Richard Dawkins gets into a comments war with feminists about every day sexual harassment western women face, and he writes that problems of western women are much less than the problems Muslim women face.
He presents several points and mentions that Muslim women get their genitals mutilated with a razor blade, according to him from Islamic teaching.
I grew up in Pakistan in a society of Muslims and have religious background. I had never listened about this female genitals mutilation tradition until I read the biography of Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Wikipedia. After some more research, on internet, I found on two English blog posts that in a backward community in Sindh in Pakistan. Although this is common practice in a few very backward countries in Africa, and even there in Africa the attribution of the female genital mutilation to only Islam is not clear. Their local customs have much more influence than Islam has on their daily lives.
When a scholar like Richard Dawkins attributes this to Islam and implicitly implies that this is a common practice in Muslim societies, probably around the world, then this shows that even a respected and knowledgeable scholar like him can be deceived by incorrect perceptions about other cultures. This can also be attributed to the propaganda or lazy journalism of Western media when they report about other countries.
The sad thing about British media is that they had colonized most of Muslim countries for more than a century and they have much more experience. In that time, they probably learned nothing about the local customs and traditions. British were probably too much busy in looting and killings.
When a knowledgeable scientist and activist like Richard Dawkins doesn't properly verify his arguments in debates, he is more likely presenting a bad face of science and logic to the third world countries, who will see it as an another weapon of western civilization.
He presents several points and mentions that Muslim women get their genitals mutilated with a razor blade, according to him from Islamic teaching.
I grew up in Pakistan in a society of Muslims and have religious background. I had never listened about this female genitals mutilation tradition until I read the biography of Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Wikipedia. After some more research, on internet, I found on two English blog posts that in a backward community in Sindh in Pakistan. Although this is common practice in a few very backward countries in Africa, and even there in Africa the attribution of the female genital mutilation to only Islam is not clear. Their local customs have much more influence than Islam has on their daily lives.
When a scholar like Richard Dawkins attributes this to Islam and implicitly implies that this is a common practice in Muslim societies, probably around the world, then this shows that even a respected and knowledgeable scholar like him can be deceived by incorrect perceptions about other cultures. This can also be attributed to the propaganda or lazy journalism of Western media when they report about other countries.
The sad thing about British media is that they had colonized most of Muslim countries for more than a century and they have much more experience. In that time, they probably learned nothing about the local customs and traditions. British were probably too much busy in looting and killings.
When a knowledgeable scientist and activist like Richard Dawkins doesn't properly verify his arguments in debates, he is more likely presenting a bad face of science and logic to the third world countries, who will see it as an another weapon of western civilization.
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