In our society, many women have died as they give birth to life due to complications of FGM. Many homes have become battlefields as husbands despise and torment wives for not meeting their sexual desires due to FGM. Many families have been mired in turmoil as co-wives engage in life and death struggle over husbands who marry more women just to satisfy their lust. Divorces, adultery and sexual promiscuity have become all too frequent due to the prevalence of FGM in many communities and homes.

Above all, FGM has served to tame African women in communities that practice the tradition into absolute submission and disempowerment. Thanks to solemnly controlled secret societies and well stage-managed FGM rites and ceremonies in which young girls are subjected to a series of well calculated and carefully delivered messages, FGM has become an effective socialization program intended to indoctrinate women and girls to a life of subservience in their society. In these societies and ceremonies, our girls and women are taught to be contented being behind boys and men; not to aim high for their world stops in the kitchen and the bedroom, while they are constantly miseducated to belief that women are weak.

Our girls and women are taught in the FGM rites of passage to perceive themselves as objects whose value can only be manifested in how they take care of their bodies in order to satisfy their men folk. Consequently our girls and women have become far more preoccupied about their bodily looks even if they have to paint their bodies and add all sorts of artificial materials on their heads, eyes, lips including piercing their tongue, navel, ears, genitalia and nostrils just to appear like a decorated artifact in service to the desires of boys and men. It is this mindset that forces our women to seek the lighter side of life and be prepared to remain a step behind boys and men. It is such indoctrination, perpetuated by both men and women that give rise to statements such as ‘Ladies First’, which has been erroneously meant to be a compliment. But this is a terrible mindset at the back of which only confirms the persistent indoctrination that girls and women are toys without self esteem whose lives are at the mercy of their male counterparts. This is why FGM serves as an effective exploitative and oppressive tool that does not empower our women to be equal members of society.

About FGM

FGM is a gross human rights violation meted out to girls and women for centuries. It is neither Islamic nor a good cultural practice. For long though, it has been held, falsely that Islam approves of the practice. Secondly, while it is a fact that FGM is a tradition in many African communities, what is not fully understood or rather ignored is the fact that everything is culture. Human beings have culture, a set of existing yet changing way of life manifesting in practices, values, ceremonies, institutions, laws, materials, relationships, sports, food, dresses among a host of others. Our time and environment play a decisive role in building this way of life to meet our needs as we seek to dominate nature to continue to acquire and perfect a more decent and better way of life.

But in this world of culture, one will notice that there are aspects that empower and liberate individuals and communities, while some aspects also enslave and oppress individuals and communities. Thus there are good and bad cultural values and practices. Secondly in any society, there are always dominant groups who seek to define and establish the prevailing socio-economic and political systems and institutions to serve primarily the dominant class or group. In each home or tribe, as well as in organizations and institutions whether in the public and private sectors or civil society, or in instances of colonialism or foreign domination, one can notice a dominant idea and system to which all conform. In feudal and colonial societies, just as in authoritarian regimes, this dominant idea and system always serve the rulers and the powerful that are connected to them. This is why the fight for self-determination, freedom and democracy has always been imperative by all peoples everywhere in order to bring about a new society founded on the principles of human rights and dignity. Thus FGM, as an oppressive cultural practice is also an idea and a system carved by the dominant class, men with the intention to contain and control the dominated class, women. Thus the fight against FGM is a fight for cultural liberation that ultimately does not only free women, but alongside it also frees men from being oppressors and exploiters, hence the entire society.

It is extremely important that Africans understand the value and role of culture in our lives. Not only our ceremonies, values and practices are cultural, but also even science and technology are aspects of culture. The Internet therefore is not only an information and knowledge production and sharing platform, but more importantly the Internet is a cultural tool just like the balafon or aeroplane or kaftan created for the benefit of society. This is also the reason why anytime an individual or a group dominates another individual or group, their first target is to alienate the dominated from his or her culture, and then impose the culture of the occupying force on the occupied.

