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CounterPunch
February
24, 2003
The Birth of the the Tragedy
On
Reason, Justice and the Victim Mentality
by GILAD ATZMON
"I am convinced that opposite me
sits 'Ivan the Terrible' of Treblinka"
Pinhas Epstien, 2, 23, 1987
"This man is Ivan, without a shadow
of a doubt-- Ivan from Treblinka. From the gas chambers--the
man I am looking at now."
Eliyhau Rosenberg 2, 25,
1987
Every aggression enacted by one man against another
can be judged on two different levels: the ethical level and
the level of Reason. Ethical judgment is supposed to rule whether
the aggression was morally right or wrong. Judging whether something
is morally right or wrong involves application of one's intuitive
faculties and therefore can't produce clear-cut conclusions.
Reason on the other hand, traces the causes that led to the aggression,
applying rational faculties; it looks into the available evidence,
the psychological context, the legal system, precedent cases,
etc. Reason employs rational and analytical considerations, therefore
it can be reduced to an argument with irrefutable results. In
order to establish whether the aggression was justified we must
synthesise both ethical judgment and Reason. This synthesis is
usually regarded as 'Justice'. It is important to note that this
synthesis is far from being perfect or 'free of faults' but it
is still the most acceptable process man can follow to achieve
a fair judgment. Although ethical decision-making and Reason
belong to very different categories of thought, man has proved
capable of synthesising the two.
This process of synthesis can become
far more complicated when we face major scale aggression that
portrays an obvious injustice. This is when politics gets involved.
In the following paper I will try to scrutinise the political
mechanism that specializes in robbing singular man of his ability
to come up with an accountable fair judgement. I will try to
look into major crimes against humanity and to assess the political
game involved in the transformation of their significance into
political power. I will try to argue that current western political
power is based on the downgrading of man's notion of justice
into the ethical mode devoid of Reason. I will also try
to argue that this form of thinking is the birth of the 'victim
mentality.'
September
11th.
The attack on the World Trade Centre
was a major scale aggression enacted by very few terrorists against
very many innocent civilians. No one can justify such an attack
in moral terms. Yet this attack can and should be assessed as
an act of aggression. In other words it should be analysed both
in ethical terms and in terms of Reason.
One is still entitled to ask for the
Reason behind the attack: What is it that brought seventeen devoted
men to commit such a suicidal atrocity? Should this attack be
regarded as a declaration of war or rather as a form of retaliation?
Is it just a mad, evil and murderous act or rather a legitimate
struggle towards liberation? These kinds of questions are crucially
important to ask, not because their answers are clear but precisely
because their answers might be very vague. At the very least
these questions might lead us to acknowledge our own rational
boundaries. Raising these questions might even lead us to admit
to the possibility of a different rationality, one that could
legitimate putting our lives in great danger. The Americans should
be the first to ask themselves these kinds of questions but sadly
these questions are hardly heard in America. The reason for that
is clear. On the surface, it is very sensible to argue that such
questions are completely redundant since no rational explanation
can justify an utterly inhumane crime. This argument is very
popular and it is even seen as morally grounded but actually
it is counter-productive. It makes society completely blinded
to itself. More so, it makes society completely blinded to the
possibility of other alternative and opposing worldviews.
I would argue that the failure to ask
for the reasons behind crimes against humanity is a fatal crime
in itself. It is a sophisticated political manipulation that
aims at maintaining the current world order in which the rich
become richer and the poor are kept deprived forever. This mode
of thought, which I will soon define as 'victim mentality', is
probably the real and only enemy of western culture. If we agree
that rational reasoning and proper argumentation are seen as
the highest of western ideals, than we must agree that robbing
man of these very faculties is a clear offence against those
western ideals.
