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|Text=Hi everybody, I'm Mikael from [[Intact Denmark]]. I am Jewish, I was [[circumcised ]] as a baby and now I'm [vice] chairman of the Danish organization [[Intact Denmark]]. I wish [[MOGiS e.V.|MOGiS]] and the other organizations the best of luck with your online manifestation of the [[Worldwide Day of Genital Autonomy]].
Today I want to talk to you about shame. The other day I read a very interesting article about the social function of shame. The occasion was that some Danish politicians had been critized for telling people to be shameful for not keeping social distance. Shame should not be a political tool, the critics say. But the author of this article was actually much more nuanced.
Now some of our opponents have critized our slogan saying that it's a way of othering or pointing fingers at those minorities that practice circumcision. We are allegedly marginalizing these minorities from the community of good citizens by the simple truism that of course no parent deliberately want to harm their child and the accusation that that is exactly what they do.
The critique is an emotional critique. Those who defend the practice of [[circumcision ]] do not want to be exposed as some who cut and harm healthy children. It's indeed shameful and they have good reasons to feel hit by our slogan. They critizise our way of speaking about circumcision in realistic terms, as a harmful [[amputation]] of healthy parts of boys' [[Penis| penises]]. They only want to talk about circumcision in positive phrases as a welcome to the world and a ritual which has great significance, etc.
But from the reactions to our slogan it's clear that the accusation of harming a child unnecessarily, is received with shame. Therefore the newspaper article made me understand that our slogan does its job. It makes defenders of circumcision feel shameful which they should.
But not only parents and circumcisers. Also countries that make circumcision of boys legal. Like for instance [[Denmark]] and Germany and the rest of the world should feel shameful. Even the United Nations must be blamed. Although UN has a document, the '''Convention of the Rights of the Child'', whose aim clearly is to protect children from unnecessary violence and harm, UN has not been willing to accept the logic of their own convention which is that this goes for all children, not only girls. Instead UN talks evasively and don't want to address the issue directly.
This is the greatest shame - that international [[human rights]] organizations do not draw the consequences of their own resolutions and that states, that have subscribed to the convention, don't follow up by action.