Surviving and Ending FGM with Nimko Ali | Transcript
Find the episode shownotes here!
Nimko Ali
So this is level of ownership, policing how I dress or what I say, or what I do. Like I wanted to write it as honestly as possible. But then I also wanting to write as safely as possible. And I think the idea of thinking, seriously though, thinking I could be killed is a bit scary.
Hannah Witton
Welcome to Doing It with me, Hannah Witton, where we talk all things, sex, relationships, dating, and our bodies.
Hannah Witton
Hi, welcome back. So this week, I had the absolute pleasure of chatting with Nimko Ali, whose book comes out this week. It's called, What We’re Told Not to Talk About (But We’re Going to Anyway:, Women's Voices from East London to Ethiopia. Now Nimco is an FGM survivor and activist working to end FGM, so parts of the conversation that you're about to hear are quite heavy, but I learned so much from her, especially about how so many of these issues that we're trying to combat in the world are all connected. So FGM, poverty, education, capitalism, and climate change, all of them are connected. Nimco and other activists actually have a tangible plan to end FGM by 2030, so listen up. Also, we talk about her experience standing for election in 2017, and labiaplasty, and male circumcision. We cover so much. Her book is out tomorrow, Thursday the 27th of June, and I would highly recommend picking it up. And I hope you enjoy this episode and learn as much as I did.
Hannah Witton
Hi, Nimko.
Nimko Ali
Hi.
Hannah Witton
Thanks for chatting with me and congrats on your book.
Nimko Ali
Thank you very much.
Hannah Witton
Um, how was how was the process writing it? And how did it come about?
Nimko Ali
Emily, my editor, approached me and said she wanted me to write a book, as I am FGM survivor, and she was thinking something very specifically about FGM, and very specifically be about my life. And I said, you know what, I really want to write a book about women. I want to do the vagina dialogue to the monologue.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, I read that in your intro. You talk about like, we've had The Vagina Monologues and how it's time for the Vagina Dialogues, and I loved that. I was like, yes.
Nimko Ali
Honestly, I'm not sure whether people are like me, but at parties because of what I do, I just end up talking to people about the issues, like the anatomy, and we end up, because I think a lot of people maybe sometimes come up and want to ask questions about something specifically and then it turns into actually let me tell you what, I'll tell you my story, then you tell me yours. So I've always done that, for a while, and I just wanted to kind of get women to really connect and have for us to have that dialogue. So yeah, that's how it came about.
Hannah Witton
And you've got so many different voices in this book. What was, like how did you find these women, and get them to like share so much?
Nimko Ali
Overshare, yeah, exactly. I think some of them I knew, and some of them I met through on the way, and and some of them I specifically wanted to tell their stories. So, of example, homeless women, refugee women, I wanted to tell those specific stories because I think the thing about homelessness, like a lot of people talk about poverty and everything else, and it could happen to anybody. At any point in time you could probably have - you could get homeless, and what's that like. Refugees, I was a child refugee, but I didn't start my period. But what would that be like if I started my period. So I think all those things are things that I always wondered. I'm a very curious person like, you know, what if, what if this, and yes, so those women I specifically went to go look for them, and it's quite hard to really approach somebody and ask them like, when you don't know them, to share something personal with you.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, did you like go through charities, and groups, and stuff?
Nimko Ali
Um, no, just kind of just like, I do Crisis for Christmas every year anyways, so there's people that I know, and it's just one of those things where I'm able to go up to, and talk to people, and have conversations so yeah, it's been it's been really really easy.
Hannah Witton
Really like on the ground, finding these stories.
Nimko Ali
And just having conversations, and they just come out of places where you wouldn't expect. The one about having cancer and going into early menopause, it came from a garden party. We were just sitting, and I just and I just told her that I was writing this book and that was about a year and a half ago, two years ago almost -
Hannah Witton
Oh wow.
Nimko Ali
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
And so for the women that are in the book, did you just kind of ask them to write their story, or did you interview them?
Nimko Ali
I interviewed them, and we recorded it, so it was just the whole point was so it was - it was a dialogue. I didn't want them to just like, you know, write it like, I do think it would have been easier had I asked them to write it because the whole thing is, once you're - once you interviewed them, it's also about keeping that kind of conversation going because I want them to feel like they're having a chat with you, as opposed to them writing it down and then that could become really self and then -
Hannah Witton
And then did you then write up their story?
Nimko Ali
Yes. Yeah.
Hannah Witton
Okay. Oh, I didn't realise that, because it's they do feel like really, I guess casual, despite like some of the really heavy topics -
Nimko Ali
Yeah, and I think that's what I wanted to set, because that's why I recorded them, so we can have those conversations and actually make it sound like it's a dialogue and a chat we're having, as opposed to really having to think about something. Because I think, because I've done chapters for books or I've done parts of the book, and you do when you're writing even as chatty as you want to be, you do become too, like, consumed by the writing process. So I wanted to kind of help them be removed from that situation.
