Egypt: Anti-Male Circumcision Campaign

In 2008 Egypt passed a law that banned female circumcision (FGM). Today a group of bloggers started a campaign against male circumcision.

Zobaida owner of Al Haramlek Blog gave birth to a baby boy and refused to have him circumcised at the hospital; She wrote about her encounter with the physician at the hospital:

“يا مدام… دي نضافة عشانه”
آه… ده انت جاي لرزقك بقى، باعتبارنا في القرن الرابع للهجرة وما عندناش مية ولا صابون ولا “وِت وايبس” جونسون وجونسون

فكرت أن أشرح للطبيب الأنيق إنه في أغلب الظن حمار لا يقرأ ولا يعرف سوى ما قرأه في “كتيب الاستخدام”. فكرت أن أشرح له أيضا إنني لن أسمح لليهود أن يقرروا التقطيع من جسم رضيع أنا مسئولة عنه. إنما عدت وتذكرت: بالنظر لإنه حمار ولم يقرأ سوى كتيب الاستخدام ولا يعرف عن اليهود سوى إنهم أحفاد القردة والخنازير … إيه احتمالات إنه يفهم؟

The doctor said: “This is a procedure for his own hygiene”
She replied: “Oh Yes .. since we are in the 4th Hijri year and we've never heard of soap, shampoo, and Johnson & Johnson's wet wipes?”

I thought of explaining to the doctor who most probably knows nothing about the human anatomy other than what he studied as our “user manual.” I also contemplated telling him that I will not let Jews force me to cut off parts of my baby's body but I decided to keep my mouth shut – since he probably knows nothing about Jews other than what he hears of them being the grandsons of monkeys and pigs … really what are the chances of him getting any of what I have to say?

Then she looked at her son and said:

لا أعرف النقطة التي خرج عندها الطبيب الأنيق تحديدا، كان الولد ملفوفا بعمر يوم واحد يكاد لا يلاحظ لو طويت عليه معطفي وهم يريدون أخذه ليوخزوه بالإبر ويقصوا من جسده المنهك بالمقص، ويعذبون أيامه الأولى بالبول الحمضي السائل على جرحه المفتوح. آه يا جزارين يا مجرمين يا جهلة. ما تخافش يا واد، ولا حد يقدر يلمسك وأنا موجودة، أمال إنت فاكر إيه؟ لما تكبر ابقى قطع في روحك زي ما أنت عايز، إنما لحد ما تكبر لك عندي أسلمك لنفسك صاغ سليم.
I do not know when the doctor left us exactly but what were they thinking when they wanted to take my one day old baby boy to stick needles into his frail body and cut a piece of him with a cold scissor? Those butchers want to torture you on your first days in this world and cause you unbearable pain when urine touches his gaping wound .. those ignorant butchers! Fear them not my dear son, no one will lay a finger on you as long as I am alive. When you grow up you can cut off whichever part of your body you choose … until then no one will touch you.

Thinking of her newborn, she wished:

كنت أود أن أعده إن تلك هي المرة الأخيرة التي سيتهدده الجهل والقسوة فيها، ولكنني كنت أعلم إنها ليس كذلك، وإن هذه ليست سوى الموقعة الأولى … فحسب.
How I wish I could promise you that this would be the last time you will be threatened by ignorance and cruelty but I know that this is not how the story goes … this is just the first round!

Emad of Something for the Soul wrote:

الحمد لله نجحت حملة أوقفوا ختان الأولاد … ليس فقط البنات و إنضمت إلينا الدكتوره سهام عبد السلام و هى باحثه و مؤلفة لاحد الكتب و فى السابق أجرى موقع العربيه معها لقاء و نشره تحت عنوان باحثة مصرية ترى ان ختان الذكور جزارة ارتبطت بالمجتمع الذكوري وان الاسلام لا علاقة له بالختان و عنوان فرعى الختان جزاره لا طهاره و فتحت علينا كنز من معلوماتها العليمة و عن طريقها إتصلت بنا منظمه أمريكيه إسمها نوسيرك تتخصص فى محاربة ختان الأولاد تلك العاده التى أخذت تقل فى الولايات لمتحده
Thank God, our Facebook campaign calling for the banning of male circumcision has attracted a lot of attention and members. Dr. Seham Abdel Salam - a researcher and author – supported our cause saying that male circumcision is pure butchery and is directly traced to male-dominant societies; Islam has nothing to do with such a habit. Also NOCIRC - an American organization that is combating male circumcision – got in touch with us.

On their Facebook group, they tackled several issues directly related to the resistance of their campaign; religion, Science, AIDS, and hygiene.

Blogger Ahmad Al Sabbagh has had it with such campaigns saying:

