On Defective Strategies to Cope with External Threats: A PreviewIn their play, children try to imitate the sounds and gestures of beasts sometimes. Frightening and omnipotent fictitious or real characters, even parents, teachers, and older siblings, become rich sources of emulation for the sake of sheer play, or vis-à-vis other children. From the very inception of consciousness, humans search for mechanisms to cope with external sources of power or potential threat, and primary among those mechanisms is the attempt to RUN FORWARD through emulation, i.e., through adopting the moves, tools, attitudes, or aggression of
what frightens and awes at the same time. The psychological imbalance induced by the anxiety of potential threats is averted thus by becoming one with those threats, by exchanging roles or internalizing the perceived source of overwhelming fear.
Hence, as a mere extension of the real or potential threat itself, one may alleviate the anxiety it produces, if only temporarily, by projecting it outwards onto others, whether real or imagined. But as a shoddy and fragile imitation of the original threat, the potential victim restores psychological balance vis-à-vis that threat only at the expense of losing one’s identity, even humanity, or losing one’s balance within the larger context of one’s whole personality. The whole entity of the potential recipient of the threat is victimized, albeit on a less physical plane.
Adults, later on, are just the same in their need to control perceived sources of anxiety and potential threat in order to maintain mental and psychological balance. And they engage in attempts to assimilate the now more ‘real-life’ sources of actual or potential threats just as much, even if their attempts to absorb such sources of danger take other, more socialized and politicized, forms and expressions. Still, the basic process of self-alienation remains the same in its essence: some perception of a real or imagined source of threat and danger generates
the need to restore psychological and mental balance by controlling the source of that threat or danger, where overcoming that fear or threat takes place by internalizing it then projecting it outwards, or by becoming one with it through emulation leading to assimilation, in order to quickly and thoroughly fill the wide subconscious space between the potential victim’s own feelings of worthlessness, weakness, and guilt versus the omnipotence of the potential aggressor. At the core of this process then lies a relationship of inferiority between what frightens and what is frightened, between the powerful and the powerless, between the wealthy and the impoverished, or between the invader and the vanquished.
This process is also at the essence of the mechanism by which the values and perspectives of ruling elites in any society become those of the ‘mainstream’. It is also at the essence of the mechanism by which the world today is being Americanized. Mind you, there is a two-way process here. It is true that ruling elites within any society or at the global level control the means of generating contemporary symbols and values, through the control of the means of mass-communication or intellectual means of production (and thereof, intellectual property rights). Yet
that control only furnishes the material basis of creating a pliable mainstream. The moral prerequisite for controlling the mainstream (or the masses, in more archaic political terminology), is that the latter be completely self-alienated vis-à-vis the wealthy, the powerful, and the awe-ful, as delineated above.
As far back as 1899, Thorstein Veblen, in his Theory of the Leisure Class, traced the process by which the values and beliefs of the ruling classes become those of the rest of society through emulation. A prerequisite for the need to emulate the super-rich in his analysis was conspicuously wasteful consumption on their part leading to the
emergence of the cult of ‘consumerism’ in society as a whole to bridge the perceived inadequacy versus the super-rich.
In the relationship between the colonizers and the colonized, the process of emulation leads the colonized to adopt for themselves the positions and the attitudes of the European colonizers versus the colonized. This essentially means self-hate and self-degradation on the part of the colonized. In his Black Skin, White Faces, Frantz Fanon analyzes the process by which European colonizers made some Africans loathe their race and seek to become more ‘white’, so to speak. In his letter of resignation from the mental asylum where he worked as a
psychiatrist during the war of liberation in Algeria, Frantz Fanon also discusses how his therapeutic work with Arab patients in Alegria revealed to him that many of their problems originated with the inferiority complexes inculcated by European colonizers in the minds of Algerians over decades, as they adopted the point of view of their oppressors regarding themselves (cited in a paper in Arabic that was published in Beirut in 1970 in the monthly journal “Arab Studies”, issue # 5, Frantz Fanon and the Philosophy of Revolutionary Violence).
