Any religious radicalism is hateful. I watched the News last night and felt sad to see the young Nigerian girls at a school in the North. They were wearing silly gingham veils wrapped round their heads and shoulders, in that heat. I've seen such lovely African brightly-coloured clothes on girls elsewhere, but the fundamentalists insist these lassies must cover every inch of themselves. Sad and twisted ideas.
Then, far worse, an item about female genital mutilation in Egypt. Muslims there almost all insist on this evil procedure for girls between 11 and 13. They euphemistically call it 'circumcision' but that barely begins to describe what is done. The item concerned deaths from infection and kidney failure. A chap spoke to camera saying that all women are lustful and must be 'circumcised' to stop them 'running after men'. A women declared her daughters would be 'done' when the time came. Where is this justified in any religious text? It makes me feel quite sick.