Hannah Witton
So a year and a half ago. So like, how long has this, how long have you been planning this book?
Nimko Ali
So yeah, so I haven't been, so I got - I think I met Emily towards the end of 2016.
Hannah Witton
Okay, yeah.
Nimko Ali
So because she said earlier it's been three years - like it hasn't been three years? And it has. And then, yeah, and then then within that is like, you know, I got really busy, in terms of like starting a new campaign around ending FGM.
Hannah Witton
With Pink Protest.
Nimko Ali
With Pink Protest. And also with this other one that we're starting called The Five Foundation, which is a global campaign. And then I also stood for election in 2017. So there was like, a lot of things I was doing, which like, I really wanted to write this book, but then at the same time, it was also it became I think a lot of it was, I took on a lot of these women's, like, when we were having these conversations, there was also a lot of kind of crying, you know, laughing, the things that we did. So it was it was emotionally consuming.
Hannah Witton
So there are like four sections to the book. You've got periods, and then -
Nimko Ali
Orgasms.
Hannah Witton
You had orgasms, and then pregnancy, and then menopause. Which did you find like the most interesting, and then what did you find, like, the most difficult?
Nimko Ali
I think, obviously, periods is a lot easier, because it seems like everybody's talking about them now, and there is a concept that like everybody does bleed, I think it's like, it doesn't matter when it comes, it does come from most women. And I do make, and I think the whole thing is like, you know, it's a book about women, with women in mind, and I want us to keep adding to it. It's not a finished body of work. So ultimately it doesn't, there's not every single person that's represented in it, but I found the one that I found the most interesting was the orgasms because I wanted to have that conversation. It's something that I get asked all the time as an FGM survivor, can I still have an orgasm?
Hannah Witton
Like sexual pleasure in the wake of trauma.
Nimko Ali
Yeah, what does that mean, and so on. And then ultimately, I just I always used to say to people, okay, because I remember, maybe it's because I fought to get regain my sexual life, to make sure that I had a lot of like intimacy and pleasure in my life, as I know when my first orgasm was. So I just say to people, like when was your first orgasm? And that's a question that really took people back. They're like, oh my God, have I ever had one? Have I insisted on having one? You know, is there any in my future? So I think that was I think, for me, that was the most interesting chapter.
Hannah Witton
Has been an FGM survivor impacted the way you experience sexual pleasure?
Nimko Ali
So the whole point was like, I've never like, you know, the idea of having sex without FGM is never going to be something that I've, that I could ever talk to, because I was seven when I had FGM. So it's one of those things when somebody's saying to the other day, like, you know, what's life, or what's your periods like, if you didn't have FGM? And I said, I don't know.
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Nimko Ali
I was 14, when I started my periods, and I was seven when I had FGM. And my FGM meant that my anatomy was stitched up. So I didn't have that barrier when I was - when I started my period/ had I had that when I started my period, I think it could have really had a lot of impact and effect on it. But yeah, so the I think that it's really interesting, the way I will talk around sex and sexuality in the sense that, as a Muslim, Somali, and FGM survivor woman, the way you talk about your own experience is always policed by other people. And I was having a conversation, there are parts of the book which I edited out, because my best friend read it. And it's like, it's great, but it's a bit deadly. And I think there's -
Hannah Witton
Parts of other women's stories?
Nimko Ali
No, parts of my own stories. There's a level, there's a level of privilege that I wish I had, that I don't have
Hannah Witton
What did your friend mean by deadly?
Nimko Ali
Just I was just quite, I was I was very honest about certain things. And he's like, see I can't even say what those things were -
Hannah Witton
But then because of who you are, you maybe you don't have the same privilege to be able to share those things.
Nimko Ali
So I do, which is quite sad to say that I want to see my niece grow up, I want to be able to be in my family's life. I don't think, I think my family would probably get over it, but I think everybody else wouldn't. And that's the problem. And other people will, because I like when you are a Somali woman, or a Muslim woman, or a woman of a certain specific community, then there's like some, like a lot of people in the West sometimes will put you into a homogenous group. And then what happens is that group will also sometimes thinks they own you as a woman. So there's this level of ownership over my body, which comes to things like FGM, comes to think about policing how I dress, or what I say, or what I do. And the idea that I could like overshare and say these things means that other women might be able to do the same, so therefore I have to be dealt with. And I think the idea of thinking, no seriously, thinking I could be killed, is a bit scary but then so the I just thought in the end, I just like I wanted to, I wanted to write it as honestly as possible, but then I was wanting to write it as safely as possible.