The American administration's reaction
to the September 11th atrocity presents an intentional avoidance
of the questioning mechanism and search for Reason. It is based
on the adoption a purely ethical approach. President G. W Bush
rightly condemned the attack ethically but at the same time he
saved himself and the American people from facing the Reason
that led to that attack. G.W Bush clearly tried to redefine
the notion of justice. It was no longer a synthesis between ethical
judgment and Reason but rather a purely ethical judgment. As
I said earlier on, when one deprives oneself of Reason the whole
idea of justice becomes redundant. Justice is turned into a mere
intuition. Jurisdiction is no longer needed because you can save
the suspect from the trouble of defending himself, his crime
is utterly unacceptable to start with.
It is easy to explain why politicians
prefer to degrade the whole idea of 'justice' into the purely
ethical. First, since ethics applies the intuitive faculties,
it allows policy makers to communicate with their supporters'
intuitions rather than with their reasoning. Second, in the age
of electronic media, a message should be strong, clear and short.
It is far easier and effective to stimulate intuitions with metaphors
and emotive language rather than to present a tedious 'well built'
rational argument. Third, politicians would prefer to keep the
demarcation line between Reason and ethics as evasive as possible
because it allows them to redefine the notion of justice to fit
their own political agenda (Reason can jeopardise such an act).
Fourth, Avoidance of Reason saves politicians from providing
their voters with any conclusive evidential ground.
These explanations might throw some light
on the bizarre rhetoric which stands at the core of the phoney
'War Against Terror'. We do not have to bring Bin Laden to court
because he is too much of a criminal anyway. Let's just portray
him as the 'devil himself' and then hunt him forever even if
it means killing thousands of innocent civilians. We do not have
to prove that Sadam holds an arsenal of 'weapons of mass destruction',
it is enough just to dehumanise him and then to declare a third
world war. The American administration wants us to follow our
intuitions assuming that Bush's ones must be good enough--don't
ever forget that he is an 'elected' president. He must therefore,
represent the intuitions of the American 'democratic' people.
As we should have realized by now, the
'War Against Terror' has so far led to very miserable results.
America is still in very much the same danger if not a far greater
one. If anything, now it is the whole world that finds itself
under severe threat. Very much like its big brother, Israel,
who declared it's own petite 'War Against Terror' is failing
miserably too. The Palestinians, it seems, are more determined
than ever to liberate themselves. It has been made clear that
Israel's chances of survival as a Jewish state are very slim.
The reason is simple. Single dimension justice i.e purely ethical,
makes people blinded and when people are blinded they make many
mistakes because they fail to see where they are going.
The Origins of the
'Victim Mentality'
Victims are people who find themselves
suffering while being completely innocent (at least in their
own eyes and within their personal or communal world view). I
will try to argue that 'victim mentality' has a lot to do with
the denial of Reason. In many cases the denial of Reason is fully
understandable. For instance, a woman who has been violently
raped might not find it interesting to learn about the personal
difficulties that led the sex offender to force himself upon
her. As a victim she might be willingly prepared to avoid Reason
and to concentrate solely on dealing with her emotional and physical
scars. This is perfectly understandable. Following the same pattern
of thought, a family who lost their beloved son when a drunken
lorry driver ran over him might not find it that crucially important
to learn about the lorry driver's personal difficulties and the
Reason that pushed him to excessive drinking. It is natural for
victims to detach themselves from the very events and Reason
that changed the course of their lives. However, these cases
do not establish 'victim mentality' but rather a normal psychological
pattern of repression. 'Victim mentality' is a political term
that refers to something far more general. It refers to communities
that adopt a complete rejection of Reason. We can find light
traces of 'victim mentality' among marginal political groups
such as 'feminist movements' and 'gay political groups'. Again,
this is understandable given the discrimination against those
very groups. It is far more interesting to find clear indications
of 'victim mentality' within the very core of the world dominating
groups. I am referring here to Zionist lobbies and the current
American administration. These dominating groups regard the crimes
against them as severe enough to support the rejection of Reason
altogether.
