Debates about male circumcision

This article presents research findings based on the meaning of indigenous circumcision to Xhosa men in South Africa. In South Africa, male circumcision is a rite of passage from adolescence to adulthood. The country has experienced serious problems associated with the practice of this rite ranging from dehydration to death in the traditional "bush" circumcision schools. A qualitative, endogenous research design that is explorative, descriptive, and contextual was undertaken using individual interviews, focus group interviews, and community meetings discussing this ritual. A total of 25 men were interviewed. Only one question was posed throughout the research process: "How do you experience having a son who is undergoing the circumcision rite?" The study revealed cultural circumcision as a "sacred religious practice" with five themes, namely (a) readiness of Xhosa families to engage in the circumcision ritual, (b) the act of circumcision and preparation for manhood, (c) the importance of symbolic purity during the circumcision ritual, (d) celebrating acquired manhood, and (5) aspects of manhood and the rejection of clinical care. Secondary to this are health promotion recommendations made for individuals involved in this ritual.

Voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) has been recommended for the prevention of HIV transmission, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Uptake of the campaign has been relatively poor, particularly in traditionally non-circumcising regions. This study evaluates the knowledge, attitudes and practices of medical male circumcision (MC) of 104 community members exposed to promotional campaigns for VMMC for five years. Results show that 93% of participants have heard of circumcision and 72% have heard of some health benefit from the practice. However, detailed knowledge of the relationship with HIV infection is lacking: 12.2% mistakenly believed you could not get HIV after being circumcised, while 75.5% believe that a circumcised man is still susceptible and another 12.2% do not know of any relationship between HIV and MC. There are significant barriers to the uptake of the practice, including misperceptions and fear of complications commonly attributed to traditional, non-medical ci...

Voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) has been recommended for the prevention of HIV transmission, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. Uptake of the campaign has been relatively poor, particularly in traditionally non-circumcising regions. This study evaluates the knowledge, attitudes and practices of medical male circumcision of 104 community members exposed to promotional campaigns for VMMC for five years. Results show that 93% of participants have heard of circumcision and 72% have heard of some health benefit, but detailed knowledge of the relationship with HIV infection is lacking. 12.2% mistakenly believed you could not get HIV after being circumcised, while 75.5% believe that a circumcised man is still susceptible and another 12.2% percent don’t know. There are significant barriers to the uptake of the practice including misperceptions and fear of complications commonly attributed to traditional, non-medical circumcision. However 88.78% of participants believe circumcision is an acceptable practice, and community-specific promotional campaigns may increase uptake of the service.

We offer a human-rights based critique of Jacobs and Arora’s essay, “Ritual male infant circumcision and human rights.” (in this issue). We argue that Jacobs and Arora conflate the meaning of rites and rights, contending that circumcision is “compatible with a contemporary Western understanding of the concept of human rights.” To support this claim, they suggest that, while circumcision itself is not an “absolute right,” it is nevertheless a legitimate “parental prerogative”—a local right—which “carries low health risks, conveys medical benefits, satisfies religious requirements, and may confer social advantages, all of which weigh in favor of the children’s best interest.” As a ritualized practice that fails to “rise to the level of a human right” and yet apparently passes ethical “tests” that would otherwise mandate government interference, circumcision, they conclude, can be sanctioned or prohibited according to the values expressed by local states and cultural norms. We demonstrate that the authors’ argument disqualifies the terms of human rights by deploying biomedical discourses that stand in the place of cultural norms. This substitution, we argue, ultimately evacuates all discourses on human rights, turning rights into local rites or rituals, and so by sleight of hand immunizes their argument from critique on its own terms. It is precisely the ethical authorization of these terms that we question in this paper.

Title: Syrians and the Others
Subtitle: Cultures of the Christian Orient in the Middle Ages
Series: Scrinium: Revue de patrologie, d’hagiographie critique et d’histoire ecclésiastique 10
Availability: In Print
Publisher: Gorgias Press & Axioma
Edited by Basil Lourié
Edited by Nikolai Seleznyov
ISBN: 978-1-4632-0424-2
Availability: In Print
Publication Date: 9/2014
Language: English
Format: Hardback, Black, 6 x 9 in
Pages: 543