Hannah Witton
That's so interesting because I feel like that is not even something that I even, like it didn't even occur to me and like I'm a white, Western woman, and I think there's like similar conversations about like in terms of like if you're LGBT and coming out, is like people are like, oh, just come out, like that's the best thing possible. But actually, for some people, that's not safe to.
Nimko Ali
Yeah, exactly.
Hannah Witton
I kind of like see a parallel with those kind of, with what you're saying as well. So for people who need a bit of clarification for like some terminology you were just using.
Nimko Ali
Yes.
Hannah Witton
Deinfibulation. So you, so you had type three -
Nimko Ali
Yes, yeah.
Hannah Witton
FGM. Which is infibulation.
Nimko Ali
Which is infibulation. So like, you've got to deinfibulate. So basically, I had my anatomy all stitched up together. So I had that when I was seven. And what they do, like FGM has four specific categories. There's type one, which is a clitoridectomy, or the unholing of the clitoris. And then what happens with that is, so like 80% of the clitoris is internal. So they're remove the clitoris, but it can also like you know, cause trauma, the fact that like, you know, you're basically cutting the stub of a of a part of the anatomy. Type two is when you remove the clitoris and some of the external labia, and type three can include all the other two types, also with like, you know, the stitching of like, you know, stitching up the external labias together.
Hannah Witton
And they you had the stitches undone when you were eleven.
Nimko Ali
Eleven, because I was unable to empty my bladder fully, so I ended up getting a urinary infection, which almost killed me.
Hannah Witton
Oh my God. Yeah, cuz things that that you mentioned in your book as well is like if you do have type three, and you're all stitched up, things like you said, urine, and then also like menstrual blood.
Nimko Ali
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
It's just like it can cause infections because it's got the tiniest hole to come out of.
Nimko Ali
Exactly, exactly. It's meant to, all this stuff is meant to flow. But obviously everybody's more obsessed with virginity than they are with health.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, so is the idea that if you have then type three, if you, when you get married, you get - you have deinfibulation?
Nimko Ali
Yeah, well, sometimes you have deinfibulation from a medic, not well, a traditional medical person. Or otherwise, you get, the husband has to prove his manhood and actually, like, tear you open.
Hannah Witton
What?
Nimko Ali
I know. It's quite - it's quite graphic. And I think -
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Nimko Ali
So I was just saying somebody today is like, one of the reasons why people go on about chastity. I'm like, who's having sex with six year olds, because the global average age of FGM is five.
Hannah Witton
Really?
Nimko Ali
Yeah, I had when I was seven. So I was thinking, who am I having sex with, for you to stitch up my anatomy so I don't have sex? So there's a lot of questions that we don't ask specific populations that practice FGM because the fact that they're Brown, or there something, like a different kind of community.
Hannah Witton
In your book, you mentioned it was 2011 when you started talking about your experiences with FGM.
Nimko Ali
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
What what was the catalyst behind that? Like, what made you start talking?
Nimko Ali
Guilt. It was because I had a conversation in 2006 with some young girls in Bristol. And then and then I moved to London, I think 2009/10. I was volunteering, and I just felt so bad. I thought, you know what, my silence is so complicit to the misunderstanding of FGM. And for me, it was like, if I don't talk about it, then who will. And again, I might not have the privilege to say everything I want to say in this book, but I had the privilege to know that if I talked about FGM, I wouldn't get - well I did get a lot of pushback, but I thought I would be okay. I think I thought like, you know, I'm old enough to deal with my family not talking to me. I'm old enough for people try to - if they try to harm me. But I didn't think it was going to be as as painful as it was. And also as vicious as it was.
Hannah Witton
The response?
Nimko Ali
The response from, yeah.
Hannah Witton
From your community, or from everyone else?
Nimko Ali
Yeah, from the Somali community, from people on the left, specifically, saying I was alienating, like in a specific already marginalised communities. Well, why was I putting the media attention onto them, and you're just thinking, I'm from those communities, and I want to, I want to help them, I want young girls from those communities not to be not to be subjected to FGM. So I think it was just it was just like, I was just getting it from everywhere, from every side.
Hannah Witton
And did you have a platform, at the time to like, in what way did you go about it?
Nimko Ali
It was, it was basically was like the beginning of social media. So it was when Twitter started, and it's just like, it was on Twitter, which we've all seen from Trump, is the most direct form of communication with world leaders, or their way of directly communicating with us. Because even if you don't want to see what Trump said, someone's gonna tweet into your timeline.
Hannah Witton
I know, I muted him.
Nimko Ali
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
And I still get everything.