This is because human beings also only think and act within the confines of their culture. Hence if I impose my culture (i.e. my ideas, systems, values, beliefs, materials, etc) on you and managed to get you embrace it, the tendency for you to think and act like me becomes much easier. In that situation therefore the occupied will not anymore resist occupation, rather will become obedient and subject himself or herself to the ideas and systems of the oppressed, hence facilitate his or her own domination. This is exactly what slavery and colonialism succeeded to do to Africans that even up to today, the more an African is educated in Arabic, English or French tends to become more Arab and English than the indigenous owners of these cultural tools, i.e. languages. This is why in the context of FGM, men were able to impose their ideas and systems on women to the extent that the leading exponents and practitioners of female circumcision have been women themselves. For example, I have given up convincing my good old mom that FGM is not only harmful health-wise, but also exploitative and oppressive which is responsible for her disempowerment.

Understanding the Abolition

The Gambia Government is said to be developing a legislation to formalize the banning of FGM in the country. There have been jubilations at the pronouncement of the abolition. However a fundamental question must be asked as to why did it take a government 50 years to ban what is clearly a violation, which poses a clear and direct danger to the lives of girls and women? The pronouncement and the imminent legislation must serve as the beginning of an accountability process to ensure that justice is delivered for the damages done to the health, bodies and dignity of women and girls.

No government can and must claim ignorance on any issue that affects the lives and rights of citizens. That FGM is unhealthy, harmful and non-Islamic is clear. The government has the capacity in all ways to know whether FGM is right or not. It is clear that even without a law banning FGM, the path has been carved for the voluntary abandonment of the practice in the Gambia, sooner or later. The rate and intensity of the campaign by civil society groups including youth organizations have registered tremendous gains that it is clear that many more Gambians are rejecting FGM than embracing it. Coupled with other factors such as education and generally high levels of awareness thanks to a more open world, the move towards voluntary abolition was very assured.

The question still is why did we wait for so long as a country to ban this harmful practice?

We must recognize that the state has the resources, expertise and mandate to protect the rights of citizens. Thus since gaining independence, FGM like all other harmful traditional practices should have been banned in the country in protection of the rights and dignity of citizens. Section 17 of the 1997 constitution stipulates that the state bears primary responsibility for the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens. Thus the onus to ban FGM lies entirely with the state. It must be noted that the primary function of a state is to create and promote a liberation culture in which citizens enjoy freedoms, sustainable development and quality standard of life. This is why a state collects taxes among other sources of revenue to provide social services such as education, healthcare, good roads and other infrastructure as well as security and all other public goods and services. In providing these social goods and services, the state also makes laws and creates institutions to ensure orderliness, regulate human behavior and operations of businesses and all other aspects of life in that society. It is this process of managing resources and affairs of the society that the state then creates a new culture, hence development. Thus by failing to ban FGM since 1970 when the Gambia became independent, one must therefore hold the state to account for the reasons behind this indecision until now.

Compensation for Victims

In holding the state to account for failing to ban FGM since independence, we must therefore remind everyone that indeed FGM has produced scores of victims. Marriages have been broken by FGM. Homes have been plunged into crisis because of FGM. Lives became horrified and lost because of FGM. Rights and dignity have been bruised because of FGM. What happens now to that 10-year-old girl who was circumcised last year? What about that 35-year-old woman who cannot bear a child anymore after FGM related complications following her two previous deliveries? How about that woman living in torment and daily fights with co-wives, and shunned by her husband because of FGM? These and many more thousands of girls and women are already dead or in our homes, offices, and communities and all over the country. What about them?

I wish to state here that the abolition of FGM is incomplete until the Gambia repairs the damages caused by FGM to our girls and women. The government must open a trust fund to compensate all girls and women who have been subjected to FGM. The FGM bill must make entrenched provisions to set the modalities of this reparation. These girls and women were betrayed by their state that sat idly by to watch their humanity and dignity being marred with impunity. The state must demonstrate responsibility and compassion and ensure that justice is seen to be done for those who were not protected by their chief protector, i.e. the State, but left to suffer irreparably scars of life. We must bear in mind that abolishing FGM is not a charity or a favor provided to our girls and women. It is an obligation that must have been fully fulfilled since 1970. That, we allowed it to persist in the face of overwhelming evidence that the practice is non-Islamic and an oppressive and exploitative cultural tool intended to harm more than half of society is criminal. I demand justice in the name of the victims.