Paulo Freire, in his well-known work the Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), took the analysis of emulating and internalizing the oppressor to new political and social heights by dissecting the process by which revolutionary regimes turn into oppressive ones like the ones they have just overthrown, because the revolutionaries themselves had imbibed the value-systems of their former oppressors, and their attitudes towards the oppressed. To these revolutionaries, liberation is confused with ‘becoming like the oppressors’.
Why revolutionary regimes turn oppressive is beyond the scope of this article. However, the point remains that Veblen, Fanon, and Freire have all rediscovered at different points in time, on different social and political levels, the process of internalizing the oppressor and his viewpoints of the world, including his viewpoints on the oppressed themselves. On the other hand, Anna Freud in 1936 was the first to point out the process of internalizing the aggressor in children, at the micro-level, the level of the individual. Yet in a classic masterpiece that makes for a highly illuminating and quite indispensable reading for any Arab progressive, Dr. Mustafa Hijjazi of Lebanon published his Social Backwardness: An Introduction to the Psychology of the Coerced in
1981 (which went into its eighth edition in 2000). In that masterpiece, Hijjazi establishes an analytical linkage between the internalization of the aggressor at the micro-level as in Anna Freud, with internalizing the oppressor at the social and political levels as in Frantz Fanon.
Hijjazi does not mention Veblen or Freire anywhere in his book unfortunately. However, these two writers could have enhanced his analysis greatly. Still, the basic overall conclusion of all these relevant works can be abstracted as follows: the oppressed, because of their condition, develop feelings of inferiority, incompetence, and vulnerability, which in the absence of objective awareness of the relationships which create that oppressive condition (real consciousness), lead them to adopt the oppressor’s view of the world and themselves, which in their unconsciousness and self-alienation, deepens their sense of inferiority and pushes them towards adopting the
oppressor even more in a vicious cycle that solidifies the condition of oppression. In simplified terms, it is the sense of inferiority in the context of a relationship of fear and awe that pushes the oppressed to adopt the oppressor’s view of the world.
Self-Alienated Arabs: A Political Application
In cultural and political terms, one can apply this paradigm above to Arab intellectuals and social strata seeking to sever their connections to our Arab-Islamic heritage and identity, and to swallow and regurgitate the rhetoric and narratives of the Zionist movement in particular and the guardians of the New World Order in general.
Feelings of guilt and ineptness develop as the aggression of the oppressor is internalized and directed at oneself, and more specifically at the group to which one belongs, which is symbiotically an extension of the self. The self-alienated Arab then begins to connect everything negative and inferior to his Arab self/group, which suddenly becomes flat, homogeneous, and stereotypically degraded. Everything positive, enlightened, and superior is now attached to America, the West, Jews, Zionists, etc… This state of psychological imbalance can then be resolved only when the self-alienated Arab seeks to run from oneself, by turning oneself into a bridge, linking one to the values, beliefs, practices, and the oppressor’s view of the world.
At the level of the average Arab, this self-alienation turns into an obsessive fascination to emulate the lifestyle, music, culture, food, clothes, and gadgets of the home societies of the forces that dominate his group. Salvation here becomes the ability to lose one’s identity and melt into that of the aggressor, oppressor, or invader, albeit from an inferior position, like French Algerians, or British Indians.
Self-alienated Arab intellectuals, on the other hand, practice their alienation by becoming spokespersons for globalization, Zionism, peace with “Israel”, etc.. To the extent the Arab apologists of the forces of external domination do this consciously to appease these forces in the hope of attaining personal benefits or privileges for themselves, or to the extent they disavow principle to avert reprisals and punishment, one may call them opportunistic. But to the extent they rationalize oppression out of sheer conviction emanating from their self-alienation, they fit the paradigm above more neatly because they would have thus completed the process of self-negation or self-destruction.
To underscore this point, it might be useful here to bring up a crucial difference between supporters of Oslo, on one hand, and a group of Arab politicians and intellectuals that actively promotes values and perspectives that make Arabs accept Zionism on the ideological level on the other hand; where Zionism, as defined by Herzl, is the project of building a national homeland for the Jews in Palestine.
