Apartheid
Apartheid Apartheid
108 look-out for ‘surfaces of footpaths that might have been disturbed’. Lists of banned publications were provided to assist women in their quest for the safety of their kinfolk. 180 Although the paranoia appears to be real enough, apartheid psychoses do not seem to make their main carriers ill in quite the same way that an individual psychosis does. On the contrary, the carriers, i.e. the oppressors, enrich themselves and flourish, even after apartheid (in a political sense) is long gone. They do, however, also seem to harden emotionally and lose much of their humanity. Their fertility and birth-rates plummet, and so the question whether they really are happy or not is well worth asking. In the next section we will look at the comparatively high rates of suicide and mental disorders within the oppressive minority ethnic group. In my opinion the individuals who are not prone to guilt feelings and bad conscience lead lives full of options and opportunities aside from all the material wealth which their unfortunate compatriots of differing ethnicities lack; but even aside from the moral dimension these lives will still exhibit uninspired and uninspiring emptiness and meaninglessness. Furthermore, the single common denominator of all varieties of schizophrenia, the occurrence of hallucinations, is omnipresent in apartheid. In his last book, Edward Said dealt with Sigmund Freud’s last book, his interpretation of the origins of Judaism. According to Freud’s original and partly compelling arguments, Moses, the legendary founder of Judaism, was not a Jew (how could he have been?), but an ancient Egyptian. The collective identity of Jews as a people, however, denies and represses the (normal and healthy) open system character and the ultimate indefinability of ethnic groups, at present especially through the modern state of Israel. It treats ethnicity as a closed system, despite the obvious facts of human coexistence and the co-mingling of all groups, represented by ‘Moses, the Egyptian’, in Freud’s reading. In his foreword to Said’s book, Christopher Bollas describes how this repression is correlated with hallucinations; ‘positive’ ones, for instance, Jews projecting their own violence into the Palestinians, or, one might add, hallucinations (or more gently: conspiracy theories) about always being victimized or persecuted, or about the divine selection or chosenness of Jews, as well as ‘negative’ hallucinations about people (Palestinians) who are not perceived (as people) at all. According to psychoanalysis, in Bollas’ reading, this object relation is not only ‘toxic’ but ‘psychotic’. 181 Many of the perpetrators are therefore driven insane by the system; and so are many of the victims. Palestinian nationalism is not as destructive as Israeli nationalism is, but the former does not have the tools of destruction that the latter does. As Jacqueline Rose points out, however, in her afterword to Said’s thesis on Freud: ‘the most historically attested response to trauma is to repeat it.’ 182 This should not be interpreted as putting Israeli and Palestinian nationalism on the same moral level. One is a perpetrator, the other a reaction. One is overwhelmingly exclusive, the other (mostly) inclusive. But in individual cases the effects can be the same, especially in cases involving physical violence. Nationalism kills, 180 Norval: Deconstructing Apartheid Discourse, 1996: 203ff. Further on the psychopathology of apartheid: Abashiya-Malepe: Apartheid und was sie bedeutet: Die psychologischen Effekte der Apartheid auf ihre Opfer und die Änderung der verschiedenen Einstellungen ihr gegenüber, 1977. 181 Bollas: Introducing Edward Said, 2003: 5f. Bollas points out that the idea goes back to Said: The Question of Palestine, 1992 (1979); see for example p. 82: “...all the constitutive energies of Zionism were premised on the excluded presence, that is, the functional absence of ‘native people’ in Palestine...”, see also 85f. Of course, Jews are far from being completely deluded about being persecuted and victimized. Thus judeophobia, especially European anti-Jewish acts and attitudes, must also be held responsible for the Israeli apartheid psychosis. It must be reiterated in this context that, although massive structural pressures amount to help cause mental illness in apartheid societies, there must still be a measure of personal responsibility in killers. In fact, there is strong evidence that suggests that neither state terrorists nor non-governmental terrorists are usually (any more) insane (than anyone else). See N.N.: Terrorists Are Not Crazy, Says UK Psychiatrist, July 9, 2004. See also footnote 653, below. 182 Rose, Jacqueline: Response to Edward Said, 2003: 77
