Taboos

Ahmeddob.jpg
One of the basic tenets of the contemporary liberal faith is the beauty of “diversity.” Every day the dogmas of multiculturalism are promulgated relentlessly by our schools, newspapers and media, and public authorities. The transformation of the United States by waves of immigration from non-European countries is always depicted as a phenomenon to be celebrated, as are the immigrants’ religions and cultures.
Minneapolis and St. Paul have been deeply affected by the large number of Somali and Hmong immigrants who have made the Twin Cities metropolitan area their home. Their occasionally disturbing cultural practices and the related social costs are rarely discussed.
Despite the liberal dogmas of multiculturalism, for example, one of Minnesota’s leading left-wing legislators was responsible for legislation criminalizing the Somali practice of female genital circumcision in Minnesota in 1994. Her feminism trumped her multiculturalism. Female genital mutilation was not much of a problem in Minnesota before Somalis settled here in the 1980’s and 1990’s.
Saturday’s Minneapolis Star Tribune carried a long report by Pat Pheifer on the incredibly brutal attempted murder of a Somali woman by her husband (Afif Abdiaziz Ahmed, mug shot above). Pheifer’s story assimilates the crime into a category with which we are familiar — “domestic abuse.” Pheifer describes this “domestic abuse” as a “taboo topic in the male-dominated Somali community.” Yet the facts suggest a specific cultural component that is uncomfortably subsumed within the category of “domestic abuse” into which Pheifer fits it. To some extent the Star Tribune appears to be observing its own taboo. Here is Pheifer’s report:

The victim wasn’t in the St. Paul courtroom Friday when Afif Abdiaziz Ahmed was sentenced to 17

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