It’s not our backbone, cut it off!
Marafiki, I thought I should blog on my facebook response to a Solace, a community trainer of trainers based in Luoland.
I wanted to pass my regards to her and share my ideas on how to go about the problem of FGM in our community. I like the idea that the community should own the strategies to eliminating the vise as much as they own other development projects in their areas, if that is the case.
The Maa community is conservative and so we must be very careful but with zero tolerance to any inhuman treatment of children, including cultural or traditional practices which were formerly regarded as a necessary rite.
Solace and I are in agreement that before we can apply these proven strategies to generally wipe out FGM, we should firstly move to save the girl from the razor. They are cutting them this December and so you are already called to duty. Spy on your family and stop the cutting of your sister. You know how this is difficult, to fight against your roots….
If there is any refuge home, it is advisable to take away the threatened girl and thereafter, communicate with the concerned entities. Initiate a dialogue and tell the family that it is all for the good of their family, and start talking about Michelle Obama, Malia and Sacha, tell them about Ole Kaparo and Ole Ntimama are not cutting their daughters and they have not gone mad…. I suppose all those uncut girls are al self reliant, well educated, and are economically
As Solace and I believes, the process can be risky but we are left with no option. I said before, it is not just the cut that is the problem, it is all that comes after the cut that is harmful, not just to the girl, but to the entire Nation of Kenya. Maasai society must have well educated and independent women to work for Kenya or the Maa society won’t be complete.
On the facebook chat box, I had written that “The elders will not be reading this unless someone who is anti-people tells them. I take the risks and let me be culturally punished for that.
Someone must take the heat.” I am sure there are many elderly members of our society who are against FGM too and because they have seen how devastating it is for our women.
They admit that it was a mistake and we want to take it back. If you are that kind of elder, we ask you to help us in convincing those who are for FGM to drop it and let our sisters have access to their bodies. The good thing is that, we the men, the ones who are supposed to marry these women, are totally against FGM. We want our women the way God created them! Don’t you? I doJ.
In an argument with myself, I try to answer the questions, why do we cut our girls. Solace also asked this question and she knew that we must first understand the reason behind the cut, if we will be able to safely abolish it once and for all. They cut my grandmother so that she would stay away from foreign men while my grandfather was roaming around with his lifeline, the cow! He would move with rains until the circle is complete. The circle repeated itself annually, and so did FGM. You won’t have any other ingenious and powerful tool to control women’s sexuality. But we are not moving any more. Maa is a changing people!
Today, we have neither land, nor the lust to move around. We have neither cows nor the youth to take care of them because our children are crying for formal education and you cannot combine them both. Or can you? Can you hold the spear and the pen both sustainably and dynamically compete with this aggressive global community to survive?
In the times of my grandparents, they sent the brightest to take care of the cows and those who were perceived to be poorly gifted, or from the not favored house, to be assimilated by the “White culture” and his white education which was believed to be harmful to our survival.
That is why we migrated away from the influence of the “evil culture” which was out to dissolve our dignity, integrity and sense of common belonging.
Fighting FGM is like fighting your own back, like wishing to cut off your thumb figure, those who can live without their thumbs can go ahead and cut it off… Others think that we cannot cut off our backbone; we would not stand to be ourselves no more. Problem is, FGM was never authentically any backbone for our people’s survival!
It was a tricky, indeed smart control strategy, a powerful means to cub the power of the woman! My grandfather and those of his age group must have been scared of the women especially when they knew the mythology of Wangu Wa Makeri! 
My mother was cut because that is what they have always done!
My sisters, all of them apart from the last one, whom I protect, were cut, so that I can get school fees because boys have more value than girls. They were cut because only then, the Ngais family is seen as a respectful and well ordered authentic Maa family.
Question today is, Are Maasai men scared of their women? Why do they thing that their women’s power is in their private part?
Since we are not migrating anymore and we are with our women all the time unlike our grandparents, do Maa men think that this retrogressive cultural practice is still necessary? Why?
And why not? Since FGM becomes precedence to women oppression, we have no alternative, than to ensure that all Maa Males and Females stand up and defend their family members from this barbarism.
If you can save your little sister, then you can also be strong enough to defend the location, division and region, honestly, you will indeed be a patriotic citizen of Kenya with the entire mandate to defend our MOTHER COUNTRY!
Saidimu Ole Ngais.
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