Atlantica - 01.02.2002, Blaðsíða 19

A T L A N T I C A 17
Her mother named her Waris, which
means ‘desert flower’ in Somali. My first
impression of her is more of a desert lion.
Stunningly beautiful, with the chiselled
features of a queen from an ancient era,
Dirie’s eyes burn fiercely. She is giving a
speech at the University of Iceland for
Unifem on the subject of female circumci-
sion. Her autobiography, Desert Flower,
has been published in over 200 languages
in the last three years and Dirie’s life cer-
tainly makes for an incredible story.
Born into a family of nomads, she led a
happy and free childhood looking after
goats and her younger siblings.
“Life was very simple, very beautiful,
surrounded by nature. We just thought
about each day at a time, about survival. It
was really magical. We would tell time by
the length of the shadows. I wouldn’t give
up that childhood for anything in the
world.”
At the age of five, however, she endured
the worst ordeal of her life. One morning
her mother woke her up so that a travel-
ling ‘cutter’ woman could circumcise her
with a rusty razor blade. The small child
passed out with the unbelievable pain and
spent the next few weeks clutching on to
life as her body tried to heal. At the age of
12, she was summoned by her father who
proudly announced that he had promised
her to a 60-year-old man for five camels. “I
just knew that that was not supposed to
be my life,“ says Dirie. “I had a feeling
other things were destined for me.” With
the aid of her mother she managed to
escape, and after a nine-day trek through
the desert, she made it to the capital,
Mogadishu. There she met up with one of
her maternal aunts who was married to
the Somalian ambassador in London, and
in a twist of fate Dirie became their maid.
After four years spent cleaning on no
wages, she decided to stay in London
when the ambassador left, and got work
at McDonalds. Soon after, she was spotted
by a model scout and shot to stardom.
NO LOOKING BACK
“I have been so lucky to have had the best
of both worlds, the west and my own soci-
ety,“ explains Dirie when I meet her at the
University of Iceland after her speech.
“I hope to be able to give my four-year-
old son some of that Somalian upbringing
even though he is growing up in the US. I
don’t particularly want to raise him as an
American, but just as a member of a
civilised society that thinks about humans
first. So much of the world today has no
caring, no love; it’s all about what’s mine
and what’s yours.“ Dirie is certainly doing
her part in making the world a better
place. In 1997, she gave up a successful
modelling career when she was appoint-
ed as the UN ambassador in the fight
against female circumcision. Since then
she has dedicated her life to flying around
the world to speak about her cause, which
involves a brutal practice ingrained in the
culture of Muslim Africa.
“When I was a small child I was talking
to some of my girlfriends about a boy I
had a crush on. A girl cried out, ‘Don’t
even think about it, you haven’t been cir-
cumcised. You will be so disgusting in his
eyes.’ I ran up to my mammy and I said
that I wanted to be circumcised straight
away. Of course, I had no idea what it real-
ly meant.”
Dirie’s strength shows in her face and in
her manner of speaking, and I imagine
how hard it must be to tell such painful
experiences to perfect strangers.
“True, I don’t know them personally
and I have to talk about difficult things
again and again. Yes, it’s hard, but it’s
something I have to do, something I
chose to do. If I don’t, I wake up in the
middle of the night with a burning in my
heart.“ Doesn’t she feel any resentment
because of what happened to her?
“To whom should I feel resentful? My
poor mammy who went through the
same thing as I? There is no one to blame.
All I need to know is that this terrible thing
is happening and it needs to stop. We
don’t need to know who, or why, or how.
This is the present and we have to look
forward. We don’t really need to know
about the history of this because whatev-
er it is, it’s just rubbish and nonsense and
without meaning.” I wonder how her
mother feels about what she’s doing.
“My mother feels like her questions
have been answered. I know she had
doubts throughout all of her life, from the
day it happened to her. But all she did was
keep her mouth shut and follow the rules.
I think I’m living her dream now. I think
she’s very proud. She is an incredible
woman. Imagine a woman with only a
pinhole opening left in her vagina, giving
birth to a baby in the bush. I truly cannot
imagine how my mother went through all
these births. She would disappear when
she was about to give birth and some-
times not come back for a week. But sure
enough, a baby would be heard crying
and she’d be back.” And has Dirie’s father
accepted her running away?
“Oh yeah. Last time I went to Somalia
my father asked me, ‘Hey baby girl, you
married now?’ And I said, ‘Don’t even
think about it!’”
EDUCATION IS THE KEY
Dirie explains that the most important
thing to do to combat female mutilation is
to educate people. “There’s nothing
about circumcision in the Koran, but peo-
ple don’t know that. They need to know
what harm this causes to a woman’s
body.” Well it seems that her voice is
being heard. Since her book was pub-
lished, eight countries have changed their
laws for the better.
airmail
Fighting Spirit ≈
“It was really
magical. We would
tell time
by the length of the
shadows. I wouldn’t
give up that childhood
for anything in
the world.”
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