The 'victim' pattern adopted by Zionists
is unique in history. The Jewish people definitely suffered the
most devastating experiences of horror during their long history.
The Holocaust is probably one of the most horrendous chapters
on human record. But we must also remember that the Zionists
were more than clever in using this disastrous episode as a catalyst
for liberation. The Holocaust helped the Zionists to bring the
UN to support the partition resolution (1947) that eventually
led to the declaration of the state of Israel (1948). On the
financial level, Jews received compensation from the German government
soon after the end of the war. Though the Jews had very good
reason to regard themselves as victims, they are not victims
any more. Nowadays they have a state, a strong army and a big
enough nuclear arsenal to turn our planet into a complete wilderness.
Funnily enough Israelis and Jews all over the world still regard
themselves as victims. More so, Israel, founded in the shadow
of the Holocaust, has made the 'victim mentality' into a leading
industry both in tourism and in diplomacy. The way to the complete
endorsement of the 'victim mentality' was a continuous denial
of Reason, a complete rejection of the very Reason that
led to the holocaust in the first place. I would argue that facing
the very Reason would help the Zionists understand why they lose
popularity nowadays.
While admitting that Jews had very good
Reason to regard themselves as victims at a certain point in
time, there is still room to argue that the Zionists could be
the first to learn about the reasons that led to their own destruction.
They could study the European far-right accusation concerning
their domination in world banking and finance. They could learn
about the bourgeois and capitalist concerns regarding Jewish
involvement in revolutionary and anarchistic proletarian movements.
About the xenophobic rejection of the ost juden and they
could even learn about the Nazi allegations that they were planning
to take over the world with 'Abstractions' (Marxism, Psychoanalysis
and even Relative Theory and Catholicism). Irrespective
of their validity, Israelis and Zionists never tried to face
any of those accusations. Quite the opposite, they avoided them
altogether by labelling them 'anti- Semite nonsense'. By doing
so they established a notion of justice based solely on their
own intuitive ethical judgment. For Israelis the use of Reason
is viable as long as it supports their one and only intuition
i.e. Jews have the right to live in Zion regardless of the consequences.
This form of ignorance made the Israelis and Zionists unqualified
to realize their own reality. Moreover, because the Israelis
are no longer trained in the process of synthesizing Reason with
ethical judgment, their capacity to establish solid arguments
is pretty slim. It might sound funny (or very sad) but many Israelis
do not distinguish anymore between Nazi war criminals and Palestinian
innocent civilians. Many of the Israelis and Zionists go even
further and tend to regard the whole gentile world as a vicious
and merciless enemy. If the 'gentile world' (goim) means
the human race we must admit that many Jews see themselves as
facing a battle with the human race. (this might explain the
enormous size of the Israeli nuclear arsenal). In general, every
diplomatic condemnation of Israeli policy is taken by the Israeli
people as an anti-Semitic offence. Following the Israeli election
and the expected rise of right wing support it is clear now that
the vast majority of the Jewish Israeli population do support
the oppression of the Palestinian people, but even that doesn't
stop them from regarding themselves as victims. I tend to link
this bizarre state of mind--of being an oppressor and victim
simultaneously--to the clear deterioration of the Israelis' use
of Reason. I assume that the Jewish over-use of their holocaust
memory is to be blamed. The Israeli astronaut Ilan Ramon who
found his death in the Columbia disaster was so proud to carry
with him to space victim symbols and holocaust souvenirs. Learning
from the press that the Columbia expedition was a purely scientific
mission, I am left wondering whether Ramon's scientific mission
was to distribute the 'victim mentality' in outer space. Anyhow,
less than an hour after the devastating crash, Sharon announced
that Ramon "was a victim of science". No doubt the
notion of victim is in a continuous terminological flux amongst
devoted Zionists.
