Girls in Islamic Culture

Girls in Islamic Culture Should one culture intervene with another? In Russ Shafer-Landau’s The Fundamentals of Ethics, he talks about cultural relativism.He defines cultural relativism as “moral standards relative to a culture, or societies” (291).Different standards are determined by the society, who will have the final say in what is right and wrong in their culture (291).A good example of cultural relativism is a look at the Islamic world. In the different areas of the world, specifically the Islamic world, women are often forced to get circumcised, usually when they are teenagers.These girls are mutilated normally against their will.In 2005, the United States declared “that women from countries that allow circumcision are eligible for asylum in the United States” (Epstein).Cases are not only found in the Middle East or North Africa, they are found in Muslim communities all over the world to North America, Australia, and Europe.Muslims immigrants in the Unite
d States have circumcised girls.It is “estimated that about 168,000 girls and women have undergone the procedure or are still at risk” (Epstein).The immigrants do not adapt to the new culture that live in and still live by the culture from their homeland, within small communities who live by the same culture.Another issue in Muslim communities is “honor killings” (Epstein).Small, minority Muslim communities in Germany and Britain will sometimes kill girls for acts such pre-marital sex or rejecting the female circumcision.Britain and Germany investigates these issues but has trouble resolving it because the whole community will cover them up.Do countries have a right to attempt to punish these communities? Shafer-Landau says “an act is morally acceptable just because it is allowed by the guiding ideals of the society in which it is performed” (291). Personally, I think that these actions are morally wrong and should be stopped, but I do not think I have the right to do that.What is moral to me and the community I live in is different than these Muslim communities. I cannot tell
 another society how to live because they have those different ideals.Germany and Britain should not have the right to investigate the Muslim Communities according to cultural relativism. Like I said, I do not think that the Muslims are right to do what they are doing, but I also do not think that I can tell them to change how to live and their traditions.But are we allowed to intervene if the killing and female circumcision goes against our own moral standards? Can one society or culture interfere with another if one culture’s moral standards is wrong to another? Link: http://www.vdare.com/articles/female-genital-mutilation-ninth-circuit-opens-the-refugee-floodgates