So I'm not a moral relativist, turns out

Coming to Sierra Leone, I was acutely aware of the fact I was entering a society vastly different from the only one I'd ever known. I was determined not to invoke paternalistic rhetoric or seek to evaluate Sierra Leone through a Western lens.

Given my youth, I was even a little troubled at the prospect of teaching journalism to people who would probably be my seniors, maybe even 20-year veterans of Salone's journalism industry.

In many ways, I've found this healthy skepticism beneficial. My staunch insistence that I needed to learn the nuances of media in Sierra Leone before I started running seminars has allowed me to get a good grasp on the issues journalists face here and tailor my efforts accordingly.

And while the majority of my colleagues ended up being just as young as me and even less experienced, there's definitely no one at Kalleone casting resentful sidelong glances in my direction or saddling me with accusations of the cocky 'father knows best' attitude of the West. If anything, my colleagues wish I would more readily accept a larger role in the Kalleone hierarchy.

For the most part, I have been successful in not superimposing cultural constructs of my native land upon this sub-Saharan setting. But it's becoming increasingly clear that a moral relativist I am not.

The dominant view that fidelity to a single partner is laughable (more on this in a future post) is one example of a difference in societal mindsets that I can accept as at least relatively harmless. There are others that I have a more conflicted relationship with, such as the nation-wide trend of Black Man Time.

When someone shows up an hour and a half late for every engagement they're supposed to attend, it's really hard for me not to label that behaviour inconsiderate, regardless of whether an entire country's population does it or not. Calling it 'cultural' merely serves to justify a problem that has profoundly negative impacts on the efficiency with which the country can move forward and build itself up.

But today, any lingering doubts about where I stood on the issue of moral relativism were blown apart with all the force of the Hiroshima blasts.

Tomorrow is the International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation. In a previous post, I mentioned that "many in Freetown mirror the moral objections of the West" on the matter of FGM/C. Today, I learned just how far off base that claim was.

When one of the reporters, Bakarr, brought in a press release about an event coinciding with the day's international observance and suggested we cover it, I agreed that it was a worthwhile story. When asked my views on FGM/C, I tactfully stated my disagreement with the practice. The response was stupefying.

Muktar, Kalleone's web and IT expert, likened it to male circumcision of Jews and noted his distaste for the term "mutilation", decrying it as a sensationalist label. "I'm sure if it was a tradition from the Western world, there wouldn't be this much of a campaign against it," he said. "But unfortunately it's a tradition from the third world."

I tried to reason that the comparison was a tough one to make, given that the health implications of FGM/C are vastly more problematic than male circumcision. We're talking about the removal of a woman's clitoris, with at least a partial removal of the labia minora, often done under less-than-hygienic circumstances.

The procedure is traditionally carried out by an older woman with no medical training. Anesthetics and antiseptic treatment are not generally used and the practice is usually carried out using basic tools such as knives, scissors, scalpels, pieces of glass and razor blades. Often iodine or a mixture of herbs is placed on the wound to tighten the vagina and stop the bleeding.

The laundry list of negative health implications range from chronic urinary tract infections to severe hemorrhaging causing death, to say nothing of the psychological implications. FGM/C is also a contributing factor to the country's astronomical infant mortality rate, as "resistant scar tissue can prevent dilation of the birth channel and cause an obstructed labo[u]r."

As I tried to state my case on what I deemed strong health-related grounds, Sheik jumped in with a common defence, in his typically impassioned style: "It is our tradition. It is our past. You can't run from your past."

Fuck that, I thought. Run. Sprint. Channel the goddamn spirit of Usain Bolt, if you have to. Maybe even knock over some chairs and tables as you go, obstructing the path behind you to ensure that shit never catches up with you again. This was what I wanted to say.

Instead, I took a (slightly) toned-down approach: "It was once the tradition of white people to enslave blacks, but that doesn't make it right, man."

No dice. Muktar redoubled his efforts to sway me, as I tried to regain my mental balance from this unexpected tag-team effort.

Muktar's defence of FGM/C was particularly disorienting. This was one of the most enlightened people I knew in Sierra Leone, an intelligent university graduate who just minutes earlier had been giving a couple of the interns a very accurate historical analysis of the views held by recent American presidents towards abortion, as he explained precisely what Obama had done by opening funding to organizations that don't condemn abortion.

"It's not just the circumcision, you know?" explained Muktar, betraying a tendency to assume I've done absolutely no research about Sierra Leone's customs and history. "It's part of a larger initiation process that teaches women the skills that will serve them in life: cooking, cleaning, how to treat their husband -"

"- and how many times to give him [sex] each day," added Sheik helpfully.

Oh, thank God. As long as the practice serves a higher purpose like ensuring female subservience and further entrenching stereotypical gender roles. I could almost feel feminists the world over breathing a collective sigh of relief.

Searching the room for anyone who might be friendly towards my concerns about the practice, I asked Fatima her thoughts. She looked directly at me and stated defiantly, "I am in favour. I am one of them."

So there I sat in a room of 8 colleagues - 4 male, 4 female, and all staunchly pro-FGM/C. With a prevalence rate in Sierra Leone of 80-90%, chances are all four women had undergone the rite of passage. This didn't seem like a battle I was going to win.

Earlier in the day, we'd been discussing a high-profile murder case, in which a student named Mohammed Juana was beaten to death in December as part of an initiation ceremony for one of the social clubs tied to Fourah Bay College. Ulaba, the intern covering the case, seemed to share my difficulty to understand why anyone would knowingly seek entrance into these societies. Someone in the room derisively likened them to cults.

Yet no one had a problem with FGM/C? Really?

Turns out I subscribe to the belief that the right not to have one's genitals shredded with a piece of glass ought to be universal, regardless of where one's born. If that somehow makes me unsympathetic to Africans, I think I'd rather come to terms with that criticism than with a complicity that says such actions are okay.