri, will speak to anyone who has experienced the longings of exile, or the isolated confusion of an outsider.

My Book Review:

I generally don’t read short story collections, they never really appealed to me. I like to travel along the long arc of stories with the characters and really immerse myself in a book. Short stories always seemed to cheat me of that depth. I did enjoy reading the book The Interpreter of Maladies. Though short story collections are still not my cup of tea, and I did end up wanting more of an investment in each story, I understand why it won the Pulitzer Prize.

Each story was a world of its own, entering the lives of real people and their displaced lives. As the book synopsis says, Jhumpa Lahiri’s stories are ‘understated’. They are quiet and domestic, but also therefore identifiable and honest in their portrayal. All 9 stories are unique and independent of each other in very satisfying ways, jumping across continents and content. I appreciated all the stories, but the two short stories that stood out the most for me are ‘This Blessed House’ and ‘The Third and Final Continent’.

Jhumpa Lahiri also wrote The Namesake, and though I haven’t yet read the book, it makes a great movie.

x Julie

Book Shop and Book Reviews

-Reading Like Rabbits-