109 though it also saves lives and gives them meaning under oppressive conditions. And, historically, that goes for Whites as well as Blacks, for Jews as well as Arabs. Jewish nationalism, for example, gave meaning to the lives of many Holocaust survivors. Afrikaner nationalism helped Afrikaners persevere under atrocious conditions in British concentration camps during the Anglo-Boer War. Nevertheless, black South Africans have not responded in kind to white invasion, ethnic cleansing, or racist expropriation, discrimination, and oppression. They have not repeated the trauma imposed upon them. And neither have the Egyptians upon Greeks. In individual cases of criminal acts, this may well have been the case, but not wholesale or collectively, not the way that the apartheid perpetrators were victimized themselves. Today, Israeli-Jewish nationalism remains an acutely and overwhelmingly pathological phenomenon. Instead of applying Freud’s cure of undoing mental repression, for instance, the Israeli army in 2004 started administering Delta-9 Tetrohydrocannabinol, the active ingredient of marijuana, to veterans of the Israeli armed forces with post-traumatic stress disorders in order to suppress unwanted memories. No doubt, it will help at least some of them through otherwise sleepless nights. But an end to the occupation would be infinitely more successful. Moreover, suppression of memories is exactly the disease that psychoanalysis treats. The state of Israel, on the other hand, is treating the cure as if it were the disease, and thus, no doubt, creating new outbreaks of the mental disease. (What is the effect of the therapy on the mental lives of these soldiers when they are awake?) Another effect of marijuana, to relax the body and mind, is – however – illegal in Israel and harshly punished. If soldiers who are not yet officially traumatized veterans use it, they can expect to lose their ranks or be thrown into military jail. 183 There is ample evidence of double-bind, of potentially schizophrenia-inducing situations, in this combination of policies, especially for young soldiers. Love and Cooperation versus Crimes against Humanity, and Worse Luckily, the techniques of ethnicist and apartheid propaganda, and apartheid medication, have not (yet) been refined enough to make a whole population, even an oppressive invading ethnic minority, prone to it. There are many members of the elite ethnicity who can see through the lies and the manipulations, and who escape the collective madness; and there are some who decide to oppose injustice, to fight apartheid, in some instances paying an extremely high price for that decision. There are sometimes even examples of friendship, love, cooperation and mutual cultural and economic enrichment across the divide, between the two main ethnic groups in each apartheid society. 184 But this investigation is not about that. My aim here is to detect a 183 Heller, C.: Israel to Soothe Battle Trauma with Marijuana, 2004 184 See, for instance, Ridberg: Jewish Bomb Victim’s Kidney Saves Palestinian Girl, 2002; Immanuel: Palestinian Boy’s Organs Give Israelis New Life, 2003; Holmes: A Jew No More, Israeli Woman Lives as Palestinian, 2002. Ridberg reports how the kidney of a Jew killed in a Palestinian suicide attack was used by physicians to save the life of a young Palestinian girl. According to Immanuel, the family of a Palestinian boy from Nablus in the West Bank who died in an accident authorized the donation of the boy’s organs to Israelis over the objections of the family’s neighbors, who were angered by Israeli occupation and attacks. Four Israeli children survived due to the donation. Holmes describes a Jewish Israeli woman who fell in love with and married a Palestinian, converted to Islam and resides in Palestinian-ruled Gaza City since 1990. The spouses speak Arabic with their children but Hebrew with each other. Similarly, the existence of a so-called ‘Coloured’, i.e. mixed-race population in South Africa, six per cent of the entire population, is testimony to beneficial interrelations as well, though not only so. Many Coloureds are of course the result of rape or otherwise forced sexual relationships, usually by white men upon black women. (Some of the Coloureds are also descendants of the Khoikhoi, the original inhabitants of the Cape, who were not classified as ‘Black’ by the Whites, and who suffered cultural genocide, as well as a nearly fully-fledged physical one, and of Southeast Asian slaves.) In the course of this investigation, I present a lop-sided choice of sources on apartheid societies. Most of the sources on both Egypt and South Africa under European rule are from Europeans and their descendants. Many of my sources on Israeli apartheid are Jews: Israelis and others. This imbalance has been necessitated by the fact that
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109<br />
though it also saves lives and gives them meaning under oppressive conditions. And,<br />
historically, that goes for Whites as well as Blacks, for Jews as well as Arabs. Jewish<br />
