Poetry

Female genital mutilation - man's controlling hand, again... by Patrick Jones

eyelids down
drenched in righteousness
spitting venom upon innocent skin

sworn
to secrecy
steeped in indignity
parading as,
cultural identity,

stapled sexuality
an egotist's litany
controlling lives
with rusted knives

stitched virginity
with thorns of masculinity

the mouth clings to memory
as blood in dirt
an indelible history
drowned in theocracy

even diamonds slip to insignificance
as the price of purity
rises as does
the perpetual misery

be it religion or cultural
that shape the fear of the clitoral
all are evil and genocidal

eyelids open
drenched in morality
spit reason
upon decrepid ritual

Note: Patrick Jones was recently forced to launch his new collection of poems in the street after a bookstore cancelled the event because of a campaign by Christian activists. Christian Voice said the book was "obscene and blasphemous" and called on the chain to remove copies from stores.(via Bookslut )

An interesting story...

A story I read on the Antioch Review... (could not help but post here - a useful commentary on what sometimes gets lost in cultural translation)

My Wife, Their Sister by Robert A. Rosenstone

Only after the ceremony did I learn that when you marry a Muslim woman she remains related to her brothers as well – about half a billion of them. This bit of knowledge became evident on our travels to lands where Muslims and Jews live or once lived together in close proximity, but the first lesson came in London's Euston Station after we drag three large suitcases off a train and I go to search for a luggage cart while Aisha stands in the crowded concourse, guarding the bags. A middle aged Pakistani man in a uniform that seems to connect him to the station sidles up to her and asks: Can I help you, sister?

I return with a cart to see a dark man, bent painfully low beneath the weight of our suitcases, leading Aisha towards and then down a steep staircase to the lower level of the station, then out along a platform to distant taxi stands. I draw close, thinking perhaps I should help him with his burden, but Aisha looks over her shoulder and, her right hand palm towards me, waves me off. She repeats the gesture when I draw near and put my hand on my wallet just as he lifts the bags into the trunk. Aisha smiles at him, says shukran, and gets into the cab. I jump in next to her and say: You're not going to tip him?

Of course not. It would be an insult to tip your brother.

Photo of the eastern shore of Staten Island, January 25, 2008