South African traditional leaders attack graphic male circumcision website

Dr Dingeman Rijken, who set up website with detailed images to reveal dangers of ritual, accused of breaking cultural taboo

theguardian.com, David Smith in Johannesburg, Wednesday 29 January 2014

The website aims to reveal the "dark secrets" of the circumcision ritual undergone
by teenage boys from the Xhosa group. Photograph: Carl De Souza/AFP/Getty Images

A Dutch doctor in South Africa has published graphic images of penises mutilated during botched circumcision ceremonies, angering community leaders who accuse him of meddling in their culture.

Dr Dingeman Rijken said he had set up a website to reveal the "dark secrets of the ritual" because traditional leaders had shown "shocking" indifference and incompetence to the annual toll of death and injury.

The leaders have condemned Rijken for breaking a cultural taboo and reported his site to South Africa's Film and Publication Board, demanding it be shut down.

Every year thousands of teenage boys from the Xhosa group embark on a secretive rite of passage in Eastern Cape province, spending up to a month in the bush to study, undergo circumcision by a traditional surgeon and apply white clay to their bodies.

While many initiation schools are officially sanctioned, others are unregulated and allow bogus surgeons to operate with unsterilised blades. According to Rijken, who works in the region, 825 boys have died from complications since 1995 and many more have suffered from what he calls male genital mutilation.

Explaining his reasons for going public, Rijken writes: "Winter 2012. Groups of young boys with white faces were brought out of a secret dark world into glaring hospital lights. Sunken eyes from dehydration, flaky skin from malnourishment, bagged eyes from sleep deprivation.

"Frequently you would smell the rotting when they were walking past. I spend many hours cleaning their wounds, trying to insert urinary catheters in their botched penis, battling to explain 17-year-olds that they had lost their manhood."

He adds that, following another "catastrophic" winter season in 2013, and with traditional leaders unlikely to make a positive change, he chose to go to the media and set up the site "to inform prospective initiates and the broader community about the dark secrets of the ritual".

Graphic images show severely disfigured, infected or amputated genitals on the website, ulwaluko.co.za, named after the Xhosa language word for initiation into manhood. Visitors are told: "Please be warned that this website contains graphic medical images of penile disfigurement under 'complications' and 'photos'. You may only enter this website if you are 13 years of age or older."

But critics argue that Rijken has betrayed their culture and should have handled the matter differently. Nkululeko Nxesi, from the Community Development Foundation of South Africa, told the AFP news agency: "That website must be shut down with immediate effect. He should respect the cultural principles and processes of this nation."

Patekile Holomisa, a former leader of the Congress of Traditional Leaders of South Africa, took a similar view. He told AFP: "We condemn the exposure of this ritual to people who do not practise it. Women should not see what happens at initiations."

The Film and Publications Board has restricted the website for under-13s but ruled that it is a "bona fide scientific publication with great educative value".

It added: "The website highlights the malice that bedevils this rich cultural practice. It does not condemn this rich cultural practice but makes a clear plea for it to be regulated so that deaths do not occur."

Related Articles:

Female genital mutilation affects a fifth of young girls in sub-Saharan Africa

Jewish parents in US begin to question the need for circumcision

Israeli court fines woman for refusing to circumcise her son

Kryon Q&A

Question: Dear and beloved Kryon: What should we know about "Brit-Mila" (Jewish circumcision)?

Answer: All circumcision was based on commonsense health issues of the day, which manifested itself in religious-based teaching. That basically is what made people keep doing it. This eighth-day-from-birth ritual is no more religious today than trimming your fingernails (except that Brit-Mila is only done once, and it hurts a bit more).

It's time to start seeing these things for what they are. Common sense is not static. It's dynamic, and related to the culture of the time. Yesterday's common sense about health changed greatly with the discovery of germs. It changed again with practices of cleanliness due to the discovery of germs, and so on. Therefore, we would say that it really doesn't make a lot of difference in today's health practices. It's done almost totally for cultural historic and traditional purposes and holds no energy around it other than the obvious intent of the tradition.

This is also true for a great deal of the admonishments of the Old Testament regarding food and cleanliness, and even the rules of the neighborhood (such as taking your neighbor's life if he steals your goat, or selling your daughter in slavery if you really need the money... all found in scripture). The times are gone where these things matter anymore, yet they're still treated with reverence and even practiced religiously in some places. They're now only relics of tradition, and that's all. If you feel that you should honor a tradition, then do it. If not, then don't. It's not a spiritual or health issue any longer.

Be the boss of your own body and your own traditions. Follow what your spiritual intuition tells you is appropriate for your own spiritual path and health.