Why it's barbaric

The only reason I can think of that Liberal MP Justin Trudeau initially thought the word "barbaric" too harsh to describe such practices as female circumcision -- meaning sexual mutilation -- is he doesn't fully understand what it is.

If so, I'd refer him to Ayaan Hirsi Ali's powerful autobiography, Infidel.

In it, she describes the procedure as it was performed on her as a child in Somalia, and in other African countries, where she grew up surviving dictators, civil wars, severe beatings and misogynist interpretations of Islam.

Be forewarned: What follows isn't for the squeamish.

But it is for the benefit of people like Trudeau, who, in fairness, eventually apologized in the face of public outrage, after he made the bizarre complaint the feds should substitute "absolutely unacceptable" for "barbaric" in a citizenship guide for immigrants.

Speaking as the Liberals' immigration critic, Trudeau initially argued "barbaric" was too "jarring" and "pejorative" for use in government literature and would offend immigrants, presumably from parts of the world where such practices still occur.

Here's Hirsi Ali's description from Infidel:

"In Somalia, like many countries across Africa and the Middle East, little girls are made 'pure' by having their genitals cut out. There is no other way to describe this procedure, which typically occurs around the age of five. After the child's clitoris and labia are carved out, scraped off, or, in more compassionate areas, merely cut or pricked, the whole area is often sewn up, so that a thick band of tissue forms a chastity belt made from the girl's own scarred flesh. A small hole is carefully situated to permit a thin flow of pee. Only great force can tear the scar tissue wider, for sex."

Here's how she describes what happened to her, while held down by her grandmother and two other women.

"Then the scissors went down between my legs and the man cut off my inner labia and clitoris. I heard it, like a butcher snipping the fat off a piece of meat. A piercing pain shot up between my legs, indescribable, and I howled. Then came the sewing: The long, blunt needle clumsily pushed into my bleeding outer labia, my loud and anguished protests, Grandma's words of comfort and encouragement ... When the sewing was finished, the man cut the thread off with his teeth ...

"I must have fallen asleep, for it wasn't until much later that day that I realized my legs had been tied together, to prevent me from moving to facilitate the formation of a scar. It was dark and my bladder was bursting, but it hurt too much to pee. The sharp pain was still there, and my legs were covered in blood. I was sweating and shivering. It wasn't until the next day that my Grandma could persuade me to pee even a little. By then, everything hurt. When I just lay still the pain throbbed miserably, but when I urinated the flash of pain was as sharp as when I had been cut."

Hirsi Ali writes it took her two weeks to recover and she was lucky, given that: "Many girls die during or after their excision, from infection. Other complications cause enormous, more or less lifelong pain."

Perhaps Trudeau now appreciates why, in Canada, we call such practices "barbaric."

lorrie.goldstein@sunmedia.ca