Gökce Yurdakul
In 2012, a new debate erupted in Germany about a possible ban on the ritual male circumcision performed on mostly Muslim and Jewish boys. The court case in Cologne was about a problematic circumcision operation performed on a young Turkish Muslim boy by a German doctor with the request of his parents. The Cologne Court decided that the ritual male circumcision causes bodily harm and should be banned in Germany. Although the court case was about Muslims, the Jewish community took over the public defense of circumcision. A hot debate started on the minority accommodation, limits of liberalism and German state's intervention in minority family's decisions.
Similar to the headscarf debate in 2004, the ritual male circumcision debate became the focal point of minority accommodation debates in Germany. The jus sanguinis based German citizenship regulations in effect until 2000 – which were based on laws originally introduced in 1904 - were clear evidence of how belonging was defined in Germany: Germany was based on this idea of preserving a homogeneous “German” identity through an adherence to Judeo-Christian values. The current debates on minority accommodation carry on this ideal of homogeneity, leaving little to no place for difference, especially for Muslims, but also endangering the Jewish traditions at times. The ritual male circumcision debate reveals the tensions between "Germanness" and minority accommodation regarding who belongs and who does not belong to Germany. Drawing on my previous work on the ban on Muslim women's headscarves in German schools and German state's intervention in Muslim marriages, I examine the ritual male circumcision as a litmus test of German state's accommodation of minorities.
