well since it came up, let’s clarify

No. Let’s not. That would be off-topic, no matter how educational.

The topic is NOT circumcision, FGM, Hinduism, Islam or anything else. The topic is a book about SIKH people. If none of you have anything to say about it, I can close this thread.

Although this horrible custom is not Islamic, it does get especially extreme when native traditions meet Islam. Something about the chastity demands. At least Hinduism does not demand that children of either gender have their genitals carved up.

Uncle Sandeep and his sister (Samar’s mother) were both raised in the US.

Since Samir was 16 during 9/11 making her born in 1985, so uncle and mom must have born in the 50′s or early 60′s. So they must have grown up in time in which there was not a big sikh community in the United States.

Samir single mom didn’t raise her Indian there could be a few reasons for that. - Samir mom may have been in abusive marriage to punjabi man who treated her like crap. It’s been know to happen and her own family wanted her to stay in the marriage to save the family honor. - Samir mom grow up in America, but had very strict parents who did not give her the freedom when she was going up that her white friends/classmates did when she was a teenager, and she didn’t want her daughter to grow up that way.

Wow being a fan of Daniel Pipes and to see my name in the same sentence, more then made my day and also gave me some street cred among more more far right thinking friends. Thanks Manju.

If that’s the extent of your worries, you’re doing pretty darn well. I don’t think anyone is “fetishizing” desi culture. People are into “spiritual stuff” no matter from where. The cultural baggage of Desh they surely don’t want to take on for themselves. Just the spiritual stuff.

We desis need to get over ourselves. I don’t see anyone breaking down doors to marry us or become live-in bahus.

I also wish someone would explain to goras that ‘chai’ actually means ‘tea’ so saying chai tea is ridiculously redundant.

Sigh.

Thankyou. (takes a bow)

You know as well as I do that alot of what passes for “Hinduism” in the Desh is a bunch of cultural backage and dysfunction. I’m not singling Hinduism out. Take any religion and the region it arose from… The New Millenium has ushered in a new type of spirituality. Spirituality without boundaries and without dysfunctions. Well, at least without the OLD dysfunctions, new ones may arise, and so far the new dysfunction might be commercialization, but hey, it gets the word out. One need not be a card carrying member of the “bahu institution” and all that represents in order to appreciate the universal truths of yoga and the Upanishadic view of life or the 4 Noble Truths.

I didn’t realize anyone still tried to trot out the “cutting off an adolescent girl’s clitoris is JUST LIKE cutting the foreskin off an infant boy” absurdity

BOTH are problematic and completely unneccessary.

Full Stop!

Back to original topic which had something to do with glistening Parachute coconut oil….

I think Manju is correct that the hostility to both Pipes and Martha is premised on their alleged tendencies to conflate and over-generalize.

I have read a lot of stuff from Daniel Pipes and a few articles from Naussbaum. The target of Naussbaum’s writings are the right wing Hindus in India. The primary target of Daniel Pipes are the right wing Muslims living in the US. Yes, Naussbaum might conflate, over-state or cast too wide a net on Hindus in India but I think Hindus in India will mostly not from suffer from Naussbaum’s journal pieces. The primary target of Daniel Pipes, the Muslims living in the US dont enjoy the same luxury. To give a small example, almost all Muslims in the US who go to college in the US are members of or have associated with the ubiquitous Muslim Student Associations on campuses. Daniel Pipes and his ilk have now designated MSAs across America as fronts for Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas*. So any Muslim in the US who has attended college in the US who wants to run for or appointed to any public office is now effectively barred from participation (like Obama’s attorney friend from Chicago who was supposed to do Muslim outreach but had to resign). I think Pipes can and has caused a lot of mischief which Naussbaum with her occasional appearances on NPR is not capable of formenting.

• MSA might have its origin in Muslim Brotherhood and out of hundreds of MSAs across USA a few of them might have a few over-zealous religious nuts, but anybody who has attended any MSA event/social will claim that membership/association in the MSA warrants a certificate of radicalism.