What Is It All About: GENITAL MUTILATION
WHAT IS GENITAL MUTILATION?
An Excerpt from the book “Afrotheologie…ancient stone” by Tchr ESSIEN.
“This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.
“And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not thy seed.”
“He that is born in thy house, and he that is ought with thy money, musty needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant…”
“And Abraham took Ishmael his son and all that were born in his house, and all that were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham’s house; and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in then selfsame day, as God had said unto him.”
“And Abraham was ninety years old and nine when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old, when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin.” Genesis 17:10-14, 23-25 (Exodus 12:44, 48; Leviticus 12:3; Joshua 5:2-7
Abraham the father of Judaism, Islam and Christianity as claimed was circumcised at age Ninety-nine. The Bible did not mention if he did it himself or he was assisted by his wife Sarah or one of his slaves. Abraham from the biblical view could be qualified as the father or founder of slavery.
If we must deal with clitoridectomy, then, Abraham’s circumcision would help us understand some aspect of the female genital mutilation.
Do you think it was easy on Abraham to take a knife and carefully remove his genital foreskin at age Ninety-nine?
Do you think it was also easy on Ishmael to withstand the pain of circumcision at age thirteen? Even with the pains of circumcision, Ishmael did not act repulsively probably because of his age.
Ishmael knew and understood the covenant between Yahweh and Abraham his father better than Isaac because Isaac was never aware of such covenant but he was only told, with this reason, one could say that Ishmael was the promised child used for the sacrifice at Moriah before the divine intervention and not Isaac because he was probably not matured and with his age one wouldn’t theologically define submission of a child to a father.
Except otherwise he was never a child as the biblical narrators or theologians qualified him, probably he was of the age closer to the dead or expiration period of Sarah. Since Sarah was Ninety years old (Genesis 17:17; Genesis 21:5) when she had Isaac and died at age One hundred and twenty-seven (Genesis 23:1-2). So, Isaac could probably be at his age thirty when the Moriah’s event occurred.
It should be noted that the foreskin of Abraham was mutilated, likewise that of Ishmael and the slaves. If such has continued till date at the different ages, probably young men would have advocated for the abolishment of such practice. This was the case of women in the alienated African world.
Why didn’t God tell Adam to circumcise his foreskin?
Why didn’t God tell Noah to do same?
Maybe the male circumcision was probably only the idea of Yahweh!
WHAT IS MUTILATION?
The word “mutilation” is gotten from the Latin word mutilates, past participant of mutilare “to cut off, lop off, cut short; maim, mutilate” from mutilus “maimed”, which is of uncertain etymology.
According to the biblical narratives, the creation of all things was perfectly done. The Almighty Creator created all things and they were good in his evaluation (Genesis 1:31); so why the cutting?
Were the genital organs of the first human beings mutilated? Maybe they were mutilated but that of the female seems to be detestably pronounced today probably because it is not mentioned in the Christian Bible.
The male genital mutilation seems to have started before the era or during the era of Abraham but the God that called Abraham only approved of the male genital mutilation which is stylistically called circumcision and Yahweh, the God of the Hebrew (Exodus 9:13) kills or punishes anyone in Abraham’s house including slaves that fail to go through circumcision. Yahweh even attempted to kill Moses and his son due to circumcision. Exodus 4: 24-26.
Zipporah had it all wrong because Moses was not the bloody being, it was Yahweh who is the bloody God and had a servant who must walk and work faithfully with human bloody rites.
Yahweh made a covenant with Abraham to distinguish Abraham and his descendants from other people created by the Almighty God. The attitude of Yahweh could be compared with colonialism.
The biblical narratives have made it clear that the God of Abraham does not respect the will power of choice put in man by the Almighty Creator.
Imagine the alien’s religion authoritatively and ultimately submitting that if one is not a Christian, such a person goes to hell fire. Why? Yet in their world, they are the inventors and miners of all the buried ancient biblical detestable practices which are never traceable to Africa.
The Almighty God created man with the genital covering but Yahweh made Abraham to remove it as a covenant sign between him and Abraham and his descendants.
The ancient Jewish Rabbi and Christian fathers have made the Africans believed that the count and characters of women are not too significant even in the biblical narratives. These set of theologians believed that Adam had sons and daughters but the daughters not mentioned, so Cain eventually married his sister, one of the daughters of Adam. Isn’t what they told you?
So, how can anyone sufficiently and surely defend the submission that holds that only the genital organs of men deserve mutilation? Do you think because it is called circumcision, so it is not painful? Do people smile when their foreskin is been cut off?
Don’t you think that the part of the flesh cut off from the male genital organ also heightens sexual pleasure? Mutilation is actually painful, blood is released and it takes some days to heal. Isn’t it so?
The female genital mutilation is also called clitoridectomy. Clitoridectomy might not be in the Christian biblical narratives, the Jewish Tanakh or the Quran but it actually existed before or during the era of Abraham. It is a practice that still happens in so many African nations. The action and comment of Zipporah seem to inform that the male genital mutilation was not practiced in her world or Midianite world.
Clitoridectomy has been a traditional practice that our ancient mothers were proud to allow. It was a valued practice in many African societies that have it as a ritual.
Clitoridectomy was a ritual that defines the beauty, strength and maturity of the African woman in the communities that have it as a ritual but the alienated African society has begun changing the narratives.
The modern woman from the scientific view believed that the clitoris, which is a highly sensitive button-like part heightens sexual pleasure, so cutting it out, destroys the sexual pleasuring life of the female partners.
In many African communities that practice clitoridectomy, the ritual is to affirm the readiness or maturity of a girl for marriage or sex life. In the modern society, clitoridectomy is viewed as discrimination against women. The struggle for the freedom of women globally is what has yielded the advocacy for the stop of clitoridectomy.
Clitoridectomy or female genital mutilation according to the alienated world brings about:
- Severe internal pains and excessive bleeding
- Painful urination
- Infections if not properly cared for
- Cyst development
- Diminished sexual pleasure that can lead to infertility
- Psychological problems complications in childbirth
It should be noted that clitoridectomy is not a sin and not a barbaric act as many aliens and alienated Africans qualify the rite. It is possible that the aliens and alienated Africans would have qualified the male genital mutilation to be barbaric and sinful, if what was written in the Bible was clitoridectomy. Isn’t it so?
Genital mutilation was a general ancient practice; if certain societies decided to let go of clitoridectomy; then it would be wrong to qualify the societies that still practice clitoridectomy barbaric or sinful or Satanic because the genital mutilation is actually done on the both sexes and no matter how one tries to qualify the male genital mutilation with stylistic words, the truth is that mutilation is painful to the victim and the historic truth is that the female and male genital mutilations were valued in the ancient era.
Girls that fulfilled the clitoridectomy rites were colorfully celebrated in the ancient societies that practiced it and this was never a form of discrimination. So, modernity or the alienated world will be wrong to qualify the rite as barbaric or uncivilized because that was part of the civility of the ancient era.
It will not be a sin because the ancient people did not break any law by allowing clitoridectomy or genital mutilation of any form.
It will not be satanic or Satanism, because the African ancestors render prayers of thanksgiving to the Almighty Creator before, during and after genital mutilation or clitoridectomy.
These are who the Africans were and if the modern African children have allowed alienation, that should not make them to abuse our ancestral fathers of their beliefs and worship systems.
Afrotheologie sincerely needs your criticisms and corrections.
Tchr ESSIEN
Afrotheo…