Indeed, both groups represent defective social and political ways of coping with an irrationally overwhelming oppression, i.e., the Jewish invasion of Palestine. Nevertheless, whereas supporters of Oslo merely tell their constituents that they are merely PUTTING UP with a status quo they are unable to change, so they might as well make the best out of it by angling for scraps from the table of the masters, which is a blatantly defeatist argument devoid of ideological cover, the Arab politicians and intellectuals promoting ideological rationalizations of oppression are infinitely more dangerous in the long-run. For the latter typically adopt some combination of arguments and values that make imperialist and Zionist domination acceptable, even desirable, to
Arabs. One example of such self-alienated thought patterns is the self-destructive embrace of the notion of ‘Middle Easternism’, where the Arab-Islamic heritage and identity dissolve in the globalized ‘Middle East’, and where the Arab World is fragmented further along sectarian and ethnic lines (see reference below).
But in the specific context of making the Jewish invasion of Palestine more palatable, these self-alienated Arab intellectuals and politicians, who may oppose Oslo clamorously otherwise, typically push arguments and thought patterns that abrogate the Arab identity of Palestine and lead to the moral acceptance of “Israel”, not just the recognition of its right to exist as a matter of political expediency, as Oslo supporters do. Examples of such ideas and thought patterns include the notion of the bi-national state (which abrogates the Arab identity of Palestine), criticizing Zionism PRIMARILY for its racism (not its occupation of Palestine), calling for winning over “Israeli” public opinion by abandoning armed resistance as a strategy against the occupation (where the historical record from South Lebanon to the Vietnam war indicates beyond reasonable doubt that it is exactly effective armed resistance which is most capable of swaying public opinion in the enemy camp), proclaiming adherents to the Jewish religion as a nation with self-determination rights in Palestine while denying for example that the Arabs are a nation (self-evident alienation when professed by an Arab), the whole slew of contrite calls to ‘dialogue the other’ and ‘understand the other’ (where the now neutral other is nothing but the invading oppressor), and so forth. In short, what one ends up with here is an Arab intellectual or politician who realizes himself or herself through the exercise of values and thought patterns that bring him or her closer to the oppressor, albeit from an inferior standpoint.
Note, on the other hand, that those just putting up with Oslo are also accepting an inferior status vis-à-vis an irrationally overwhelming force. However, they are rationalizing that inferiority on the grounds of political expediency, which is still pathetic and politically defective of course, but not as self-sustaining or as penetrating as rationalizing the relationship of oppression ideologically. The difference is that political expediency can change with the passing of political circumstances, whereas concepts and value-systems that bind
the oppressed to the oppressor from an inferior standpoint are much more stable. Evidence of this can be found readily in the role of the supporters of Fateh Organization in the West Bank and Gaza in the Aqsa Intifada where they were thought to be for seven years the enforcers of Oslo, or mere policemen to protect the security of the invader. It is obvious then that the ideological subjugation of the oppressed penetrates more deeply into the collective subconscious than mere political subjugation, and is therefore that much more dangerous. Words
may hurt more than weapons. Indoctrination is much more brutal than external domination. For in indoctrination, one is imprisoned from the inside, by oneself, for the benefit of the oppressor, whereas in the case of external domination, the dominated may yield in defeat but is likely to ‘cheat’ at every possible chance because the domination is imposed from without but not yet fully internalized.
The Oppressive Narrative of the “Holocaust”:Frequently, meek submission before external domination sets up the stage for indoctrination. The process typically starts with self-delusions about ‘playing the PR game’, ‘playing it smart with the mainstream’, and
other rationalizations that serve to take the edge off the practice of defeatism or capitulation before an irrationally overwhelming force.
Let us take as an example here how some Arabs deal with the oppressive narrative of the “Holocaust”, of which the Arab people have been primary victims.