Nimko Ali
Yeah, so it's just, even if you like, you know, as long as you're on Twitter, you're gonna, you're gonna, and it was one of those things where I knew, having worked in the civil service, that I knew that it doesn't matter how important a person is, whatever they do, they're always very egotistical enough to search themselves. And so ultimately, I just thought, you know, started to tweet ministers, and started to have conversation. So I think the platform that I had was Twitter, and the privilege I had was to be able to be educated, and somewhat over my FGM at that time.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, yeah, cuz I guess you'd have to like process in order to be able to have constructive conversations.
Nimko Ali
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
And so tell me a bit more about like the work that you're doing now with the anti FGM campaigns and like, you just got back from Senegal.
Nimko Ali
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
This morning.
Nimko Ali
Yes, this morning, eight o'clock. And they thought I was an illegal immigrant because I couldn't speak English, I was just literally like lalala -
Hannah Witton
You're like, I'm just tired.
Nimko Ali
I was literally just tired. So yeah, so so I was going to Senegal to go to one of my incredible colleagues, and another activist called Jaha Dukureh, who was just like, amazing, not even 30 and accomplishing some incredible things for the first survivor, African-led summit, where she's got religious leaders, political power, and politicians, finances and all in the room with other like frontline activists, and that's. So I've just set up this organisation, with my colleague Brendan Wynne, called The Five Foundation.
Hannah Witton
What's that?
Nimko Ali
So basically, it's a global kind of partnership in order to help end FGM by by 2030.
Hannah Witton
And is that like, doable? Because that is 11 years away, and that's kind of exciting.
Nimko Ali
It's a tangible reality. So for the first time -
Hannah Witton
Is it a SMART goal?
Nimko Ali
It's a SMART goal, and it's and it's also one of the things is like we're trying to end FGM. So one of the things is that we know how many girls are at risk between now and 2030. It's 70 million girls. But those, but those 70 million girls all haven't been born. So the thing is, if you actually provide provisions for women on the front line, and you actually support the 200 million women who've undergone FGM, give the adolescent ones education. Because that 200 million number are girls between the age of 14 and 49. So it's -
Hannah Witton
Childbearing age.
Nimko Ali
Exactly. That's the only time we ever matter to the world.
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Nimko Ali
So the whole thing is like, if we give those girls access to education, and contraception, those girls don't have to be born, and then they can be born in another decade where things could be even better for them. So it's thinking about in a smart way of saying that we've spent so long funding NGOs, and trying to desanitise communities about ending FGM, really make the political case, and make the economic case as well. Because the whole point is, I was at an event in New York last year, and this is where this kind of like investment in the human capital came around. They were talking about poverty in 2050, and there's a massive picture on the wall. And I said, everywhere of sub Saharan Africa, specifically, everywhere where poverty is going up, there's places where FGM is more than 40%, child marriage is happening. So the whole point is like poverty is not something that just happens. It's something that we actually work towards, it's choices we make, actually create poverty. So if you cut girls, you basically break your citizens. So you're breaking 50% of your population, and you're going to deem them to be, you know, psychologically traumatised, physically traumatised, and then unhealthy, unable to work, and then you take them out of education, so then they're poorer for that -
Hannah Witton
Yeah, because we know that, like, poverty goes down when women and girls' education goes up.
Nimko Ali
Honestly, this, like girls' education can can take out more CO2 emissions than anything else. I've seen it the other day, if you want icebergs to stop melting -
Hannah Witton
Educate girls.
Nimko Ali
Educate girls, and give them access to contraception.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, that's so interesting. I wasn't expecting you to say that, like one of the solutions to reach like to end FGM by 2030 was about actually delaying when some women have children. Yeah, because we can't, it's difficult to change traditions, and to change cultures, like in the space of, like, a few years, Like that stuff, like we know, takes, like generations, maybe not even just one, like multiple generations. And so that's a really, a really smart approach to be like, actually, okay, what we need is time.
Nimko Ali
We need time, we need to empower women, we need to support survivors. So the whole point, like ending FGM, ending FGM, ending FGM, rather than working with the women who've already been cut. So if you give actually women access to employment as well, or you give them access to micro financing, so entrepreneurship is the fundamental basis of growing countries and prosperity. I think one of the things that people say, how have you been successful by ending FGM? I say, I worked in politics, and I have an intellectual conversation about ending FGM. I just don't say it's bad, I can sit there with an African leader, and give him the economic case for ending FGM.
Hannah Witton
Rather than like adhering to an emotional reasoning.
Nimko Ali
Because the whole point is like, if he doesn't know that FGM is wrong, and it's horrible, then I just don't know what the hell's wrong with him. But there's a reason why he doesn't care. And that's the same thing with -
Hannah Witton
But if you go, hey, you can make more money -
Nimko Ali
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
If you end FGM. Wow, like you I mean, it's shocking that you have to adhere to that to get a response.