ثم فجاءة وعلى حين غرة وفى غفلة من الزمن وقد توقفت الساعة عن الدوران وجدت من يعبث بذكورتى .. أسف لا أعنى هذا المعنى الأبيح الذى برز إلى مخيلتك .. لكننى وأثناء جولة فيسبوكية إعتدت أن اقوم بها كل عدة أيام .. فوجئت بأن هناك حملة كبرى تم تدشينها للدعوة إلى وقف ختان الذكور وفوراً !!
ليس هذا فقط بل إن الجروب مدعم بالصور والرسومات التوضيحية التى تبين فظاعة جريمة ختان الذكور !!
طبعاً .. لن أخوض فى تفاصيل أخرى لإننى لست بعالم دين .. لكن يكفى بأن أقول أنك إذا حدثت أول شيخ أو عالم دين تقابله فى طريقك عن وقف ختان الذكور فى مصر فانه بالتأكيد سوف يتخلى عن وقارة ولربما ينصحك بإعادة الختان ..
أرحمونا يرحمكم الله
ختان إيه اللى نوقفه للذكور ..
على أى نص دينى تستندون ؟
على أى قاعدة علمية تستندون ؟؟
أم أنكم تعاطفتم مع الرجل فأردتم مساواته بالمرأة التى مُنع ختانُها ؟
هل إنتهت قضايا حقوق الإنسان فى مصر ، وأصبح للعضو الذكرى الحق الوحيد فى المطالبة بوقف ختانه ؟
السادة والسيدات أعضاء المجلس القومى للمرأة والرجل والطفل وكل المجالس القومية لكافة الكائنات الحية ..
عشان خاطر النبى،
أرحمونا يرحمكم الله ..
All of a sudden and when time seemed to stand still, I came across a Facebook group that is against male circumcision! The group posted illustrations of the procedure to support the cruelty of the notion. Of course I will not go into further details because I am not a religious figure but I bet you if you stopped any man of religion you run into the street and asked him him to share his thoughts with regards to prohibiting male circumcision, I assure you that he would be far from pleased and his decency would abandon him as he tells you to sober up!
Have mercy on us! Leave us in peace .. our baskets are full!

On what basis are you basing your demands? Religiously and scientifically? Or did you get jealous of women so you decided to plead for equality between men and women when it comes to circumcision? Did we run out of human rights causes in Egypt and we are only left with the issue of foreskin?

Have mercy on us .. I besiege you!

22 comments

  • Cindy

    Marwa,
    I support you 100% – it’s time to end Genital Mutilation of both boys and girls.
    Boys have a foreskin because that’s what Nature/God wants them to have. No person should supplant the design of Nature/God.
    The motivation of the doctors/multilators come from not only ignorance in general, but religious ignorance in particilar.
    Please keep up the good work, you have many supporters worldwide.

  • Wonderful, Marwa! Cindy is right, this is a worldwide movement and it is heartwarming to see it starting in countries where people like Ahmad Al Sabbagh imagine it is an open-and-shut case. Do you notice that he doesn’t bring any facts to bear? Seven out of ten men in the world are not circumcised, including virtually all the men of Scandinavia and Japan, some of the healthiest places in the world. The English-speaking world tried it, and (outside the US) found it did no good and gave it up, with no ill-effects.

    The Intactivism Pages, http://www.circumstitions.com have more information.

  • Brad

    If the creator had a purpose in equipping men with a foreskin, it surely was for men and women’s enjoyment. Some day your son will thank you for keeping intact the original design of the Creator/Mother Nature.
    Marwa, you have the support of most of the world. Remember about 75% of the world doesn’t practice genital mutilation.

  • Zeinab Ali

    hi, thank u a lot for your support. yes of course i do agree with u . how come that the creator of this world can make something bad and wants us human to repair his fault it is illogical at all and then the ones who are against us come and say \ it is in religion\
    of course not, they are doing avery bad thing to religion . religion never say do something bad to a child. there are medical facts assure that this operation is very dangerous and can lead to disasters so how come they are making the image of the religion is so bad in front of all the world
    God says that we should not do any harm to our bodies and we should not change his creation.
    Dr Seham is supporting us and she brings us alot of evidences about the dangers of this operation and i will put the links here
    Zeinab Ali

  • Zeinab Ali

    here are the links
    http://www.norm-uk.org/function.html

    http://www.nocirc.org/

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOjYrxzCMmI

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghLCBXXgDrw

    we hope that our voice can be heard because really we dont want to harm our children
    hope that u enter the link of the group and take a look

  • At the beginning I would like to thank you all Cindy, Hugh7 and Brad for your support and inspiration.
    And thank you Hugh7 especially for that web site I didn’t know about it before
    The Middle East is the most region in that world practices this habit. I think the problem mainly are in the governing regimes. If the regimes that govern most of the Muslim countries decided to stop it they definitely (I think) can do and put and end to that, but simply they don’t care. If they do care then they will pass quickly bunch of laws through the legitimate entities to punish whoever practice this habit and insert good education against it in the schools and in media and run regular inspections to little boys in schools and firmly jail and fine physicians and parents who do it secretly to their boys.

  • LogicalDave

    How exactly were the “Jews” were going to force you to do anything to your newborn son? The last time I checked, Egypt was an overwhelmingly Muslim country.

  • Brad

    The following article is pertinent to the ongoing current conversation.

    Educate, don’t mutilate
    May 03, 2009
    (April 26

    They sometimes give the impression that the whole male world should immediately rush off to be disfigured or that all parents should inflict this primitive mutilation on their baby sons while they are unable to protest or decide for themselves.

    There is no medical reason for circumcision, as the American Academy of Paediatrics confirmed in your publication of June 18 2006.

    The sole reason for circumcision since the beginning of time has been superstition or religion. Circumcision doesn’t guarantee the prevention of HIV — only safe sex does.

    Many circumcised men around the world have expressed their anger at this abuse without their consent, with some even attempting reversal procedures.

    Certainly, with babies or children, no humane society should allow this primitive amputation without the full consent of the individual concerned.

    Let the child grow up and decide for himself, instead of putting a baby through a medically unnecessary operation risking life, or lifelong dysfunction, as can happen and has happened with any operation.

    Sex life, too, is not enhanced as the part covered is hugely sensitive and this feeling is totally lost through circumcision, due to permanent exposure.

    It’s an individual’s right to decide for himself , and education rather than mutilation would surely be a far better route.

    source: http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=990956

  • Brad
    Thank you for this article
    I have just added it to the group after translation into Arabic

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