Ghana, Leather Salesman, 1987
Ghana, Leather Salesman, 1987

Ghana, Berekum, Leather Salesman, 1987 - This man's facial scars were illustrative of a common practice among West Africans. I was told that parents would take a razor and scar their offspring at infancy. How interesting, I thought. If a parent did this in my home town in the western world, they would be imprisoned for a heinous crime. Yet for West African's it was a perfectly normal thing to do. Extrapolating on the phenomena of the inability of one culture to accept another's conventions, I am concerned of the ability of any world government to allow diversity of belief and cultural practices. Human beings have a tendency to believe there customs are the most acceptable. I later found out that these scars were performed with a special knife. Importantly, I am now told that such facial scarring is against the law in places like Ghana and Nigeria. I fear that such laws mark further politicizaion of local customs, engendering homogenization of the human race. I am opposed to such laws, laws that criminalize ancient customs that are not inherently harmful to a person's survival. For those in the Western world that do not agree with me, simply observe that male circumcision is widely an accepted practice in the West, but is no less inherently dangerous or disfuring than facial scarring.

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