The case of post September 11th America
is very similar. The American Administration, like the post holocaust
Jews, adopted a victim thinking pattern which allows them to
make intuitive judgments without providing any real rational
arguments. At the moment America is shooting and bombing anything
that doesn't agree with America. Anyone who doesn't agree with
America's policy is an 'Anti- American', "you are either
with us or against us" said the American President copying
the Zionist 'intuition' i.e. 'You either support Israel or you
are an anti-Semite'. This form of American behaviour is based
on a righteousness that is typical to the victim i.e. to people
who deny Reason.
The next crucial question to ask is whether
we can do something about it? Can we help the Zionists or the
Americans to escape this dead end journey? The answer is No.
We can't do a thing. This is the birth of the new tragedy. We
can't help the Israelis nor the American Administration because
they are both kidnapped by their own 'victim mentality'. Unfortunately,
we must let the Israelis destroy themselves, something they are
starting to get very good at. We can only pray that the Bush
presidency will end before he manages to destroy our planet.
Why can't we help them? Because both the Americans and the Israelis
have been hijacked by themselves. When you are imprisoned by
the Other you might eventually liberate yourself but when you
are imprisoned by yourself you might find yourself locked behind
your own bars forever.
Some interesting
cases to think about.
1.The case of Ivan
John Demjanjuk:
The story of Ivan John Demjanjuk started
in 1975 when a list of names of alleged Nazi war criminals was
circulated in the US senate. The list originated in the KGB allegedly
out of material captured by the Red Army. Mr Ivan John Demjanjuk
was blamed for being 'Ivan The Terrible', a particularly sinister
operator of a gas chamber in Treblinka death camp. Despite the
American having identifying Demjanjuk as having being a guard
at the geographically separate Sobibor camp it was the 'eyewitness
survivors' who placed Damjanjuk at the Treblinka Camp. Demjanjuk
went through eighteen years of legal battle. First he was denaturalised
of his American citizenship (1985). Soon after he was extradited
to Israel to stand trial as a war criminal. All along his legal
battle Demjanjuk denied the charges. He claimed that he had never
been 'Ivan the Terrible'.
On April 18th 1987, twelve years after
the whole legal saga started Damjanjuk was sentenced to death
by the Israeli court.
In 1990, following the collapse of the
Soviet Union, the KGB archives were opened to the general public.
Only then the shocking truth revealed itself, the 'Trawniki Certificate'
that led to the suspicions against Ivan John Demjanjuk had been
found to be a soviet forgery (done in order to frame the Ukrainians
as Nazi supporters).
Not long later the Israeli supreme court
had to admit that the whole Demjanjuk saga was a fabrication
from beginning to end. On 22 September 1993 Demjanjuk was released.
The Israeli supreme court had to dismiss the 'eyewitness evidence'.
The question to be ask is how can an
eyewitness stand in front of an another old man he never saw
before and blame him for being vicious murderer and a war criminal?
This is what the eyewitnesses had to
say in front of the court:
"I am convinced that opposite me
sits Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka" , Pinhas Epstien, 23.2.1987
"This man is Ivan, without a shadow
of a doubt- Ivan from Treblinka. From the gas chambers-the man
I am looking at now." (Eliyhau Rosenberg 25.2.1987)
What kind of psychic mode leads to such
a performance? Unless Mr Epstien and Rosenberg were complete
villains which I doubt, I assume that it is the 'victim mentality'
that should be blamed. It establishes a form of loathing that
goes far beyond Reason. Both Epstien and Rosenberg must have
been standing in front of a harmless and an innocent man while
thinking to themselves "even if you are not 'Ivan the Terrible'
you are the one". As we can see the victim mentality permits
us to perform a new logic that allows one to be 'P' and not 'P'.
'It doesn't matter if you are not 'Ivan the terrible', as long
as you are him". This kind of obvious logical contradiction
becomes possible only when ethical judgment denies the existence
of Reason completely.