Nimko Ali
But that's that's how the West started to educate their children and stop sending them down the mines and up the chimneys, is because they learnt that actually if you educated kids, then there'd be less kids born, they'd be safer. So I think so like, you know, stop cutting the girls, access to education, and sanitation. So it's like chapter two which is - chapter one, sorry, which is all about periods, I think we forget like you know how much hygiene means to the world, and how things like like you know you've got cholera, ebola, all these things are breaking out when we have natural disasters, and those impact women because women's like, you know, bodily function is a completely different to men's -
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Nimko Ali
So men take a shit, women take a shit as well, but we also piss from a hole we give birth through, and we also get pregnant through that. So there's like, I think the vagina is this like you know incredible place which can protect itself, if it was given the right surroundings -
Hannah Witton
Yeah, and everything is so close. Like your urethral opening is so close to your vagina, which is so close to your anus, and like, which is why we're more likely to get UTI, because all that bacteria and yeah.
Nimko Ali
Yeah. And that's and that's whyat I mean, Ithink the importance of sanitation is like, you know, on a global development level. So people just look at me now, like what are you talking about? And then they get it. So I sit there, and I have conversations with like, you know, hedge fund managers and all these things. And I'm thinking if you guys want to make more money, I just really realise this is incredible woman called Josephine, who I went to go visit in Kenya. And she's basically saved about 1000 girls from FGM, and that's like 1000 generations. And those girls also are now in education, they're delaying their pregnancy, so in her community, FGM and illiteracy above 80%. So there's a massive correlation. And that kind of says if you don't educate girls in those communities, and you cut them, then the children aren't going to be educated, both boys or girls. But she always says like, you know, money, she's like, don't have any money. So I've always started saying that now, I just I'm in a big meeting, I'm like, it's all about the monies? And then, I should say it's all about the money, but yeah, this it's it is it is all about financing, and structuring that financing a different way.
Hannah Witton
And there are ways to help support women who are entrepreneurs as well like, like you said, microfinancing and -
Nimko Ali
Yeah, women pay back, like 98% of women pay back their loans, unlike men.
Hannah Witton
Oh, what's the men's percentage?
Nimko Ali
I think it's it's very low, but that also what they do is they so women will stay local, and will invest in the local community, and will build that community. So they'll pay for teachers, they'll pay for locally grown food, they'll pay for medicine. And so they'll put the kids through education. The men will go to the city and replicate a similar like, you know, business that is already happening. So like, you know, get more shit from China, and start selling it, and then the plastic pollution and all those kind of things happen. And 60% of entrepreneurs on the continent of Africa are women.
Hannah Witton
Oh, wow.
Nimko Ali
Yeah. Love a bit of statistics. So 60% and - and entrepreneurship is the key to any prosperity in any country, it's not massive organisations. And also all these massive organisations started off as, as entrepreneurship, as sole traders. So from Marks and Spencers to, I don't know, Tesco, I guess.
Hannah Witton
The issue of FGM seems so big.
Nimko Ali
Yep.
Hannah Witton
And so daunting, and also so outside of my experience, and it's sometimes it feels like this is not my place. Yeah, what is it that white women in the West can do?
Nimko Ali
Yeah, so I think the most brilliant thing that we can do, like in the UK specifically, is that we're one of the most generous countries in the world, we give 0.7% of our GDP to international developments.
Hannah Witton
And is that generous?
Nimko Ali
Yeah, that is generous. I think like, well, we have that in legislation. Other countries give a little bit more, but we've literally written that down as like, we're going to give plus 13 billion every year.
Hannah Witton
Oh, damn. Where does that go?
Nimko Ali
Exactly, this is the problem. This is a problem, where does that go? Most of that money ends up in NGOs or UN agencies. Because the fact is, because it's government money, and because we're scared of the Daily Mail, and all these things, everybody wants everything -
Hannah Witton
Has to be very official.
Nimko Ali
Everybody, everywhere, everybody wants every penny accounted for. And my thing is, I'm really excited about this, like incredible people within. Everyone always says to me, like you know, why'd you hang out with so many conservatives, ands it's because they don't understand certain things, and they want to learn about it. So we have a conversation about those things. So for example, if you believe in something, so if we've been doing it for 30 - so we've been fighting, I'm doing quotations, we've been fighting FGM for 30 years, we're doing the same thing again and again for 30 years, and that hasn't worked. Like in a population, it's covered up, more women are being cut, like you know, we're medicalizing so people are saying talk about how -not the wrongness of FGM, we need to put FGM as a human right issue, not a harm issue and a health issue.
Hannah Witton
Is that because people are using more like proper medical equipment, whereas before it was a bit more like -
Nimko Ali
Yeah, so basically, so what we did is that African women who went to the UN, rather than UN passing through, it's like an official General Assembly. They gave it to it's like, you know, side organisation, WHO, which is the World Health Organisation, and they will help organisations with a medical like no tangent to it, the fact that it was effecting women getting pregnant, so they were like, oh, let's make it safer.
