Thursday, July 26, 2012

You know how outraged your were on behalf of the Jews and Muslims in Germany? You forgot the follow up.

       The New York Times (and many others) took notice last month when a local court in Cologne ruled that circumcision of underage boys was tantamount to grievous bodily harm and should be forbidden.  Adult men would, naturally, be able to choose their own religions and are permitted to do what they wanted with their foreskins.  This ruling regarded a case where a Muslim 4 year old, in accordance with a Muslim tradition, was circumcised.  Although the child was circumcised by a doctor and under proper conditions, mistakes were made, and the child was wounded and suffered excessive bleeding. 
       Of course, this ruling was very controversial.  Jewish tradition dictates that male infants be circumcised on the eighth day after birth, and the German government tried to wipe all Jews off the face of the earth a mere 70 years ago.  The ruling was also tough to take for Germany's largest immigrant group, Muslim Turks, who even if they may have been born, raised, and educated in Germany, speak perfect German and little to no Turkish, are often considered to be and treated as outsiders.  It's a very difficult subject.  Does this ruling imply that Germans want to protect all children in Germany, even Jewish and Muslim children, or is it proof positive that Germany wants those who are not Christians to pack up and leave?  The New York Times had a Motherlode section about it.  They even had a Room for Debate column about it with opinions by a few doctors and other very important people.  The commenters completely lost it, as naturally internet commenters are known to do.  A variety of opinions from "religious liberty should be protected - they are trying to kill all the Jews again" to "circumcision is mutilation, good for the Germans" were expressed.  Then The New York Times published a tug-at-your-heartstrings piece about this family suggesting that now Jews and Muslims in Germany are not going to be able to get their children circumcised in hospitals, by doctors under sterile conditions and covered by health insurance, that they will instead resort to getting their sons' foreskins removed by shady practitioners in back alleys - as unlikely as that seems.
       Good for The New York Times for covering this issue and discussing it.  But they forgot the end of the story.  Which is that German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that circumcision and religious freedom would be protected.  She said that Jewish and Muslim culture would be safe and welcomed in Germany.  The lower house of parliament passed legislation saying that Jews and Muslims could circumcise their sons.  Yet somehow, after all that worrying, The New York Times did not cover these important developments.  This oversight upsets me because I believe The New York Times is giving the American public an incorrect view of Germany and the condition of German Muslims and Jews in the 21st century.  I think the paper should have alerted their readership that all the worrying should be over. 
       But before I go, I would like to address the ruling itself.  We cannot forget that a German court in a major city did say that, before the age of consent, non medically necessary circumcision should be considered child abuse.  Many people see this ruling as an attempt to criminalize Jewish and Muslim cultural traditions, normalize Christian and secular German society, and make Jews and Muslims feel unwelcome.  That may be part of it, but I don't think it's the main reasoning behind the original ruling.  I believe that the ruling was an indication of two phenomena:  the increasing unpopularity of circumcision in general and the German tendency toward defending the rights of the child over the rights of the parents. 
       I'm not an expert on family life in Germany, I certainly haven't lived here long enough.  But it seems to me that there is absolutely no contest between a parent's rights and a child's rights in this country.  German parents cannot homeschool their children, the Germans believe that all children have a right to go to a school with curricula that have been subject to review by someone other than their parents.  Although religious schools are always an option, they still have to be approved.  German parents are not allowed to spank their children.  German children can only be given names that are on a very extensive list of approved names.  The name must be appropriate, a genuine name and not a random noun or adjective, and must reflect the child's gender.  What if mom is Chinese, dad is German, and the couple want to give their son a Chinese name that's not on the German list?  Fine - but rest assured the Germans will be checking with the Chinese consulate to make sure that the name is an appropriate name in China for a male.  In other words, you can't name your child Apple, Moon, or Gi'zelle in Germany.  Americans see these things, typically, as parents not having the right to educate, discipline, and name their children how and what they want.  Germans see it as protecting the right of the child to be educated properly, be free from violence, and be given a proper and dignified name.  It's just a different way of looking at things, and I can see the merits of both sides.  It's one thing to let an adult change his name to Tree Bark Ass Face as long as you insist that, as a kid, his legal name will be something like Arthur.  It's also another thing to let an adult man have a healthy piece of skin removed as a religious rite as long as his parents didn't have the right to do it to him when he was a baby. 
       The other phenomenon I think played a part in the original ruling is just the fact that circumcision just isn't as popular as it used to be, even among populations that used to be its strongest supporters.  Most of the American men of my generation were circumcised.  Many members of my generation of Americans are having children now, and not as many of the sons are circumcised as their fathers.  As it is among the rest of Americans, circumcision popularity is falling among American Jews.  On top of the fact that I know a few Jewish parents who have decided not to have their sons circumcised, there is an online community.  More and more people just feel a little weird about removing something healthy and natural from their sons genitals, even if it's a tradition (religious or secular) to do so, and even if they know many perfectly happy and sexually content men who were circumcised as infants.  The vast majority of Jews and Muslims still circumcise their sons, but it'll probably be a little less popular every year.
       I certainly can't see into the future, but it sure looks to me like the practice of circumcision may have peaked in popularity.  My guess is that after (and this could be decades) the population will stop really circumcising its sons very much, then doctors will start discouraging it, and it will slowly be legally restricted in various areas to boys over 16 or so, and then only with the written recommendation of a religious leader or something.  But for now, the religious rite of infant circumcision is protected in Germany.  Way to go, New York Times, you got us all wound up and upset and then totally missed the conclusion.

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