The “Holocaust” has ceased to be long ago about the Jews who died in WWII, or about opposing all forms of racism and racialist ideologies, including Nazism. It has become instead a generator of modern symbols and political values to rationalize Zionist power and its support by ruling elites in the West to further their own imperialist interests in the Arab World. Since oppression cannot exist by the argument of force alone and must be complemented by the force of argumentation to achieve long-term stability, accepting the received version of the “Holocaust” has become a necessary condition to rationalize Zionism and its support worldwide. Specifically, the “Holocaust” serves three simultaneous objectives:
- rationalizing the need for a Zionist state in Palestine that would give the Jews a special subterfuge of their own from the alleged ‘anti-semitism’ of the world,
- rationalizing unlimited Western financial, military, and political support of the Zionist movement and “Israel” under the impact of the guilt complex inculcated in western public opinion for the “Holocaust” as the culmination of ‘anti-semitism’ in Western societies,
- rationalizing the violations of international law and all legal and divine codes known to humans by the Zionist movement and “Israel” under the pretext that the alleged uniqueness of the “Holocaust” in human history should allow the Jews some leeway in the application of the law.
In fact, many Arabs keep blaming themselves for not doing enough in the way of effective media campaigning to win over public opinion in the West (but not in other less prominent parts of the world?!). However, in pursuing these much-needed media efforts to explain their cause to Westerners, these very same Arabs insist on ignoring the biggest obstacle to their success: the fact that the MOST IMPORTANT source of sympathy for “Israel” amidst large swaths of public opinion in the West is the received version of the “Holocaust”, and the way the means of mass-communication keep on churning out daily “Holocaust” reminders to flame that sympathy evermore and overshadow every Zionist intransigence or excess. Therein lies the importance of revisionist historians to Arabs. These brave souls (who come from varying ideological backgrounds by the way) go meticulously and systematically about undermining the three basic pillars of the received version of the “Holocaust”:
- the myth that the Nazis pursued a policy of genocide regarding the Jews (where the Nazi policy regarding Jews was deportation, including deportation to Palestine unfortunately),
- the myth that six million Jews died in WWII (where that number exceeds by far the numbers of Jews living in Nazi-occupied areas in WWII), and
- the myth of the gas chambers where those millions supposedly perished (where no one has been able to prove the existence or explain the way these chambers supposedly functioned as of yet).
In a classic show of indoctrinated self-alienation, however, fourteen Arab intellectuals called on the Lebanese government to interfere directly to cancel a conference for historical revisionism in Beirut.
By doing so, these intellectuals turned their backs on their social functions as Arab intellectuals because they asked an Arab government to interfere to ban a cultural or an intellectual activity, and more importantly, because they adopted the narrative of Zionist power wholesale instead of exposing it. In fact, accepting the “Holocaust” is the essence of cultural normalization with the invader, to be arrived at through “dialogue with the other” or “understanding the other” leading eventually to the subjugation of the Arab mind to the myths of the “Holocaust” that the Western mind has already and thoroughly been subjugated to. In that sense, these Arab intellectuals, whether because of indoctrinated self-alienation or personal opportunistic reasons, become the intellectual beachhead from whence Zionism springs to invade the Arab mind.
The Jerusalem Post of June 8, 2001:
It would be perfectly understandable if Zionists freaked out when the totem of the “Holocaust” is scrutinized critically. After all, that one is a lucrative source of cash, arms, and Zionist legitimacy. That’s why when the Jerusalem Post of June 8, 2001 ran a feature on the symposium dealing with historical revisionism organized in Amman by the Jordanian Writers Association (JWA) on May 13, 2001, that was forcibly cancelled twice by Jordanian authorities before then, it was totally banal to see a whole constellation of Zionist academicians, politicians, and media watchers so dedicated to tearing down that symposium and the JWA. It was not the first time, nor will it be the last time Zionists attack people who dare to discuss the Holy Cow of the Hollowcause.