Hannah Witton
Oh, I see. So not stop it, just make it safer.
Nimko Ali
Yeah. So then for a long time, people like well if you've got issues with it being like killing girls and let's put it in hospitals, and let's not do the most invasive one, we'll do. Rather than it's actually, like, no, this is a harm.
Hannah Witton
Then it like, because then it like normalises and institutionalises it.
Nimko Ali
Yeah, and then and then it's harder to unpick. So for me, it's like it's things like that, it's like really pointing out to people, these things are not working. So the whole thing about the 0.7% is that we need to give some of that money to women on the front line, you might give them 10,000 pounds, and you might only be able to, she might only give you receipts for 7000 of that. But ultimately, the impacts it has is a lot different, and is a lot more tangible, and it's a lot more effective and sustainable than if you gave 10 million to one of the large NGOs or INGOs, and with that they'll say we told 10,000 women FGM was bad like, yeah, but how many of those women did not cut their girls? Like, well we don't know. So I'm thinking I want - I want investment in girls and to be fair, ending FGM doesn't cost any money, the money is in education. And also what we do in education, so we build schools, so where are the teachers? So there's like ridiculous thing that these NGOs do, and we're always patting ourselves on our back. If you ever if you ever go to these places these -
Hannah Witton
They're like, we're building a school, building a hospital. Okay who is working there?
Nimko Ali
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
Wow, I hadn't even thought of that, yeah.
Nimko Ali
Because that's also the problem in the UK in terms of the way that we look at expenditure. So with the women's equality party, we're saying that you build a hospital, that's seen as investment -
Hannah Witton
Yeah
Nimko Ali
And then the nursing and and everything is seen as expenditure,. So then it's a minus. But if you actually look at it as a benefit as well, then so because economics, you just make up numbers. We don't actually see money, we just know it's out there. So I'm waiting for the day when people say, what service can you provide? Or what can you do? Money is only - money's in your head.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. It's so interesting, because it's just gotten me now thinking just about the shit show that is the NHS right now, and just how it's the complete opposite of what you kind of assume Tory politics today, which is like, you know, like free market, you've got to spend money to make money and it's like, okay, well with the NHS, why are we not - like surely we need to spend money on the NHS?
Nimko Ali
No, but the weird thing about it, the weird thing about NHS is that everybody thinks is such a sacrilegious calor, nobody wants to touch it. Everybody's like, it's that - it's that British institution that nobody wants to mess with. And you're just thinking actually, then the NHS should be free, but should be run like a business. Because we are paying into the NHS, it's not actually free.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, cuz we pay and like, it's free at the point of use.
Nimko Ali
And almost like, if you're not able to pay for it, still like an active citizen, it doesn't matter whether I pay 40% tax or 10% tax as a citizen, I'm equal, and therefore I'm paying for the state to continue, you know, to contribute to that. So there are a lot of things that are wrong with NHS in the sense that we're just too scared to touch it. Because we're thinking, if we actually make it more efficient, and people are going to come in and want to buy it, you can actually protect it by saying that people are not going to buy. But you could actually start investing and working with people like technological companies, tech companies, and saying that tech companies can come in and actually start to diagnose things, start to do things. And but everyone's like, oh privacy privacy, like, you've got your name on a piece of paper with all your diagnosis at the end of your bed. Privacy on NHS is actually basic.
Hannah Witton
I was reading Homo Deus recently, and he talks a lot about how basically computers and algorithms will replace doctors. Because that, like computer will have like a database of you every single disease possible, all of your symptoms, your entire medical history, and we'll be able to more accurately diagnose you and pick a course of action than a human doctor. And I'm like, I can't wait.
Nimko Ali
But this is what I mean.
Hannah Witton
But people are scared of that.
Nimko Ali
No, but you can do that right now. Like so there's like this, there's an incredible organisation called DeepMind, which is run by this half Syrian, young man. And it's like, it's like, it's incredibly -
Hannah Witton
Why have I heard of that. I recognise that.
Nimko Ali
Yeah, it's like they started off with them playing chess, a computer beating a human or whatever. So it started off with that stuff. And as I don't understand AI, I was actually I was at an AI conference the other day and I said, I don't understand AI but I think AI could end FGM -
Hannah Witton
You just need to trust AI.
Nimko Ali
Yeah, no, and also I just I just, you just need to we need to teach the millions of girls who have undergone FGM coding.
Hannah Witton
Yes.
Nimko Ali
And give them a future, and then so that's what I mean by ending FGM can play a role in the future.
Hannah Witton
It's like that, the storyline in Octavia Spencer's character in Hidden Figures, where she realises that these machines that they've brought into NASA are actually going to be able to do their jobs for them. So she makes her and all of her girls learn how to operate and use the machines, to secure their jobs.
