By: N. Amma Twum-Baah (Published in 2009) I’ll be the first one to admit that I haven't always fully owned up to being proud of my African heritage; mainly because I did not want to be associated with all the negative convolutions about the African continent. When I looked past all the negative publicity and attention focused on our beloved continent, what I saw (and continue to see) is a place I will always call home no matter how long I’ve been away or where I was born. A place I will always defend when misconceptions and misrepresentations are being floated around, even if done unintentionally and out of desperation. In my heart and in my soul I will always first and foremost be a Ghanaian woman – and proud. This is why when I hear or see Africans joining in the chorus (for whatever reason) of the disrespectful and denigrating song of Africa’s primitiveness it is not only heartbreaking, it makes me pissed off as hell. Such as when I recently stumbled upon court documents filed in a United States Appeals Court by a Ghanaian fighting possible removal from the United States. It reminded me of the lengths to which some will go in an effort to stay – even if it means painting the home of his birth black. The premises for his plea to stay put with his family – including his wife and two US born children – were argued on the grounds that his family would face exceptional and extremely unusual hardship should they be forced to return home. Hardships such as decreased quality in his children’s education, the risk of being exposed to a wide range of Ghana’s varying choices of diseases (AIDS was mentioned), and the threat of female genital mutilation on his young daughter. I can just see them now. The clit-slashing cult. They are lined up at the Kotoka International Airport wielding their unsterilized clit slicing blades waiting for the poor young lady to walk off the plane. After all, she is way overdue for this ritual. She steps off and they rush in to arrest her, shove her into the getaway car and drive her off … wait, did I say getaway car and drive? Sorry, I meant to say elephant’s back and walk miles … to an undisclosed location where she is held down by strong crooked-teethed old women and you know the rest – as told over and over again by those who claim to have suffered such cruelty in the name of tradition. As a Ghanaian woman, this nonsense really gets to me because the plight suffered by some is never to be minimized by such cheap audacities. I went to Ghana in 2007, and before that 2003, and before that I lived there for over 10 years and yet I never once felt my clitoris was in danger of being separated from its rightful place. In fact, female circumcision is an illegal practice in Ghana, and has been since 1994, plus you have to go deep into the villages to suffer this atrocity. Judging from the fact that the gentleman in question plans to live in the city, chances of his daughter running off and marrying some con artist are higher than having her female bodily mutilated. Matter of fact, the first time I heard of female genital mutilation was when one “Adelaide Abankwah” so vehemently lied through her teeth about the practice. Her story was one that touched the hearts of many, including liberal feminists like myself. I was appalled at what this “poor” woman was facing, even though I questioned the possibility that parts of her story were made up. Ms. Abankwah (whose real name we later found out was Regina Norman Danson) entered the United States illegally in 1997 and shortly thereafter sought asylum on a story she so cleverly cooked up. Her story went something like this, for those who never heard: Regina claimed that she had inherited the position of a female chief of her village tribe after her mother died. This position demanded that she remain a virgin until she got married. She had, however, fallen in love with a Christian and engaged in premarital sex. She feared that if she returned to Ghana, the tribe would find out she was no longer a virgin and her female genitalia would be sliced off. The case became so high-profiled; even then first lady Hilary Clinton became involved, along with various celebrities and women’s groups. We all went up in arms against the United States Immigration Service and the poor backward thinking people of Ghana. Imagine our outrage when we found out this story was a made up attempt by a woman who took the real threat some women do face and twisted it for her own selfish gain. It was just another case of “please let me stay in America! I will do anything – even disown my identity and disparage the home of my birth if you let me stay!” In 2003, a Nigerian woman reportedly also fighting deportation was said to be trying to have the practice accepted as a violation of the anti-torture convention signed by the United States. The woman, who at the time lived in Dallas with her three year-old, American-born, daughter, claimed they both faced female circumcision if they returned home to Nigeria. I never followed up on what became of her story. Nevertheless, this is the year 2009, and some unscrupulous people are still desperately fighting in court with stories of being beheaded, facing a firing squad or worse yet, undergoing some cruel genital mutilation ritual should they be forced to return home. I am in no way disputing the fact that some African women have (and still are) been subjected to this primitive female subjugating practice that is justified on the premise that women are not supposed to enjoy sex. In fact, people who use this real threat to real victims for their own personal and selfish gain are, in my view, exploiting the victims and making light of a very serious issue. Think of the fact that this woman (and countless others such as the man above) ruined the credibility of all honest asylum seekers. Sure, we all know life back home is not all great and dandy, but it is far better than what we make it out to be. Fine, you want to stay in America at all cost! America is the land of opportunity and riches and all things great yada yada! But, seriously, must we drag the good name of our countries through the mud in order to stay? And then we wonder why Jay-Z sang about African women being “dead broke and naked and now we want half.” We wonder where people get the idea that all African women have been circumcised. We wonder where they get the notion that all African men are barbaric wife bashers. We wonder where they get the stories of mud huts lining the streets of our cities. We wonder where they’re getting all this when we’re the very ones feeding them with such ludicrous ideas. This case is now pending review by the United States Supreme Court. Chances of it becoming one of many precedents for cases to come are hard to tell, but it is always going to be referred to in the future. It is a stigma that will haunt our dear continent for years! Find some other excuse and leave this one alone. It has become clichéd! How ironic that that almost rhymes with something else! |