Let justice prevail. Stand for FGM Victims.

President Jammeh of the Gambia has done it once more, bringing to light his controversial and irrational state of mind. From claims that he can cure HIV/AIDS, Female infertility and his dehumanizing scheme of witch hunting, the Gambian leader at a recent political rally declared the Minuscule West African state an Islamic State. Jammeh noted that making the Gambia an Islamic State detaches the country from her colonial legacy; an enigma that has given rise to several speculations.

When the Arab Spring erupted in 2010, cities across much of the Arab world came under fire from mass protest of citizens demanding change. From Tunis in Tunisia, Cairo and Alexandria in Egypt; to Tripoli and Benghazi in Libya; Sanaa, Yemen; and Damascus in Syria, popular uprising against decade’s long authoritarian rule came with a Euphoria that hung across most of the region. Even some of the richest Gulf States such as Bahrain felt the heat when their very own citizens took to the streets in protest. President’s Ben Ali of Tunisia, and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt were forced out by tumultuous crowds that lit the night time skies.

In Libya, Mohammad Qaddafi was killed by a mob of protestor turned rebels after several months of fighting across much of Libya. In Yemen, President Saleh was forced out after narrowly escaping a decapitation. In Syria, President Bashar Al Assad is able to stand his ground as protest movement shifted into a brutal civil war.

The euphoria that came with those tumultuous events seem to have dissipated, since the only two states (Tunisia and Egypt) that experienced transitions with some degree of success have intermittently come under scrutiny. Many have charged that those changes falls within the fulcrums of the old adage; “pouring old wine into new bottle,” largely denoting the status quo welding the most power and influence.  In Libya, although longtime leader, Mohammad Qaddafi was killed and his regime ousted, thousands of citizens are displaced, and various militia groups continue to operate and battle the legitimate government with impunity. In Syria protest escalated into a civil war that has killed hundreds of thousands, displaced millions, as President Bashar, Al-Assad continue to fight for his regimes survival. Even in Iraq, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the elections that ushered in a new government did not stabilize the country. Iraq continues to be gripped by a violent sectarian divide, and armed militia mainly from the deposed regime and other groups roving and disrupting peaceful coexistence in Iraq and across territories in Syria.  Evidently instability in Iraq and tumultuous events of the Arab spring lit fires across several cities of the Arab world, from Tunis, Sid Bouazi,  Cairo, Alexandria, Tripoli, Benghazi, Sanaa, Damascus and Manama.

While calm has returned to most of the cities, state fragility and failure in Libya, Syria and Iraq led to the birth of a new form of threat that shifted fires from cities of much of the Arab World to Western cities – the threats of transnational terrorism. The collapse of the Saddam Hussain regime in Iraq and protest movements that left Syria into a state of volatility and fragility, gave birth to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Our failure to stabilize Syria and Iraq in the framework of an international collective goodwill to protect human dignity has emboldened the ISIS network to share disturbing video messages showing the beheading of innocent beloved world citizens. Jihad John, the notorious executioner may be killed but his tale will continue to hunt mankind for good. The anger, fear, outrage and threat that came with those videos were both enigmatic and repugnant to our conscience as a human family. Our failure to act collectively in the name of humanity, irrespective of our divergent interests and power dynamics shows the volatility and weakness of mankind in a world polarized by interest. Hence, ISIS has shifted the path of the fires that lit the skies of cities in the Middle East and North Africa during the Arab Spring to cities in the western world.