Nimko Ali
Yep.
Hannah Witton
So you mentioned like, previously in 2017, you stood for election. In the general election?
Nimko Ali
In the general election, for the Women's Equality Party.
Hannah Witton
Oh nice, what constituency?
Nimko Ali
Hornsey and Wood Green. And I think I met the 500 people, I think it was like around 500 people, they're either young women or incredible Jewish people who just lost faith in the Labour Party like I did. So it was really really interesting, because the whole point was like I wasn't gonna win, like Katherine West had like a 20,000 majority.
Hannah Witton
Yeah, she's the Labour MP there.
Nimko Ali
They were so horrible. Like, how dare you, you've already got a woman. I'm like, yeah, but, so I said, the Women's Equality Party was about 50/50, we were nonpartisan. So we were saying that a woman like, you know, we want more more women in Parliament. And like, yeah, but we've already got a woman standing. I was like, I know, but you guys don't care about the things that we care about. And if I win there's gonna be a woman, actually if the Lib Dems win, it's going to be a woman. And if the Tories won, it would have been a woman. So actually, all the main political parties had a woman standing. And all I wanted them to say was like, I think it was like for them, I finally understood what he meant about the audacity of hope, what Obama meant by that. Because the whole point is when you're privileged, you think you can do these things. When you have to be so drastic thing to even hope for the idea of being an MP and being all these things. It's interesting enough that I'm very political, but I don't think I'll ever stand for election again.
Hannah Witton
I was gonna ask, what was the experience?
Nimko Ali
It was so horrible, I got death threats, racist, like Labour trolled me online so hard, it was painful. And it's just it scarred me. Do you know what it was like I hadn't had that level of venom since I started that, like an anti FGM activism. And it was kind of, there was a lot of triggers and stuff that kind of happened with that -
Hannah Witton
Politics is vicious.
Nimko Ali
She was gonna win. The whole point was she was gonna win I just thought like - then she blocked me on Twitter, I was like, fine, okay. It was just all of it was it but I still -
Hannah Witton
It's almost like you're not really standing against her because like, she's gonna win.
Nimko Ali
Yeah. And it was, and also they had the Socialist Workers Party, which are part of the Labour Party, standing. Like you have, you have the Socialist Workers Party, who are part of the Labour Party, who don't think your left wing enough, standing against you. You've got the Green Party. I'm like why is like -
Hannah Witton
Do you know if like the other candidates of the other party's got the same kind of treatment?
Nimko Ali
No, no, no, it was just me because I was just - because the whole point because I was a young, Black, Muslim woman, I should be votingLlabour. Why am I standing against them, was the main thing. I was like, okay. And then, and then she kept on saying like, you voted for Zac Goldsmith in the mayoral elections. And I was like, yeah, because I wanted Tessa Jowell to. This is the thing like had Tessa Jowell being selected as the as the Labour candidate, sorry Zac, but I would have voted for her. But no, they ended up selecting Sadiq Khan.
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Nimko Ali
And I didn't want to vote for him. So I voted for Zac, and I voted for Sophie Walker, for the Women's Equality Party. And the whole point was like, it was like it was a matter of public record. So I don't know why she kept on bringing it up. It wasn't like I was voting for Boris when he was mayor, so like, whatever. And if I wanted to stand for the Tory party, it would've been easier to stand for the Tory party, but I did it because I'm not a Tory. No, I don't believe in, you know, 100% of their policies. That's why I'm standing for five policies, and Women's Equality Party that I care about; equal education, ending violence against women and girls, healthcare for women, universal childcare like that would add, honestly, like universal childcare, like the NHS would just add so much to our economy.
Hannah Witton
I feel like I just want to pick your brain about every issue and be like, what does Nimco think? What does she think? One of the things that actually did come up, that I do want to ask, because it came up in like the introduction of your book, you mentioned, labiaplasty.
Nimko Ali
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
Which is plastic surgery. Like -
Nimko Ali
It's FGM.
Hannah Witton
I was gonna say, do you consider it a form of FGM?
Nimko Ali
Yeah, and so basically FGM defined legally, it's like, non medical procedure on the female anatomy.
Hannah Witton
Right.
Nimko Ali
So like, non medically necessary in the sense that it's not for cancer, so basically, if you're doing it for non medical reasons. So, so just so the idea of doing it, because, you know, I feel psychologically tortured, because society has put all these pictures of barbies out there. And then the idea and the concept of choice, like choice isn't happening in a vacuum. And the idea that you can go, and then one of my friends said to me, what about breast implants? Well you can take them out, you take breast implants out. So it's about literally mutating a main organ, for no reason other than - and there's no and there's no informed consent, because there's been no medical research done on it.
