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 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-

The True Story Behind ‘Hotel Rwanda’

By Paul Rusesabagina with Tom Zoellner

***** (5/5)

Non-Fiction / Autobiography

Click to buy this book (free delivery)

Book Synopsis:

Paul Rusesabagina’s extraordinary courage inspired the film Hotel Rwanda, which received 3 Academy Award nominations and starred Don Cheadle.

“The killer would not look at me.

In that one small turn of the face, I saw there might be some room for me to maneuver. I saw that I had a small chance to save the lives of thirty-two of my neighbours who were huddled in the cars behind me.

All I needed was to find the right words. Everything now depended on my words…”

During the Rwandan genocide of 2004, Rusesabagina used his position as general manager of the Hotel des Mille Collines to protect over twelve hundred Tutsis as well as moderate Hutus. Though a delicate balance of diplomacy, smooth talking and cautious trickery, he managed to maintain the Hotel des Mille as a safe house, while the madness raged beyond its gates.

Rusesabagina transports the reader to those 100 days of cold-blooded murder, to the torment of those who witnessed their loved ones murdered before them. He relates how he felt as he served liquor and cigars to killers by the hotel’s pool, when just above them, he was attempting to hide as many of their potential victims as he could in the upstairs rooms.

What’s more, he describes his feelings of betrayal and deep disappointment when the international community chose to ignore the genocide.

Rusesabagina’s autobiography reveals the racial complexity of his personal life being a Hutu but married to a Tutsi and his attempt to address the question: What causes a whole nation to go insane?

The strength of Paul Rusesabagina’s character is clear, but more importantly, he was an ordinary man who stepped up and acted with true courage and humility during an extraordinary time.

My Book Review:

Where do I start? This is the personal story of a man who did what he could amidst the unthinkable. 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda in just 100 days, the fastest and most efficient genocide in history.

The hotel manager, Paul Rusesabagina, is the most admirable man I have ever had the privilege of encountering. In the face of brutal chaotic killers, some of them his neighbours, who blindly hacked apart friends, children and the elderly, Rusesabagina, stood calm and rational. He used every word in his power to protect the 1,200 people who were hiding in his hotel.

Rusesabagina begins by explaining the history of Rwandan racial politics. How the disparity of power and apparent facial structure built up over the years, split Rwanda into two, The Hutu’s and The Tutsi’s,  eventually erupted into anarchy and frenzied killing.

The autobiography is divided into 3 parts:

• The history behind Rwanda’s racial politics

• The 100 days during the genocide when Rusesabagina and the refugees were living in the hotel, constantly fending off imminent slaughter and

• Rusesabagina’s life and view of Rwanda after the genocide.

I found I had to distance myself from the descriptions of the horrific killings that are described in the book, in order to sanely get through reading it. Despite the almost unimaginable events, this was surprisingly a very easy book to read.

Easy to read for 2 reasons:

1) Rusesabagina is an amiable and humble man, with unmatchable integrity.

2) Because it is important. It is important to know this history that is so recent we should consider it the present. It is important to see and respect men like Paul Rusesabagina and know that words and non-violence really can work in real life.

I thought The Holocaust would have been lesson enough, but this is the list of genocides from Wikipedia that have occurred between 1951 to 2000:

Australia (1900-1969), Zanzibar, Guatemala, Bangladesh War of 1971, Burundi, Equatorial Guinea, Cambodia, East Timor, Argentina, Sabra-Shatila in Lebanon, Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Iraqi Kurds, Tibet, Brazil, Democratic Republic of Congo, Azerbaijan, West New Guinea/West Papua and Sri Lanka.

It would be so easy to write these mass killings off as ‘things of the past’ or ‘things that only happen elsewhere’. We live privileged lives in cushy 1st world countries, and as we discover in An Ordinary Man, it was countries like ours who could have put a stop to the mindless slaughter. But we didn’t. The world did nothing. Even with 2,700 UN troops stationed in Rwanda, Rusesabagina says:

“In my opinion the UN was not just useless during the genocide. It was more then useless. It would have been better off for us if they did not exist at all, because it allowed the world to think that something was being done, that some parental figure was minding the store.”

Rusesabagina made endless calls and faxes to government bodies, including the White House, but was ignored every time. There is a passage in which he describes a conversation he had with a woman at the White House. It will make your blood boil.

Paul Rusesabagina speaks plainly and sincerely. Watch the movie and read the book. This is present and possibly continuing history.

x Julie

Book Shop and Book Reviews

-Reading Like Rabbits-

by Harper Lee

****~ (4/5)

Click to buy this book (free delivery)

Book synopsis:

”Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember, it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

A lawyer’s advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of this enchanting classic – a black man charged with the rape of a white girl.

Thorough the young eyes of Scout and Jem Finch, Harper Lee explores with exuberant humour the irrationality of adult attitudes to race and class in the Deep South of the thirties.

The conscience of a town steeped in prejudice, violence and hypocrisy is pricked by the stamina of one man’s struggle for justice.

But the weight of history will only tolerate so much…

Why I like this book:

I have a long affiliation with To Kill a Mockingbird. I studied it in secondary school, then in Junior College I was in the drama club production of it. I had two lines: “Scout’s daddy defends niggers!’ and “Slut!”. And in February 2010, I will be playing Scout at The Drama Centre in Singapore. This is why I recently read the book again, as well as the play version by Christopher Sergel.

I enjoyed reading To Kill A Mockingbird all three times I have read it. I was 14 the first time and found the first few pages too confusing, so I skipped the first chapter going on to thoroughly enjoy the rest of the novel.

The play is very much a watered down version of the thick Southern atmosphere and action of the novel. It’s very much like watching movie versions of good books you’ve read, they rarely compare.

The book however is extremely lulling and comfortable. [I know this is a strange description for a book about the injustice of racism, but the 'goodie' characters whom you get to know throughout the novel, who live in this sleepy town of Maycomb, are lulling in nature and they do make you comfortable to know that there good people in this world.] It’s full of good natured and upright characters in an unjust and colour-coded world. The children, brother and sister Scout/Jean Louise and Jem with their little friend Dill, speak from a confused and innocent child’s perspective. They learn how they should live and discover the world in which they want to live in. This is one of the most important aspects of the book, that to a child, race doesn’t mean anything unless it is cultivated . Children are taught to be racist, or they learn to be racist, the blank slate is filled with whatever it touches.

To Kill a Mockingbird possesses the danger of becoming preachy with Atticus their father, and their neighbour Miss Maudie extolling pearls of wisdom on behaviour and conduct. However, as a reader you understand that there are people like the bigoted Bob Ewel, and then there are sympathetic and honest people like Atticus. He has little influence on a public scale, but is able to hold on to his personal integrity and ideals, and more importatly educate his children so they grow into compassionate adults. He leads by example and you respect him for that.

Harper Lee’s handling of this subject matter ironically necessitates this kind of black and white approach with the characters behaviour. As an educational and growing tool, I think this is a crucial textbook to life – these kinds of accusations and sham trials actually occurred in 1930s America, and beyond, I was shocked to find out – from the false accusation of the Scottsboro boys, to the brutal murder of Emmett Till (whose white killers walked away scott free). I think this book will stay in the school literature syllabuses for a long long while.

To Kill a Mockingbird’s content is infuriating, charming and admirable. This novel has been described as having two parts, a trial story with Atticus defending the black Tom Robinson who is accused of raping a white girl, and a kind of distant love story between Boo Radley and the children. I want to be as noble as Atticus, as free spirited as Scout and secretly I identify with the reclusive and elusive Boo Radley.

x Julie

Book Reviews

- Reading Like Rabbits