Circumcision: Why the Church is sharpening spear for the nation

Early this week, Peter Onyango, 44, was circumcised by force in front of his wife and children in Bungoma County. A neighbour revealed that it was his wife of eight years who had revealed that he was uncircumcised after they had an argument, and arranged for the cutting.

A mob picked him up, took him to the river, and smeared him with mud before parading him for the cut, as reported by The Standard.

“I realised that he was afraid of the pain but I could not withstand living with him. I am happy that he is now a complete man,” she said.

Despite the seemingly traumatising event, The Standard reported that the man expressed relief, saying that he had been mocked for being uncut.

It shows that in Kenya, the stigma of being uncircumcised is worse than the humiliation of being paraded naked and having part of one’s member cut off. Globally, only about 38 per cent of men are circumcised and it’s mostly for religious purposes, but most people in Kenya would consider the remaining 62 per cent as “not men”, despite other existing methods of the rite of passage, which most Kenyans do not recognise.

Circumcision has been a hot topic this week, with many being amazed that Karen Hospital charges between Sh40,000 and Sh50,000 for the procedure. That is exclusive of the doctor’s consultation fee and the procedures carried out before and after surgery, bed charges incurred for an overnight stay, and discharge supplements.

Former Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko also celebrated that his adopted son, Satrin Osinya, had been cut.

“Today I’m a very proud father after visiting my adopted son Satrin Osinya together with his other initiates at the PCEA church evergreen,” Sonko posted on his Facebook page.

Circumsicion is an affair that makes the news every year, one that cultural anthropologists travel to Kenya to witness. It is so pervasive that boys from communities which did not traditionally circumcise their men will insist on having it done or get it done behind their parents’ back in order to avoid ridicule from their peers. Even politicians from those communities seeking votes from outside of their communities will be derided and lose votes on the basis of people assuming that they have not been circumcised.

Gregory* (not his real name) told The Nairobian that he did it as a youngster because he was going to a national school and he begged his parents to take him to the hospital and get it done as he was deathly afraid of getting bullied over it. His parents understood and paid for the procedure in a hospital.

“Even today, I’m glad I did it because women always assume that I’m uncut but they are more comfortable sleeping with me just because I got the procedure. But it honestly doesn’t make any difference to me,” he says. “I don’t feel more of a man now that I’m circumcised, I’m just glad nobody bothers me about it anymore.”

His last statement is possibly why there has historically been so much ceremony around it, a transition that for some communities like the Maasai even involved killing a lion to confirm your transition into manhood. For nearly all communities, the boys are whisked away for a few weeks and as they heal, older men make sure it is ingrained in their minds what is expected of them. Usually this would be mired in traditional ceremonies and customs, and still are.

In the Luhya community, the dipping in freezing river water early in the morning to numb them, mudding and parading of the boys who get cut without flinching as part of the proof of manhood, is televised yearly.

For many years however, the church has gotten involved in the process to ensure that the boys are given mentorship that is of a more godly fashion. The process usually involves getting cut in a hospital and then the boys get counseled over a couple of weeks, presumably going back home as men.

Others prefer a hybrid of traditions and modernity, such as the Kalenjin organisation known as the Emo Community Development Society, which initiated a circumcision programme for boys that integrates culture with Christianity and education.

“For many years, there has been conflicting programmes run by the community - one based purely on culture while the other purely based on Christianity,” reads the Emo site.

The organisation says that the integrated programme has been accepted by both cultural and Christian proponents. The society follows a curriculum in the mentorship programme, and topics covered include cultural practices, Christianity, entrepreneurship, leadership, conflict resolution among others.

This has however not been welcome in all quarters. Emo was once accused by members of the community of training young men to fight in the 2007/2008 post-election violence, but denied it, saying that even culturally, young men were not trained in war during the initiation process.

Later on in 2019, Kalenjin elders placed a curse on the 570-acre Emo farm in Sergoit where the circumcision takes place and warned parents not to take their sons there for the cut.

According to the Kenya News Agency, the elders warned that using the land for the revered ceremony before cleansing would be detrimental and “cause harm to the innocent initiates.”

The 300 elders were a splinter group from the Emo Investment Limited who said that they decided to place a curse on the farm after the management short changed them on their investment, planning to sell part of the land to three churches without the consent of all members. The directors of the company however denied the claims, saying that there were no such plans.

Such controversies dog the rite of passage nowadays, as culture clashes with modernisation and christianisation of the practice.

Some quarters have even began referring to it as male genital mutilation, and as serving no purpose, but that is unlikely to gain traction in Kenya soon as a spot check with men revealed that most are happy they got it done and would like it to continue.

“The cultural aspect of it is important because like for me when it happened, the leeway I had to do some things as a child disappeared. There is more responsibility that comes with it and you just start taking yourself more seriously as a man because of the social construct surrounding the event itself,” says Edward Maina.

He adds that because the society has decided that once a man has undergone the cut then it means a certain thing, the man naturally starts living up to that expectation and start holding himself to a higher standard.

“Every culture has its own form of transition of moving from being a boy to being a man and we need to have a physical representation of that transition, so I wouldn’t call it mutilation. I would consider circumcision to be one of the better versions out there as opposed to other forms, but those other forms also achieve the same thing. I am looking forward to my sons also experiencing it,” he says.