ISIS reminds us of our own failures, challenges and contradictions. In the past decade, experts, policy makers, academics and think tanks have cautioned state failure and fragility, and poverty, as an international security challenge that could have lasting consequences on global stability.   Prominent among them was the US National Security Advisor, Dr. Suzan Rice. In  her 2006 policy paper titled, The Threat of Global Poverty, published in The National Interest Journal at Brookings Institute, Dr. Rice cautioned that “Americans can no longer realistically hope that we can erect the proverbial glass dome over our homeland and live safely isolated from the killers—natural or man-made—that plague other parts of  the world” (2006,p1). She warned that in the long term, it can threaten US national security. Apparently, the underlying truth beneath the threats of poverty, state failure and fragility threatens both US national interest, and the peace and security of the modern world. ISIS has opened up training camps and occupied territory in the failed and fragile states of Libya, Iraq and Syria, recruited operatives in the west, carried out bombings, suicide missions, and indiscriminate killings in the heart of Paris, London, Beirut, and threatening to strike American and other western cities. Similarly, it is alleged that ISIS has set footprints in Afghanistan, Somalia and Nigeria.

Most disheartening of the ISIS inroads into prominence, is its ability to recruit young men and women in our very own backyards in the west. The majority of those recruited either have a polarized background entrenched in a troubled life or feeling of alienation or frustration from societies incapacity to provide an institutionalize support system. Such loopholes in modern western society, shows the unsafe nature of our very own communities. ISIS has tapped into such vulnerabilities to commit murder at an alarming rate.

On November 13, 2015, ISIS has struck hard, carrying out attacks in a massacre style that killed about 153 people and wounded hundreds of innocent citizens  in Paris, France. On November 12, 2015, it carried out suicide bombings in Beirut, Lebanon that killed up to 43 people, and wounded about 153 citizens, demonstrating its determination to strike into our very own heartlands. Prior to these attacks, ISIS claimed responsibility for the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris that killed 12 people. ISIS did not limit its operations to only continental Europe, it had continuously redouble its efforts to strike in the United States of America (USA) with limited success. In the United States ISIS operational dynamism has been incapacitated in many regards with the exception of the May 3, 2015 attacks of a cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, depicting the prophet of Islam (May Peace and Blessings of Allah Be upon Him), and the  December 2, 2015 San Bernardino massacre that killed 14 people  and wounded 17. Investigations have so far concluded that both attacks were inspired by ISIS, which shows the strength and determination of the terror group to strike under all circumstances.

The debate on Freedom of Speech following the Charlie Hebdo, Paris, and Garland, Texas attacks did not do any good either in our collective effort of empowering citizens. Instead, we used the mantra of Freedom of Speech as an umbrella to pervasively intrude in to the arbiter of human dignity, culture and customs. We disregarded the mantle of the framers of freedom of speech as an institution that comes with responsibility. No one can deny that freedom of speech constitutes an integral part of our values. However, free speech that comes with da demeaning and devaluation of human culture constitutes irresponsibility in all its forms.

Arguably, the threats of ISIS that lit fires across cities in  both the Middle East,  the West and other parts of the world  reminds us that state failure and fragility creates conditions of  poverty, international criminal activity, terrorism and weakens state capacity to prevent violent threats. The world is no longer a safe place with, poverty, state collapse and political instability that has deepened poverty and displaced populations in Iraq, Syria and Libya.

Defeating ISIS requires taking ownership of the failed and fragile states of Iraq, Syria and Libya in the framework of a collective goodwill of finding a lasting political solution, and containing pervasive poverty among the millions of displaced citizens. This means the world’s most powerful nations must take a leading role in helping resettle the millions of helpless Syrian refugees seeking security and safety. It will also require empowering the majority Muslim population in all facets of society committed to upholding the Islamic values of peace, love moderation, tolerance and respect for the people. Such an empowerment should take place at the work place and educational institutions, government institutions, community organizations, the private and public sector. Such a framework can be an effective de-radicalization mechanism, especially for the vulnerable young men and women of our communities. Perhaps the leadership role of Canada and Germany in resettling and integrating thousands of Syrian refugees provides concrete historical lessons for other nations.

It is 11 years since the assassination of prominent Gambian journalist Deyda Hydara, and all those who care for justice are still waiting for the Gambian authorities to take up their responsibilities and launch a thorough investigation into his killing.

While there is no hard evidence that the Gambia government or its agents are involved in Deyda’s killing, but it is quite hard for any reasonable person to explain the government’s complete lack of interest in investigating the case as if they are not interested in knowing who, killed him and why or that they have something to hide from people knowing the truth.

