(Internatl Film) Moolaade': Raises Crucial Question About Female Circumcision --- Purification or Mutilation? (974 hits)
Moolaade version with English subtitles
Synopsis: Should female circumcision be seen as female purification or female mutilation? This question kept roaming through my mind after seeing a film titled Moolaade. Moolaade is one of the international films featured during the African film festival in New York. This film was vastly seen across the United States because of the controversial issues involved.
Ousmane Sembene, the 81-years old Senegalese film producer, who is often referred to as the father of African cinema, tackled the contentious issues surrounding female circumcision in Africa. This film is based on one woman’s resistance towards a traditional practice in which a village is torn between the traditional spiritual worshiping, Islam and globalization.
The scenery of this film was in a village of Burkina Faso in Senegal and Ousmane gave it a strong African spirit in his portrayal of village life and its people. From this film, one could observe the cultural similarity between the people who lived in this small village of Burkina Faso and the Hausas of northern part of Nigeria. The cultural resemblance is not limited to how family compounds are structured and the configuration of the mosque but there are more similarities in traditional attire well as the quintessence of customary beauty.
Colle (played by Fatoumata Coulibaly) a determined second wife of a village elder successfully shielded her only daughter from the ritual of “purification” organized every seven years. Not only did Colle shield her teenage daughter from the ritual she also offered protection or “Moolaade” to four girls who are in next round for purification. At the start of the insurgency, Colle turns to the traditional protective spell, the Moolaade, which promises adversity to anyone who harm the girls while they are in her compound. The fear of consequences of the ancient tradition “Moolaade” collides with the equally old traditional practice of female “circumcision” and Islam. ...
Ingles' Ingles' mi hablo Ingles... no Afri-Caan!!!
Sunday, August 28th 2011 at 6:55PM
Cynthia Merrill Artis
Sorry, guys... I thought this is the film with the English subtitles. Ha! My bad.
Monday, August 29th 2011 at 11:58AM
Jen Fad
you have'nt quit yet with your de*****ization or deNigeriation of African women yet?
This film by a Muslim; is not calling the 3-4 thousand year africanFemale and africanMale cultural purification a Traditional Norm.
He does not call it what the paganChristian calls circumcision or mutilation.............
even your Nigerians in America, what, christianNigerians?
state,
[Fahtma, U.S. educated Sudanese mother of four--- “Then one day, when my father was away, my mother took me for the circumcision. I did not expect it to hurt so much. It made me faint, and lost a lot of blood. For two weeks, Nene, my sisters, Idrissa and the women neighbors cooked and sang and danced for me until my father returned home. Until I was healed, I was not permitted to eat with a man which made Baba(herFather) suspicious after I had not come to the dinner table for many nights.”
“What has happened here?” he said. “Nene told him the truth. Baba did not yell or respond in any way at first. He asked to see me, and he told Nene and me that if this is what we wanted, he would accept it and be happy for me. It is a woman’s affair,” he said.
[Kadiatou Diallo mother of Amadou Diallo from her book… My Heart Will Cross This Ocean - pg.74]
“I know personally that it is a tribal right and need not to be couched in those terms-mutilation is a western twist on things. If people within that culture respect that as a right of passage and its not violating their health, then it is not a violation of human rights.”
again, this is a female issue-----------------and STOP the Islaam innuendoGossip!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@ Senora Cynt, Denada. Unfortunately, the only problem now is that the person who started uploading the clips with the English subtitles, didn't bother to continue. Lazy folk, eh! ((Lol))
yes... I notice.... oh well... I'll just turn the sound down and watch it....
oh well .... maybe it's for the best.... that way the deniggralization will end.... ey?
Monday, August 29th 2011 at 6:43PM
Cynthia Merrill Artis
@ Sister Cynt,
I love watching movies from other countries, especially Nigeria. It's really not necessary to know or understand the language spoken because what I've found is that just following them from beginning to end --- the body language and gestures --- TELL so much MORE. Ha!