nationalism, for example, gave meaning to the lives of many Holocaust survivors. Afrikaner<br />
nationalism helped Afrikaners persevere under atrocious conditions in British concentration<br />
camps during the Anglo-Boer War.<br />
Nevertheless, black South Africans have not responded in kind to white invasion,<br />
ethnic cleansing, or racist expropriation, discrimination, and oppression. They have not<br />
repeated the trauma imposed upon them. And neither have the Egyptians upon Greeks. In<br />
individual cases of criminal acts, this may well have been the case, but not wholesale or<br />
collectively, not the way that the apartheid perpetrators were victimized themselves.<br />
Today, Israeli-Jewish nationalism remains an acutely and overwhelmingly<br />
pathological phenomenon. Instead of applying Freud’s cure of undoing mental repression, for<br />
instance, the Israeli army in 2004 started administering Delta-9 Tetrohydrocannabinol, the<br />
active ingredient of marijuana, to veterans of the Israeli armed forces with post-traumatic<br />
stress disorders in order to suppress unwanted memories. No doubt, it will help at least some<br />
of them through otherwise sleepless nights. But an end to the occupation would be infinitely<br />
more successful. Moreover, suppression of memories is exactly the disease that<br />
psychoanalysis treats. The state of Israel, on the other hand, is treating the cure as if it were<br />
the disease, and thus, no doubt, creating new outbreaks of the mental disease. (What is the<br />
effect of the therapy on the mental lives of these soldiers when they are awake?) Another<br />
effect of marijuana, to relax the body and mind, is – however – illegal in Israel and harshly<br />
punished. If soldiers who are not yet officially traumatized veterans use it, they can expect to<br />
lose their ranks or be thrown into military jail. 183 There is ample evidence of double-bind, of<br />
potentially schizophrenia-inducing situations, in this combination of policies, especially for<br />
young soldiers.<br />
Love and Cooperation versus Crimes against Humanity, and Worse<br />
Luckily, the techniques of ethnicist and apartheid propaganda, and apartheid<br />
medication, have not (yet) been refined enough to make a whole population, even an<br />
oppressive invading ethnic minority, prone to it. There are many members of the elite<br />
ethnicity who can see through the lies and the manipulations, and who escape the collective<br />
madness; and there are some who decide to oppose injustice, to fight apartheid, in some<br />
instances paying an extremely high price for that decision.<br />
There are sometimes even examples of friendship, love, cooperation and mutual<br />
cultural and economic enrichment across the divide, between the two main ethnic groups in<br />
each apartheid society. 184 But this investigation is not about that. My aim here is to detect a<br />
183 Heller, C.: Israel to Soothe Battle Trauma with Marijuana, 2004<br />
184 See, for instance, Ridberg: Jewish Bomb Victim’s Kidney Saves Palestinian Girl, 2002; Immanuel:<br />
Palestinian Boy’s Organs Give Israelis New Life, 2003; Holmes: A Jew No More, Israeli Woman Lives as<br />
Palestinian, 2002. Ridberg reports how the kidney of a Jew killed in a Palestinian suicide attack was used by<br />
physicians to save the life of a young Palestinian girl. According to Immanuel, the family of a Palestinian boy<br />
from Nablus in the West Bank who died in an accident authorized the donation of the boy’s organs to Israelis<br />
over the objections of the family’s neighbors, who were angered by Israeli occupation and attacks. Four Israeli<br />
children survived due to the donation. Holmes describes a Jewish Israeli woman who fell in love with and<br />
married a Palestinian, converted to Islam and resides in Palestinian-ruled Gaza City since 1990. The spouses<br />
speak Arabic with their children but Hebrew with each other. Similarly, the existence of a so-called ‘Coloured’,<br />
i.e. mixed-race population in South Africa, six per cent of the entire population, is testimony to beneficial<br />
interrelations as well, though not only so. Many Coloureds are of course the result of rape or otherwise forced<br />
sexual relationships, usually by white men upon black women. (Some of the Coloureds are also descendants of<br />
the Khoikhoi, the original inhabitants of the Cape, who were not classified as ‘Black’ by the Whites, and who<br />
suffered cultural genocide, as well as a nearly fully-fledged physical one, and of Southeast Asian slaves.) In the<br />
course of this investigation, I present a lop-sided choice of sources on apartheid societies. Most of the sources on<br />
both Egypt and South Africa under European rule are from Europeans and their descendants. Many of my<br />
sources on Israeli apartheid are Jews: Israelis and others. This imbalance has been necessitated by the fact that