Where is the outrage at the true injustices?

[WeRSauron]

This thread got me thinking.

People are unhappy that African Anglicans for spending so much time attacking American Episcopalians for their consecration of an openly gay clergyman while remaining silent on the issue of female gential mutilation.

As an example, Guinastasia says:

But they squawk and squawk about gays. While pretty much not saying much about hacking off some girl’s genitals with a rusty knife. Tell me-which do you think is worse?

So. FGM is bad. Well.

Then direct your attention in the proper direction.

Sheikh Gad al-Haq Ali Gad al-Haq – a former senior cleric of al-Azhar in Cairo, Egypt, which is the official spokes-institution of Islam in Egypt, a world-renowned institution of Islamic higher education, and highly regarded as an authoritative source for Islamic orthodoxy – declared that Islam opposes family planning and that Islam supports female genital mutilation.

“If girls are not circumscribed as the Prophet said,” declared Gad al-Haq, as if there were a record that the Prophet [Muhammad] had said it, “they will be subjected to situations which will lead them to immorality and corruption.”

The above info is from pages 43-44 of Milton Viorst’s In the Shadow of the Prophet.

(As an aside, the Anglican clergy would have zero impact on the practice of female genital mutilation in these Muslims lands, where it is practiced the most. As a matter of fact, extremists can easily take any statements against FGM as attempts by Christians to subvert Islam and corrupt their women, thereby opening up the way for Muslims to opress and massacre more Christians.)

Now, where is the outrage?

Al-Azhar is also on record for officially declared that secularist or modernist figures, whose statements can be considered to be heretical or even leading to apostasy, are fair game to be executed. If the state won’t do it, but a Muslim does, the Muslim cannot be prosecuted or punished. They have gone on record supporting suicide attacks. And they, I will assure you, are dead set against anything but heterosexual male-dominant sex.

And here you are screaming at Anglican priests?

While Sudanese Muslim militias are attacking Christian schools and villages, engaging in mass genocide and slaughter, here you are attacking Anglican priests?

Puhleeze! Screw your head on right and acknowledge that your pet issue is nothing compared to what else is going on in the world. If you want to raise your voice against injustice, oppression, and suffering of Christians forget the West, forget the gays, forget the People of Color. Focus, focus on the East! Here you are demanding action of a group - well, put into action your own beliefs, and speak out! So what if the oppressers are non-Christian, speak out! Attack them with words and curses! Demand politicians to demand an immediate halt to such barbarity! Demand to use force and all power in our posession to halt such atrocity! Demand our Christian brothers and sisters across the seas to speak up against such horrible happenings! Demand that Muslims look in the mirror, recognize the ruins their world is in, and demand that they speak out and act out to bind the hands and melt the swords of these horrid demons of death and destruction!

Genocidal extremist female-mutilating apostate-killing bands roam around Africa making life miserable - and I hear nothing about it. No.

I hear about traditional American Episcopalians unhappy with liberal American Episcopalians. I hear about traditional Anglicans unhappy with liberal Anglicans. I hear about peaceniks attacking war hawks. I hear about war hawks belittling peaceniks. I hear about the shabby education system, voter problems, healthcare.

Hah!

Shame on us all for puffing ourselves up with such empty, hollow, and inconsequential issues! When hunger, suffering, genocide, mutilation, cold-blooded murder and attacks, oppression, slaughter, and fear run rampant in the world - we have no right to feel bad about our pet issues. We ought to focus our attention to where it is needed. Now! Act now! Tomorrow is too late! Act now, or you will have contributed to the suffering of the oppressed! Those who don’t act to restrain evil abet evil, becoming complicit with evil itself. Do! Speak! Now!

WRS

[Kimstu]

Hoo boy, here we go again…

In the first place, WRS, are you seriously suggesting that there isn’t outrage being directed towards Muslim advocates and practitioners of FGM? Seems like every month or so we have a pitting of FGM and other forms of oppression of women in some Muslim societies, and there are certainly lots of similar condemnations elsewhere, including among Muslims.

@WRS

Sheikh Gad al-Haq Ali Gad al-Haq – a former senior cleric of al-Azhar in Cairo, Egypt, which is the official spokes-institution of Islam in Egypt, a world-renowned institution of Islamic higher education, and highly regarded as an authoritative source for Islamic orthodoxy – declared that Islam opposes family planning and that Islam supports female genital mutilation.

---

“If girls are not circumscribed as the Prophet said,” declared Gad al-Haq, as if there were a record that the Prophet [Muhammad] had said it, “they will be subjected to situations which will lead them to immorality and corruption.”

The above info is from pages 43-44 of Milton Viorst’s In the Shadow of the Prophet.

1) While it’s true that many Muslims in African cultures advocate FGM (as do many Christians and other non-Muslims in the same cultures), you should not assume that “female circumcision” = “genital mutilation” for all Muslims. As another Muslim spokesman, Dr. Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, points out,

Although there is no reference to circumcision at all in the Qur’an, there is a well-established tradition of male circumcision in Islam as a “sunnah” act (i.e., one following the practice of the Prophet and his companions). There is no mandate at all for female circumcision, however. Although female circumcision is not mandated, one tradition of disputed authenticity permits (but does not encourage) the removal of a minuscule segment of skin from the female prepuce, provided no harm is done.

If you don’t consider the removal of the male foreskin to be a barbaric and oppressive practice, you can hardly object to making a small nick in the hood of the female clitoris. “Female circumcision” from the Muslim perspective does not necessarily mean cutting off the clitoris and/or labia. That type of practice is mostly confined to African societies (Muslim, Christian, and animist alike) who have practiced it as part of their tribal customs for many centuries.

2. Most Muslims reject the necessity for any kind of female circumcision; worldwide, it’s only a minority of Muslims who practice it.

@WRS

Al-Azhar is also on record for officially declared that secularist or modernist figures, whose statements can be considered to be heretical or even leading to apostasy, are fair game to be executed. If the state won’t do it, but a Muslim does, the Muslim cannot be prosecuted or punished. They have gone on record supporting suicide attacks.

These are not “official” positions, and they are often contested and contradicted even within the al-Azhar clergy itself. For example, Al-Azhar is also on record as repudiating violence as un-Islamic:

Sunni Islam’s highest authority condemned on Sunday the acts of the Muslim Abu Sayyaf group holding 21 hostages on a Philippine island, saying Islam rejects all forms of violence.

“Such acts of violence have nothing to do with Islam,” said a statement from Al-Azhar, Cairo’s thousand-year-old center of Islamic learning and the highest authority for the Islamic world.

@WRS

If you want to raise your voice against injustice, oppression, and suffering of Christians forget the West, forget the gays, forget the People of Color. Focus, focus on the East!

When you calm down, I’m sure you’ll realize that ignoring, say, racism and gay-bashing in Western countries just because they’re not as bad as oppression elsewhere is a lousy way to promote justice. How can we defend denouncing injustice elsewhere if we avoid criticizing injustice—even if it’s a milder form of injustice—among ourselves? That would just make us hypocrites.