@ Sister Irma,
Honor killings are so common over the Globe and I've read about cases in N. America, too! I read about a honor killing of a young lady 2010 where the brother helped his father to kill his younger sister because she was disgracing their culture. The brother and the father drove the girl, the aunt, and one other relative to a secluded area of a lake, locked them in a car, and pushed the car into the water, drowning all of the women (the two other women were trying to protect the girl).
Since you're letting me know that your interests are versatile, I'll post some of these things when I read about them. Of course these men should understand that the laws hear in North America don't support their honor killings, eh?
my dear Irma and jenFad, I hate to comment on a commentator but you have asked for information
From the dawn of 3-4,000+ years of Monotheistic Thought, Mosaic Law; through the Laws of AlQur'aan
---- fornication, adultery and other s*xualDecadent deviations, perversions and community destroyers have been combated with the Laws of Those Societies----
if a male/female is involved in fornication, adultery and other s*xualDecadent deviations, perversions and community destroyers History and the community Laws of many nations requires that the Guilty---- parties be stoned or sent to their maker..................in History of desert areas they had no guns, lethal injection or much twine --- so stones do the job.
the european paganChristian de*****ative commentators like to call this "honor" killings---again, as with the conclusion of definitions that jenFad acknowledged about the above subject -- IT IS IN THE DEFINITIONS and THE DEFINER
In AlIslaam there is no such thing as "Honor Killings"---irma
So why are there so called "Holy Wars" which has been going on for thousands of years in the middle east?
Tuesday, August 30th 2011 at 6:11PM
Cynthia Merrill Artis
again sorry jenFad,
a commentator on another subject
Holy war may refer to?
A religious war led with an exceptionally high grade of religious feeling, such as; The Crusades, 11th, 12th, and 13th-century religiously sanctioned military campaigns waged by much of Christian Europe against the Muslim Middle East.
or
Definition of HOLY WAR
: a war or violent campaign waged by religious partisans to propagate or defend their faith
See holy war defined for English-language learners »
First Known Use of HOLY WAR------1639----
----again a european paganChristian context----the paganGreeks and paganRomans started "holyWar"---with land conquest and slaver/subjugation for theirGawds?
----and then the catholics-protestants-calvinists-and other european paganChristian thinkers had their "holyWar" for slavery/subjugation of THINKING of theirOwn--3inOneGawds?
---and history then gives us the "holyWar" for gold/land against the nativeAmerican unHoly heathens?
so I conclude from the definition and history; that Their have never been Holy Wars generated FROM the middleEast...................Holy Wars are a paganEuropean concept..............
Thanks Jen, your first blog on tis caused not only this your second one, but in between Siebra did a post on htis issue about ow the female is look on...from theoutside world. Now I will try to sow an example of customs of others being judged from tehout side (and this is someting I have brought up before)
WHEN THE CHRISTIN MISSIONALY WENT TO AFRICA AND FIRST SAW AN AFRICAN CUSTOM OF A RITUAL TAHT WERE USED TO MOVE THE BOY INTO ADULT HOOD THEY DEEMED IT ANTI-CHIRSTIAN AND BANNED IT...
THIS IS BEFORE IT WAS BROUGHT TO AMERICA AND RENAMED 'BUNGY JUMPING'...THE SAME EXACT THING BUT UNDER A NEW NAME AND NEW MANAGEMENT. (NUP)
DIPPING ONES BODY INTO WATER, RIVERS WAS A WAY OF GIVING THANKS TO THE RIVER GOD IN AFRICA...THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS OF YEARS BEFORE CHRIST...UNDER THE NAME TODAY IT IS CALLED BAPTISM...NEW NAME UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT, RIGHT AGAIN LOL! (SMILE)
Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM
ROBINSON IRMA
Jen, it is a learning tool so please keep these coming. thanks (smile) When I saw something like this on tv, I believe it was a Law and Order program it sowed Muslims from the middle-east so this blog can go to show how wide spread this custom is. example, where I live we have more middle-easterns than African Muslims.We have a lot of Shieks West Indians who own the 711s and are our dentist...(and who I can't tell one from the other in nationalities)
It is nothing here or sacramento to hear about honor killings or killing men for trying to date a female already promised. This kind of info is so very important so keep these coming. (smile)
Thursday, April 10th 2014 at 6:47PM
ROBINSON IRMA