Predictably, that long feature in the Jerusalem Post did not contain one solitary sentence in response to the scientific research of revisionists debunking the three founding myths of the “Holocaust”. Instead, it carried two messages, one to Arabs and the other to Westerners. The message to Arabs was: let the “Holocaust” alone. Discussing it is a bad media strategy (as if Zionists are so interested in directing Arabs to good media strategies to propagate their cause!). The message to Western public opinion on the other hand was: Arabs denying the “Holocaust” are equivalent to Arabs denying the Temple Mount and other alleged Zionist rights in Palestine!
Note that at the heart of the two messages there exists a huge undeclared mental and psychological oppression: the fact that Zionists and their supporters have managed over the decades to establish the myths of the “Holocaust” in the Western mind beyond a shred of doubt.
The “Holocaust” has become thus an irrationally overwhelming oppressive force. None of the people interviewed in the Jerusalem Post article of June 8, 2001 even bothered to respond to logical and scientific evidence refuting the myths of the “Holocaust”. Instead, the “Holocaust” is taken FOR GRANTED as an irrationally overwhelming oppressive force to warn Arabs: stay away from this battle. Capitulate! Back off!
Venerate our gods or else! The Westerners, who are already much more initiated in the rites of the “Holocaust” religion, are told on the other hand: Look, some of these Arabs are daring to question the cherished “Holocaust”, and since we already worked hard with Western governments to establish the “Holocaust” in your minds, we are going to employ that politically now by telling you that denying the “Holocaust” is just like denying any other Zionist claim to Palestine..
But in the face of such an irrationally overwhelming oppressive force, there can only be three kinds of Arabs: indoctrinated self-alienated Arabs who actually embrace the “Holocaust” religion wholeheartedly, defeatist Arabs who oblige the “Holocaust” out of political expediency without necessarily embracing the “Holocaust” religion wholeheartedly, and finally, Arabs willing to stand straight for truth and justice by fighting against the imposture of the Hollowcause. For the fact that the “Holocaust” has been elevated in the Western mind higher than all divine and secular beliefs combined is something totally different from its reality as a collection of myths that serve as ideological cover for Zionist power.
Thus, when the Jerusalem Post of June 8, 2001 featured the Communications Director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) taking part in the attack launched by Zionist academicians, politicians, and media watchers against the Jordanian Writers Association and the Arab intellectuals who dare to question the “Holocaust”, the immediate question became: what kind of Arab (or Arab-American) is that Communications Director of the ADC? Is he the kind that embraces the values of the enemy’s religion wholeheartedly like some Arab intellectuals, or is he the kind that goes along with the imposture of that false religion for the sake of political expediency, without necessarily abiding by its values under different political circumstances, like the supporters of Oslo?
Upon examining the statements of the Communications Director of the ADC in the Jerusalem Post against the Jordanian Writers Association and the Arab intellectuals who tackle the “Holocaust”, one will note that the strategy pursued in these statements resemble closely that of the supporters of Oslo: yield to the enemy on basics and principles but play for scraps and improve one’s position vis-à-vis the enemy wherever possible. In this case, the Communications Director of the ADC yielded to the Zionists by: 1) lending them the voice of the ADC to condemn Arabs who dare to question the “Holocaust”, 2) declaring publicly the adherence of the ADC to the three founding myths of the “Holocaust” religion, and 3) reassuring Zionists and Westerners that the Arabs who are even willing to listen to a critical appraisal of the Hollowcause are too few to worry about. [If interested in learning why the last statement is totally inaccurate, please go to: http://www.fav.net/anotherResoundingVictory.htm
On the other hand, after having given away that much on principle, the Communications Director of ADC seems to have tried to implant things in his statements which would alleviate the brunt of his totally pro-Zionist stance on this issue. This was evident for example where he included gypsies, Slavs, and others in the Holocaust, which slightly undermines Zionist claims to the uniqueness of the Jewish “Holocaust” in human history. This was evident as well in pretending to disagree with the argument presented by the Arabs criticizing the “Holocaust” as a tool to justify Zionist excesses, only to present what he ‘disagrees with’ at length. Notwithstanding these small tricks, the Communications Director of ADC still managed to give the Zionists what they want and spared no negative adjectives in his part of the concerted Zionist attack on the Jordanian Writers Association and the Arab intellectuals who dared to question the myths of the “Holocaust”.
