We already have sufficient Nigerians in Ireland, thank you

[financeguy]

..there is nothing to debate. Female genital mutilation is evil and disgusting. Which is not going to protect us from bawled statements of the Patently Bloody Obvious from our moral high grounders, who can be relied on to dominate almost any discussion about anything in Ireland -- usually, courtesy of RTE, and therefore the licence-payer.

The matter is a practical one. Regardless of the assurances from the Nigerian ambassador that female circumcision is rare in Nigeria, all the evidence points in the opposite direction. There are approximately 140 million people there: which means around 70 million women. I suppose we can give them all asylum, on the grounds that they have been circumcised, and are therefore victims of a cruel and oppressive system, or because they haven't been, and therefore are likely to be if they remain in that happy country.

If we concede that the threat of FGM is a compelling reason for us to grant asylum to any African female, then stand by and watch Ireland being rapidly transformed as tens -- or even hundreds -- of thousands of Africans come here.

Of course, this simple certainty will probably not inform any media discussion on any individual case, which will inevitably focus on the evil fate awaiting any girl who is returned to whatever barbaric FGM-performing society she hails from. So it cannot be left to the media, or even the courts, to decide on these issues: we cannot trust either.

But otherwise, it's up to those heroic Solomons of Dail Eireann to act. We must have a clear and unequivocal immigration/asylum law which simply declares that the threat and/or fear of FGM are henceforth not acceptable reasons for foreigners to unlawfully enter this country, in the expectation of being granted asylum later.

Whether Dail Eireann is capable of such intellectual clarity is, however, another matter. After all, it has never managed to have a single debate on immigration in 15 years of inward-population flow. But if it hasn't the stomach for such a law today, it will sooner or later find it -- for "avoiding" FGM will rapidly become the routine pretext for illegal immigration into Ireland (and, of course, mysteriously by-passing half-a-dozen other countries on the way).

I am probably not alone in thinking that our present population of Nigerians is probably quite large enough, thank you. We have, after all, no imperial legacy or guilt to expiate towards them. We cannot allow a wholly understandable fear of female circumcision in their otherwise delightful country to become the preferred method of securing an under-the-counter admittance into Ireland.

'Our population of Nigerians is probably large enough, thank you' - Kevin Myers, Columnists - Independent.ie

Interesting.

Some good points, hidden among the obvious provocativeness and general offensiveness.

(PS: I didn't even post the really obnoxious bits. But for those who really, really wish to be offended, plenty of fun to be had in reading the entire article).

 

[yolland]

Well, FGM was established by (US) court precedent as Priority One grounds for asylum here back in 1996, and that hasn't resulted in an asylum stampede, which seems to be what he's fretting about (granted we're a lot further away from anyplace where FGM is common). As a theoretical matter, I can understand why granting asylum on the logic that a pervasive, traditional cultural practice actually constitutes persecution might seem problematic; on the other hand, the practice in question is in most of its forms quite drastically injurious.

 

[A stor]

Female Genital Mutilation is a dangerous practice. Young girls and women can die from this. It is illegal in the United States.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Yes but Ireland already has enough Nigerians, thank you.

This guy in his article seems to have his talking points all mixed up. FGM is usually a stick to beat the Left for not supporting a war abroad, and/or not loudly condemning stuff. In this case, I'm not sure what he's after.