By Jeff Parkinson
I have in the past 5+ years of writing this blog seen & heard some truly bizarre things, read some truly disturbing stories, & although I wouldn’t have said I’d seen it all, I’ve never seen or heard of anything this strange.
Swedish Minister of Culture, Lena Adelsohn Liljeroth is in hot water today after photos surfaced of her cutting into a cake at a taxpayer funded party on April 15th for world art day. The cake – a caricature of a black woman screams in pain when you slice its lady parts.. which she did.
Female Genital Mutilation is a barbaric ritual designed to maim girls & young women by surgically removing part or all of the external female genitalia. It is usually performed, without anaesthesia, using a knife, razor, or scissors. According to the World Health Organization, it is practiced in 28 countries in western, eastern, and north-eastern Africa, in parts of the Middle East, and within some immigrant communities in Europe, North America, and Australasia affecting an estimated 100-140 Million girls and women worldwide.
The extremely disturbing details of the “procedure” can be found easily through any internet search engine, but they’re not going to be found here.
The “procedure” carries no health benefits of any kind and represents an intense form of discrimination against women. According to the WHO it’s performed for “cultural, religious and social factors within families and communities.”
Why the Minister of Culture would choose to partake in such a racist, sexist act is something of a mystery as my efforts to find answers lead to mostly foreign language newspapers, but in a report by The Local, the minister is quoted as saying “I understand quite well that this is provocative and that it was a rather bizarre situation,”
“I was invited to speak at World Art Day about art’s freedom and the right to provoke. And then they wanted me to cut the cake.” She claims the situation was “misinterpreted” and states “Art needs to be provocative.”
Knowing a thing or 2 about being provocative, I must say I’m truly baffled by her logic. See the video below & judge for yourself.
If the video won’t play (there appears to be a glitch some of the time) here’s the link to it on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Td0vrGcqrU
JeffParkinson.ca 