Now had the critique of the Communications Director of the ADC come voluntarily on some Arab forum, instead of coming as part of a Zionist chorus in the Jerusalem Post, it would have been better classified as a case of indoctrinated self-alienation. But when the ADC was called upon by the Jerusalem Post to show its ‘goodwill’ towards Zionists by venerating the Hollowcause, it went ahead and yielded meekly to what is rightly perceived as an irrationally overwhelming threat, in this case, the threat of vilification and the blocking of media outlets in the West. Yet in imitating the gestures and the sounds of the beast, it overcame the imbalance induced by the potential threat only at the expense of a larger imbalance in its whole political personality and identity.
But what Zionists fail to understand when dealing with supporters of Oslo or the Palestinian National Authority, or those Arabs who yield to the irrationally overwhelming Zionist force, is that we Arabs have a long experience in humoring irrationally oppressive forces. For more than a thousand years now, our people have had to put up with both external and internal excessively oppressive structures, including the Zionist occupation. Defeatists and opportunists among us may yield to such oppression on basics and principle, a condemnable practice by any
standard, but even they would try to ‘cheat’ that oppression for scraps whenever possible. And when Palestinian enforcers of Oslo are accused by Zionists of not abiding by this or that detail of the oppressive relationship, the Zionists sound very very funny to Arab ears in the presence of the larger realities of Zionist oppression and occupation.
This is where Arab intellectuals who reconcile Arabs ideologically to Zionism come in to do the more serious work of implanting an ubiquitous agent of the Mossad in every Arab mind. And this is what makes the fight against cultural normalization with the invader one of the most important aspects of the Arab-Zionist conflict today.
On a more positive note, the critical observations above about emulation and adopting the value-systems and beliefs of others should be interpreted strictly in the context of oppressive conditions between humans on the individual or social levels. In the absence of such oppressive conditions, that is, in cases where people work, dialogue, interact, and struggle together for a common goal in a spirit of camaraderie and cooperation, it is quite normal for shared beliefs, symbols, perceptions, and values to arise quite naturally between them.
The difference of course is that in the latter case the interaction makes one better, not self-alienated. Whereas in the conditions of oppression, exploitation, occupation, and victimization, calls for ‘dialoguing the other’ and ‘understanding the other’ can only be a reflection of the fundamental imbalance of power between the victor and
the vanquished. And to preserve the humanity of the oppressed in such conditions, the form of dialogue that should take place with the oppressor is the kind that takes place in revolutions, whether physical
or intellectual.
Later Ibrahim Alloush
Notes:- To view the article in the Jerusalem Post against the Jordanian Writers Association and Arab intellectuals, go to: http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2001/06/10/Features/Features.27849.html
- To read about why the concept of ‘Middleeasternism’ is self-alienating to Arabs and Muslims, please go to: http://www.freearabvoice.org/yesWeSupportPeace.htm
- If you want to learn more about the myths of the “Holocaust”, please go to: http://www.freearabvoice.org/Faurisson.htm
- To learn more about Zionist designs to fragment Arab states into smaller units and establish a Palestinian state in Jordan, check out the Kivunim document at: http://www.freearabvoice.org/ZionistConspiracy_DivideTheArabWorld.htm
References in the order of relevance to article above:- Hijjazi, Mustafa, “Social Backwardness: An Introduction to the Psychology of the Coerced” (in Arabic), published by the Arab Development Institute, seventh edition, Beirut, 1998.
- Alloush, Ibrahim, “Cultural Normalization Psychologically” (in Arabic), an article published in the Jordanian Weekly Assabeel, September 19, 2000.
- Freire, Paulo, “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”, The Seabury Press, New York, 1970.
- Veblen, Thorstein, “The Theory of the Leisure Class”, Augustus Kelley, New York, 1965.
- Freud, Anna, “Le Moi et Les Mecanismes de Defense”, 4e ed., Paris P.U.F. 1967
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