Friends, I take this opportunity to welcome you to make this move fast and strong. Maasai men against female genital mutilation is a cause which has been streaming out of many of us, the Maasai men, who are fed up with extreme and harmful practices in our culture. We have accepted the challenge! We will take the action to stop violence against our sisters. We are ready to stop all discriminatory and retrogressive cultures that is hurting the girl-child in our society. Help us to achieve our goal.
Maasai Men Against FGM
This home page welcomes everybody. Anybody can become a member as long as you support us in our struggle. However, Maasai men are demanded to act now because it is about the Maasai nation which is exposed to extinction.
You cannot wait unless you are against us. We are assured that nothing is going to stop us.
Maasai men are very strong actors and inheritors of their society’s collective identity, culture and other moral values.
We have been brought up as a people and trained to withhold higher levels of dignity and togetherness. However, there are so many cultural traditions which a very harmful, not only to members of our society whom we are entitled to protect, but to our very own collective existence.
We live in a modern world which is changing every day. Other ethnic groups are changing with the trends in order to adapt and survive.
Most of them have lost something they dearly treasure, but they are doing quit well as we can witness. Fairly well, despite having lost part of their identity and dignity from their previous cultural identity but from which they have gained significantly from their new adapted identities. These groups have now grown to becoming more conscious to their survival than all of us.
The paradox is that we as a Maa people claim to be sensitive towards our dignity but we exploit the very fundamental rights of our own women as if we care less if we will have any woman who will give birth to our children and secure our people a possible future.
A society which care less against its women is like a nation which cares less against its nation state.
Our woman is our Nation and she is our future. Without her, the Maasai can simply pull off the plug and let it go the struggle for equal recognition. For us as men to be respected, we must first respect the women we have at home.
If we cannot protect the rights of the women we have at home, how can we stand up and claim to protect an entire nation like Kenya?
If we are not men enough to care for our wives and daughters, our sisters and mothers, how then can we dream of caring for other ethnic groups or regions? Our pride is in our women!
I wonder how we let ignorance and violence, to violate and mutilate the most private and sensitive part of our women (Nation) in the name of culture and tradition and we drink Aloe Vera white wine for it as we ask the warriors to slaughter the most blessed bullock for the society to feast and dine. We are not men enough until our sisters are free from the razor!
Join us and make us agents of change!
Please contribute towards this forum with your words and action.
To become a contributor, send join us through the facebook group and drop your advice there. send a mail to the administrator and tell if you want to become an administrator or editor. We need every help you can offer us.
Most welcome.
Saidimu Ole Ngais.
Fellow warrior Ole Kimirri,
I am glad you responded to my previous article on FGM diminishing our manhood.(ttp://diasporakenyan.se/2009/10/13/maasai-men-against-fgm-2/) I agree with you the whole way until the belief and relationship part. Everything else you have said is entirely correct in my perception as well. But, as you and I are aware, our Maasai society, (Men) warriors are the security providers, the defenders of the society. This unit is used to tell the “Other” that everything is safe here. Warrior’s availability in the Maasai society reflects the wellbeing of the community but that is not possible without their women girls, mothers, as well as wives. That is in the old society. Today, things have changed and so we also ought to. Women can and should provide for themselves. We cannot live within the old system no more. Women must be independent, yeah, so that they can seek jobs and provide for themselves or for their families without living on the man. What FGM does to us as warriors is that, it ridicule us in the face of the world that we stand by and watch as the RAZOR cuts of the most sensitive parts of our sister and take away their degrees, jobs, and many other RIGHTS and we call it culture.
The obstacle is, FGM, being mandated by sense of identity guarded by someone, takes away those fundamental rights from young girls the soonest they are CUT. From here, she is married hurriedly and forgotten. If she dropped out of school from class three like my sisters, they’ll most likely forget all about it since they are not always given a second chance. Culture through the RAZOR creeps in as the “Other” and slash off the horn of our Motherland as we neglect our call to defend our nation at all cost.
So, what have we done to our future, we have taken the root and chewed it thinking that the tree tops shall give fruits anyway. As warriors given the fact that we are the ministry of defense for Maasai, we would never allow an outsider to eat up the root of our tree! Our job as men in the (Maasai society) is to defend the community against violence, fraud and any theft.
Warriornism in this case is measured by the degree in which you are cable in protecting the rights of your women and child. Considering that a Nation is people, and people comes out of women but today’s world demands not just a population but a well informed population therefore, well informed mothers gives birth to a Nation full of potential! I belief that is why they normally say, Enkaji nakaibara suuj layiok! Even though we are modern now, we are still being called to defend our Nation. The question is, if the female CUT is the greatest insider?