We can recall that Deyda, who was managing editor and co-proprietor of The Point newspaper, was killed on 16 December 2004 while driving home from The Point’s office on Garba Jahumpa Road in Bakau late in the evening. He was accompanied by two female staff of The Point; Ida Jagne and Nyangsara Jobe.

Apparently, the assassins were trailing his car and immediately it curved on Sankung Sillah Road in the Kanifing Industrial Estate, just by the perimeter fence of the paramilitary barracks on the Serekunda-Banjul highway, they struck, pumping several bullets on the driver’s side, and he was said to have been killed on the spot while his two female companions sustained various degrees of injuries. With assistance from the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the two ladies, who were virtually left untreated at the Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital, were later evacuated to Dakar by the Gambia Press Union (GPU) for specialist treatment.

However, from the very onset, the attitude of the Gambian authorities towards the case was quite bizarre. Not only was the family not invited to the postmortem but the autopsy report was also never made available to them, even when they requested for it. Up to this very day, neither the family nor the GPU, who are an interested party, know what has happened to the autopsy report or even the bullets that were removed from his body. Something is definitely fishy with the attitude of the Gambian authorities towards Deyda’s assassination.

Therefore, instead of putting in all necessary efforts to find out who killed Deyda and why, the authorities have continued to demonstrate their complete indifference to the case.  In fact every time President Yahya Jammeh comments on the case, he makes some ambiguous remarks which tend to confuse rather than clarify his government’s stand point on the issue. A case in point was an interview he had with the BBC in November 2011 in which he compared Deyda’s brutal murder to the deaths of other Gambians in road accidents, asking why anyone should be more concerned about Deyda’s death than those Gambians who have died in other circumstances, thus further dashing any hopes that his government has any intentions of investigating the killing.

We can also recall the only official report so far released on the case, dubbed ‘Confidential Report’ that was issued by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) in June 2005 in which instead of displaying any seriousness in investigating the case, they chose to subject Deyda’s personal character to all sorts of disparaging comments, even to the extent of blaming his death on his wayward behavior. And since then, there has not been any other report on the case, as if the authorities are not interested in knowing the truth.

While there is as yet no iota of evidence to link the regime or anyone else in Deyda’s murder, but the least anyone expected from the authorities was to show commitment in thoroughly investigating the case with a view to bringing the culprits to justice. Therefore, there is a general consensus amongst those who cherish justice that the failure of the responsible authorities to do so tantamount to shirking their responsibilities to a bona fide Gambian citizen.

From the very beginning, the GPU and other civil society groups had called on the authorities to invite more competent investigators from abroad to help the Gambian security forces to unravel the case, but they always turned down the request, insisting that the security forces had the capacity and competence to carry out the investigation, and yet so far, they have failed to show any commitment and resolve to carry out any serious investigation. There is no doubt that if the government had agreed to such a proposal then, by now the truth may have been known as to who killed Deyda and why.

Therefore, even the failure of the authorities to carry out a forensic analysis of the bullets recovered from Deyda’s body, which are some of the most basic things anyone would expect from any responsible authority, can easily be interpreted to mean an apparent attempt of a cover up.

It could be recalled that during events commemorating the first anniversary of his death when the GPU and its invited guests from the sub-region and abroad attempted to visit the site where he was killed, they were met by a large contingent of heavily armed para-military forces who said they were given instructions not to allow anyone on the site. That of course was yet another clear indication that the authorities had something to hide.

The failure of the authorities to accord the case the seriousness that it deserved has not only dented the Gambia’s image as a respecter of the rule of law and provider of justice for all its citizens, but it has also strengthened any speculations that the regime or its agents may have been accomplices to the killing. Therefore, in view of the obvious reluctance on the part of the Gambian authorities to show any commitment to investigate this heinous crime, it is incumbent upon regional bodies like ECOWAS and the African Union, or even the United Nations and the rest of the international community to assume their responsibilities and ensure that justice is done in the case.

There is no doubt that all those who knew Deyda and what he stood for, and indeed all people of conscience, will never rest until justice is seen to be done in this case.