MUTILATION, BINDING, SCARIFICATION
AND CAPITALIST CONDITIONING

Let's begin this discussion with the example of Female Genital Mutilation.

The practice has been carried out for untold generations. Until recently it was carried out unabated and with impunity. The very same women who had had the excruciating and crippling procedure performed on them as babies and children performed it on others. It was the norm. It was considered the "right" thing to do to "protect" girls and women from their own sexuality and from disgracing their families.

The same might be said about the practice of "ironing" young girls' emerging breasts in order to make the girls' breasts ugly so that they will not be raped that has come to the attention of the world recently.

And who has not been overcome with dread and horror when learning about the practice of binding women's feet in China – a torture that girls begged to have done to them and women enthusiastically carried out upon their daughters so that they would be "dainty" and "erotic"?

When we from the outside observe these phenomena; we are horrified.

We have been, of late, successful in sharing this horror with the victims of these practices and the victims are beginning to protest internationally. The criminalization of the practice of FGM is being called for in many countries in which the practice was considered perfectly acceptable, nay desirable, just a short while ago.

Hopefully now that the practice of "ironing" breasts has been made known to the world in the mass media, measures will be taken to protect girls from this practice as well.

The matter of scarification is a difficult one. In many cultures the practice exists among men and is intimately tied to their self-image and image in society as strong of character, of great physical endurance and capable providers. It is often considered aesthetically beautiful and men believe that it makes them more attractive to women. The women are, of course, taught to believe that a scarified man is attractive. Sometimes women are scarified too and that likewise is considered attractive. It will be quite some time before these peoples will realize that they are doing nothing but inflicting forms of wholly unnecessary mutilation on themselves, often over a period of years.

The very hardest self-harm and self-mutilation to uproot will be that which exists in Western society and which is brought about by, and serves, Capitalism.

When we look at the body of someone who has been mutilated or scarified or the body of a woman whose feet were bound or breasts were "ironed" we can see that something radical and terrible has been perpetrated upon their bodies.

That which has been done to the populace living under the system of Capitalism is invisible to the eye. It is internal. It is psychic and moral and emotional and thus far more difficult to identify and pinpoint.

Few, very, very few living in Capitalist societies are aware of the fact that they have been mentally, emotionally and psychically mutilated and truncated. They do not know that we have been robbed of our potential. They cannot begin to image and visualize what a Human being, freed of the propaganda and fetters placed upon him or her, can develop into.

They think it is normal that they cannot love, laugh or cry with their whole heart.

They think it is normal that they fear to give themselves entirely to a loved one.

They take it as a given that we cannot trust but a very few people.

They think it is normal to live in insecurity and fear behind locked and bolted doors.

They think it is normal not to know our neighbors, or to care to know them.

They think it is normal to see others as competitors, and not as those with whom we cooperate.

They think it is normal to compel children to attend schools where they are subjected to cruel limitation of physical movement, conditioning and the breaking of the spirit that will turn them into docile and unquestioning workers, and managers for that matter, who accept the present state of conditions as existing a priori and/or the alternative to other social and economic systems, all of which are considered far worse.

They think it is normal to encourage a beloved child to sell himself or herself on the "free market".

They think it is normal to come home from work emotionally exhausted with no sense of job satisfaction or feeling of having accomplished something important whatsoever and feeling the need to "unwind" with a few drinks (or other "substances"), sit in front of the TV and doze off only to begin the same routine the next day.

Is brutally robbing us of our full ability to love and give ourselves, of our potential, of our visions and dreams and playfulness when we were children, of our very humanity less barbaric than the most horrible procedures that are carried out on the body in other cultures?

When we begin to realize the extent to which we have been distorted and twisted, tormented into submission, bound, fettered, psychologically lobotomized, drugged, poisoned, conditioned, lied to and broken; when we begin to realize that our ability to imagine other and better alternatives, other and better worlds that we can create here on earth, other and better possibilities has been stripped from us; when we can look in the mirror of our Souls and see the cripples that we are we will take pity on ourselves and on all those around us and have a chance to break free.

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat, Israel
DoreenDotan@gmail.com