Many Screamed but Few Heard

Michael Glass
(This page does not contain medical advice)

Last updated on 15th June 2001

When reporter Lindsay Murdoch revealed that Islamic fanatics had forcibly circumcised men, women and children in Ambon, Indonesia, he shocked readers of the Sydney Morning Herald (27 January 2001).

Forced conversions and forced circumcisions are against the Islamic principle that there should be no compulsion in religion. Moderate Muslim leaders in Indonesia condemned the forced conversions and circumcisions. Nevertheless, the fanatics circumcised men and women, old and young. Not even pregnant women were spared. However, the way these abuses were reported raises important questions about gender equity in our society.

Christina's Story

Dominating the Herald report was a courageous woman, Christine Sagat. She revealed the atrocities that she and others had suffered at the hands of the fanatics, and was even willing to be photographed.

They told me to undress and sit on a chair which was covered with white cloth. "Open your legs," they said. I saw under the chair a coconut shell filled with water and a kitchen knife. I said, "Oh My god, what would happen to me?" I was so scared, upset too. But I did not dare to resist them. I didn't want to be killed.
"At first the woman soaked her fingers in the water and then inserted them into my vagina as she looked for the clitoris. After she found it she pulled it out, took out the kitchen knife and cut it. That hurt very much. I shed tears. They left just like that without giving me any medication."

She was not the only one who suffered this brutal sexual assault. Her niece, who was eight months pregnant, and her mother who is in her 70s were also circumcised.

Christine healed quite quickly, but the emotional scars remained:
"I was lucky. I had some money and went to the store immediately to get antibiotics.
My scar healed quite fast, but the sad, humiliated feeling stayed until today."

She elaborated:
"[T]he scar is completely healed. But somehow, I feel sad. I feel like I'm no long 'complete' both as a person and a woman."

However, she also acknowledged something else:
"I know the men suffered more than us women. The circumcision hurt them more than it did to us because their scars could not heal fast. Several of the men I knew got serious infections after suffering from severe bleeding."

It is to the sufferings of the men that I now turn.

Kostantinus's story

Kostantinus's story is less prominent, tucked in an article entitled, 'Terror attacks in the name of religion'
"I could not escape," he said. "One of them held up my foreskin between pieces of wood while another cut me with a razor ... the third man held my head back, ready to pour water down my throat if I screamed.
"But I couldn't help but scream and he poured the water. I kept screaming aloud and vomited. I couldn't stand the pain."

The human foreskin is particularly dense in nerve endings and is well supplied with blood vessels. It is no wonder that he suffered pain. However, there was another indignity.

'Idi said one of the clerics urinated on his wound, saying it would stop infection.
"All of the men at the house were cut using the same razor," he said. "That night they circumcised about 60 men. I was bleeding all over and had nothing to cover my wound. I was told to take a bath but it kept bleeding until the next day. I could not imagine any greater pain. One of my friends got infected and was taken to hospital when we arrived in Ambon."

Without doubt, men and women and children suffered terribly at the hands of the fanatics. All suffered physical, emotional and sexual assault. All were exposed to infection. However, the men had the added danger of excessive bleeding, for the human foreskin has an exceptionally rich blood supply. It is also very painful, for the foreskin is just as rich in nerves.

How men's suffering was buried

No one would want to minimise the sufferings of women at the hands of these fanatics but the reporting of this tragic story buried the suffering of the men.

Both Christina Sagat and, Kostantinus Idi showed enormous courage by telling their story to Herald reporters. Christina was exceptionally brave in agreeing to be photographed. While Christina's story was told in an article of that name with a heading an inch high, Kostantinus's story was tucked into a secondary article on the same page entitled 'Terror attacks in the name of religion'.

The Herald's front-page article gave virtually no information about the attacks on men. It begins as follows:
"Islamic extremists are committing atrocities against women and children"
An illustration of Christine Sagat praying before a statue of Jesus has the following caption:
"Fear and pain Christina Sagat, one of hundreds of Christians forcibly circumcised by Muslim clerics."

Here, almost the entire attention has been directed towards the women. Forced circumcision is presented as an outrage against woman rather than an abuse of both sexes.

Letters published the following Tuesday (30 January) pointedly excluded the men's suffering:
[W]hen "religious" action means forced female circumcision we need to ask whether this is religious freedom or criminal behaviour.
Dave Burrows,
Marrickville

The most vile and abhorrent act must be female circumcision in the name of religion, happening on our doorstep in Ambon.
Alastair Browne,
Cromer Heights

This last comment so impressed the editor, that it was used as a caption for all the letters about the situation in Ambon.

Why was the suffering of the men passed over?

Why was the forced circumcision of the men minimised and then excluded? Christine Sagat stated that the men suffered even more than the women did. Why was she ignored?

One reason is that confronting the forced circumcision of the men in Ambon inevitably raises questions about infant circumcision. In Australia and the US, infants are frequently circumcised without anaesthesia when only a few days old. Like Kostantinus Idi, these tiny babies also scream and show other signs of distress. And, despite the best efforts of the nurses and doctors, some suffer infections, too.

If we allow that to happen to tiny babies, what right do we have to condemn fanatics for doing the same thing to grown men?

However, this is not the only thing. In our society, there is an enormous indifference to men's health. Male death rates during the working years are double and even triple the comparable female death rates. Male suicide rates are much higher than comparable female suicide rates.

When it comes to disease, enormous efforts are made to prevent, treat and cure breast, uterine and ovarian cancer in women. By comparison, prostate cancer is a poor relation, and testicular cancer, though it is mainly an affliction of young men, is almost ignored in the media. There is far more attention to road fatalities (a general problem) than to workplace fatalities (a predominantly male problem), even though workplace incidents kill more people overall.

Thus, the reporting of forced circumcisions in Ambon, Indonesia, throws a harsh light on our cultural blindness, and of our disregard of male health and welfare. If we are so indifferent to the problems of one half of humanity, how can we hope to have a society that gives a fair go to all?

Michael Glass is an Australian teacher, husband and father who originally published this article on the now defunct themestream.com

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of NORM-UK. This page does not contain medical advice.