Hannah Witton
Yeah. And, and also, like you said, like, how informed is it when a choice can't happen in a vacuum. And actually, it's like, okay, like, why do you feel so insecure about your vulva? And I'm sure you get this question a lot, and I don't I don't want this to be the main bit of the conversation. I just want to like yeah, let's address it, but male circumcision.
Nimko Ali
Yeah.
Hannah Witton
Like is that genital mutilation, and how can we like, the fact that it's, is it just as widespread, it's a lot more like normal and socially acceptable?
Nimko Ali
I think there's more men that have got, have been circumcised and there are because I think all Muslim men -
Hannah Witton
Muslim, Jewish, and then Americans.
Nimko Ali
I just say to people, okay, let me give you example, I'm going to I'm going to do something to my child because 2500 years ago, or 3000 years ago, this man called Abraham, who was in his late 90s, was gonna, wanted to cut the throat of his firstborn child because he was hearing voices to tell him to cut the throat of his firstborn child.
Hannah Witton
I did not know this part of the Bible.
Nimko Ali
No, no, this is the Torah.
Hannah Witton
Oh, yeah, the Old Testament.
Nimko Ali
So basically, there's Abraham, so the Abrahamic religions, and John the Baptist changed for Christian, that's why they stopped circumcising. It was like, so this Abraham, basically was going to kill his firstborn son. And then and then he believes that the voice in his head, or God that he was talking to, changed his son for a lamb, and to say thank you to God, he got a piece of rock and cut off his foreskin. That is where circumcision comes from.
Hannah Witton
Wow.
Nimko Ali
So if you took the word religion out of it.
Hannah Witton
It's someone chopping off a lambs foreskin.
Nimko Ali
No, no, it's somebody who was going to sacrifice his firstborn. But then the person who was sacrificing his firstborn to said, you are so committed that I've now actually given you a lamb, rather than your son, so your son will live, and then I was so thankful I'm going to cut off my foreskin to show you how thankful I am.
Hannah Witton
Oh, so Abraham cut off his own foreskin.
Nimko Ali
So I'm just thinking so the whole conversation was Abraham pulled down his pants and cut off his foreskin to thank God. We're doing that 4000 years on.
Hannah Witton
That has persisted, apparently.
Nimko Ali
I don't believe in any like forced surgery on children. I'm not, I can't speak for the Jewish faith, but in Islam it is not compulsory to circumcise your children. And we are actually, interestingly enough, there's a massive conversation around around that it in my kind of cohort of friends who are Jewish, or who are from North London, who are not going to circumcise their sons.
Hannah Witton
My family is Jewish. And if I was a boy, I would have been circumsiced, or my parents were having arguments about it, because my dad isn't Jewish.
Nimko Ali
Okay.
Hannah Witton
And so I think they were very pleased when I came out with a vulva because they're like, great, we don't have to make that decision.
Nimko Ali
But that's the kind of stuff, it's really it's really there's a -there's a psychology behind this well, because you think you're letting go something that's 4000 years old is a tradition that bounds fathers and sons together. So it is similar in that weird sense of the fact that you, but the thing is, I would say that men get the keys of the kingdom when they're cut, and women it's the first sign of oppression.
Hannah Witton
Sure.
Nimko Ali
So it's I think, like, they're both brutal, they're both wrong, especially when it happens to children who -
Hannah Witton
Who have no idea what's going on.
Nimko Ali
The babies are like eight days old.
Hannah Witton
Yeah.
Nimko Ali
It's eight days old. And they're having like, you know, they're cutting the most precious organ off, what are you doing that for? You're doing like the most ridiculous thing to this baby. So I think, I think human beings need a lot of therapy.
Hannah Witton
As a species.
Nimko Ali
Yeah, as a species, we need a lot.
Hannah Witton
And part of that therapy can be buying and reading your book.
Nimko Ali
Yes.
Hannah Witton
When is it's out?
Nimko Ali
It's our on the 27th of June, which is my half birthday, because my birthday is the 27th of December.
Hannah Witton
So happy half birthday, and happy book birthday.
Nimko Ali
Thank you very much.
Hannah Witton
It's called, What We’re Told Not to Talk About (But We’re Going to Anyway): Women's Voices from East London to Ethiopia. And I'm reading it now, and it is phenomenal. And so yes, listeners, I would highly recommend.
Nimko Ali
Oh thank you very much.
Hannah Witton
And thank you so much for chatting with me.
Nimko Ali
Thank you.
Hannah Witton
This has been enlightening. Thank you so much for listening to Doing It. If you enjoyed it, I would really appreciate it if you left a rating and a review. You can find show notes at DoingItPodcast.co.uk, and do go follow us on social media, and I'll catch you in the next episode. Bye. This was a Global original podcast.