This volume contains the first editions of a number of works of Syrian authors (in Syriac and Arabic) including two excerpts from John bar Penkaye’s "Ktaba de-resh melle", an excerpt from "The Blessed Compendium" of Jirjis al-Makin ibn al-Amid, an excerpt from the "Kitab al-Majdal", and hymns from the "Warda" collection, as well as a publication of a series of Coptic prayers for travellers. It also contains a discussion of the letters of Nicetas Stethatos available only in Georgian. Other contributions deal with the hagiography (Byzantine, Old Russian, and Syrian, with a special attention to the so-called “verbal hagiography” which is an intermediary field between the written hagiography and the folklore) and the patrology (with a special attention to philosophical problems of Byzantine patristics). Some detailed book reviews discuss, among others, various problems of the late Byzantine and the 19th- and 20th-century Ethiopian and Russian theology.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Abbreviations
Critical Editions
Yulia Furman
The Origins of the Temporal World: the First mēʾmrā of the Ktābā d-rēš mellē of John Bar Penkāyē
Yulia Furman
Zeus, Artemis, Apollo: John bar Penkāyē on Ancient Myths and Cults
Nikolai N. Seleznyov
The Laments of the Philosophers over Alexander the Great according to The Blessed Compendium of al-Makīn ibn al-ʿAmīd
Nikolai N. Seleznyov
“These stones shall be for a memorial”: A discussion of the abolition of circumcision in the Kitāb al-Mağdal
Anton Pritula
The Wardā Hymnological Collection and Šlēmōn of Ahlāṭ (13th century)
Youhanna Nessim Youssef
Litanies or Prayers for Travellers
Hagiography
Andrey Moroz
Folkloric Hagiography and the Popular Cult of Saints: Formation of Beliefs and Plots
Alexander V. Pigin
Hagiographic Writings in the Old Believer Controversies over ‘the Suicidal Death’ at the End of the Seventeenth and the Eighteenth Centuries (Peter Prokop’ev’s Message to Daniil Vikulin)
Tatiana A. Senina (nun Kassia)
Concerning the Dates of St. Makarios of Pelekete’s Life and the Dating of his Vita
Tatiana A. Senina (nun Kassia)
Did St. John, the Abbot of the ton Katharon Monastery, Join the Iconoclasts under Leo V the Armenian?
Yulia M. Shevarenkova
Verbal Hagiography of Seraphim of Sarov
Patrology
Dmitry Biriukov
Hierarchies of Beings in the Patristic Thought: Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus, and the Palamites
Irina Kolbutova
The Book of the Body of Christ: Jewish-Christian Mysticism of Lett ers and the Name of God as an Origin for the Christian Spiritual Exegesis
Dirk Krausmuller
A Chalcedonian Conundrum: the Singularity of the Hypostasis of Christ
Alexey Ostrovsky and Maia Raphava
Notes on Georgian Translations of the Works of Nicetas Stethatos
Olena Syrtsova
L’anthropologie apocryphe et le traité Περὶ Ἀρχῶν d’Origène
Review Articles
Dmitry Biriukov
Providence and fate in the ancient philosophical tradition and in Greek patristics
Basil Lourié
Notes on Mar Pinḥas: A “Nestorian” Foundation Legend; the Liturgy Implied; Polemics against Jewish Mysticism; an Early Christian Apology Used; Syrian Monasticism from Athens
Olga Mitrenina
The Corpora of Old and Middle Russian Texts as an Advanced Tool for Exploring an Extinguished Language
Aleksandr V. Pigin
A new book on Old Russian demonology
Tatiana A. Senina (moniale Kassia)
Deux livres sur Cassia de Constantinople
Christos A. Zafiropoulos
Ahiqar, his Tale and the Vita Aesopi
Reviews
What Was the Question? The Inter-Byzantine Discussions about the Filioque, Nicephorus Blemmydes, and Gregory of Cyprus (B. Lourié)
Прп. Максим Исповедник, Богословско-полемические сочинения (Opuscula Theologica et Polemica), пер. с древнегреч. Д. А. ЧЕРНОГЛАЗОВА и А. М. ШУФРИНА; научн. ред., предисл. и комм. Г. И. БЕНЕВИЧА [St Maximus the Confessor, Opuscula Theologica et Polemica, Russian tr. by D. A. Chernoglazov and A. M. Choufrine; ed., intr. and comm. by G. I. Benevich] (G. B.)
Warren T. Woodfin, The Embodied Icon. Liturgical Vestments and Sacramental Power in Byzantium (T. Sénina)
Two Books on Fr Antonii (Anthony) Bulatovich (1870–1919) and the Imiaslavie (Onomatodoxy, Name-Glorifying) (B. Lourié)
The Monks and Their Reading (O. Mitrenina)
A Lonely Church as a Symbol of Faith and Power (B. Lourié)
Syriaca et Varia Orientalia (B. Lourié)
Das russisch-deutsche Seminar „Simon Lüdwigowitsch Frank: der deutsche Kontext der russischen Philosophie“ (A. Malinov)