2. Rabbi Farhi's case:
On January 3 2003, Rabbi Farhi, a leading
figure in the French Jewish community, was stabbed and his car
was set on fire. According to Rabbi Farhi's report to the police,
he was attacked by a masked man who shouted "Allah hu
Akbar", God is Great. This description didn't leave
much room for the imagination. Rabbi Farhi was clearly marking
out the religious orientation of the suspect. The attack was
seen around the world as a devious anti-Semitic attack performed
by an Islamic militant. Following worldwide outrage French President
Jacques Chirac denounced the attack publicly by saying "this
odious act arouses indignation".
Two weeks later, the French papers Marianne
and Le Figaro reported that some doubts regarding the
Rabbi Farhi descriptions of the attack were raised by the police
and a medical expert who checked him soon after the event. There
was a severe mismatch between Rabbi Farhi's story and the physical
injuries to be found on his body. According to the newspapers
reports, it is more likely that the Rabbi stabbed himself and
faked the whole saga.
Did he or didn't he inflict his injuries
on himself? The verdict is still out on that and I am not qualified
to judge. What is interesting is the idea that people might injure
themselves. Within Israeli reality this kind of event is more
than possible. If the Zionist identity is associated with suffering,
this very suffering becomes essential to its existence. In other
words, unless Zionists find somebody to inflict pain on them
they must inflict pain on themselves. It is not a coincidence
that Jewish history is an endless chain of holocausts, pogroms
and discrimination because suffering is crucial for the Jews,
it helps them maintain their essential victim mentality. Israeli
and Zionist media outlets cover any attack against Jews around
the world assuming that it must be racially motivated i.e. anti
Semitic. Jewish identity is intimately entangled with anti-Semitism.
It is the Jew who needs to be hated.
Most Israeli and Middle Eastern political
analysts agree that Sharon's power is fuelled by Palestinian
attacks against Israeli civilians. Statistics prove that there
have been more terror attacks under Sharon than under any of
his predecessors. Sharon understands pretty well that he will
remain in power as long as the Israelis are subject to terror
attacks. In order to support his power, Sharon must make the
Palestinians attack and the best way to encourage them to do
so is to terrorise them. The Israeli army assassinates Palestinian
political leaders and Civilians on a regular basis. The IDF deprives
the Palestinian population of food and medical aid. If this is
not enough, Sharon is delaying the building of the sinister 'separation
wall' between Israel and the west Bank just to insure that Palestinian
terrorists have a simple access to Israeli populated centres.
Very much like the alleged Rabbi Farhi's saga, Sharon is dangerous
to himself and his people, he puts their lives at a risk deliberately.
In a society that is driven by broken ethics and a clear denial
of Reason all those activities appear to be more than legitimate.
Sadly enough for the American people, Bush is not too far behind
his Israeli mentor. Very much like Sharon, Bush is doing his
very best to infuriate the Arab people all around the world.
He humiliates them and frames them continuously, he supports
their biggest enemies as well as the most devious of their tyrannies.
Like Sharon, Bush understands that only a major terrorist act
against America can provide him with his people's support. I
think that by now we are allowed to conclude that societies that
are trapped in 'victim mentality' become hostages of their most
direct enemies. A terrifying bond can be seen between our most
devious western right wing leaders and the most merciless terrorist
gangs: between Bush and Bin Laden and between Sharon and the
different suicidal squads.
The only question left to ask is what
Tony Blair should to do amongst these two fanatic immoral hawks?
At the end of the day, he is leader of the labour party. It is
horrifying to admit but at the moment, only a massive terror
attack against the UK could help Blair's sinking political career.
Our prime minister is already in Bin Laden's hands. The British
people must help him out. They can still do that only because
they are not victims yet.
Gilad Atzmon
was born in Israel. He now lives in London, where he is one of
Britain's most acclaimed jazz saxophonists. His band, Orient
House Ensemble, has just released a brilliant new cd titled Exile. He has also published
his first novel, A
Guide to the Perplexed. He can be reached at: atzmon@counterpunch.org.
Yesterday's
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February 22
/ 23, 2003
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