PANY Bulletin Spring 2015 3/6/15 10:57 AM Page 1

Volume 53, Number 1 Spring 2015

PANY
Bulletin of the
Psychoanalytic Association of New York
PANY Bulletin Spring 2015 3/6/15 10:57 AM
You Only Die Once: Why not make it Martyrdom?
by Nedra Ben Smaïl (Association de Formation à la Psychanalyse et d'Echanges Cliniques, AFPEC, Tunis, Tunisia) and
Bruno Boccara (Socio-Analytic Dialogue, New York, NY)
Hubris and rage in grotesque times
This analysis is motivated by the meteoric
rise to the world's consciousness of the Islamic
State, also known as Daesh. While traumatized
and appalled by Daesh's grotesque display of
violence, the West appears intrigued and fasci-
nated by its newly found “bad” object, a trans-
gressor who not only had the audacity to sym-
bolically undo Western dominance by declar-
ing a caliphate1 but one also capable of attract-
ing a significant number of Westerners to its
ranks. As an example, a young French Catholic
girl who, three months after typing Islam on
Google and reciting the Islamic declaration of
faith alone in her rural village, joined Daesh in
Syria. Although our analysis applies in its
majority to Daesh in its entirety, our main
interest lies with those found at the group's
periphery, those individuals about whom
nothing seemed to suggest could be tempted
by martyrdom for Islam.
Even if largely matched by the horrors perpe-
trated by drug cartels in Mexico or Colombia,
Daesh nevertheless stands out for a lust for vio-
lence (e.g., decapitation with knives, crucifix-
ions), considered too extreme even for Al-
Qaeda. In spite of this, the flow of potential
recruits to Daesh continues unabated.
What are we witnessing? Something throw-
ing us back to regressive behaviors that most
hoped had been relegated to the benches of
history; the continuation of the Arab spring;
the psychosocial consequence of a historical
break in Islam?
In order to investigate Daesh's meaning from
a psychosocial perspective, we rely on patient
data gathered in Tunisia, including some who
1. The 1924 end of the Ottoman caliphate, following the
establishment of the Turkish republic was experienced as a
huge narcissistic injury in the Muslim world. This was exacer-
bated by the disclosure of the1916 Sykes-Picot agreement
between England and France determining each country's
sphere of influence. The most symbolic action of Daesh thus
became the bulldozing of the border between Syria and Iraq,
an undoing of a chosen trauma in the eyes of many Muslims.
See, Volkan (2004) for the definition of a chosen trauma.
Page 9
are/were in psychoanalytic therapy, as well as
on psychological vignettes published in
France. The patients include relatives of indi-
viduals that went to Syria and individuals who
expressed the wish to wage jihad, some of
whom ended up joining jihadist groups there.
The French vignettes are mostly drawn from
interviews published by Thomson (2014), a
journalist who obtained unparalleled access to
French jihadists. Both sets of data are unique
and provide a rich and in-depth window into
the psychosocial dynamics surrounding
Daesh. This is particularly the case with the
psychoanalytic-based data, information,
which to our knowledge, is not available else-
where and has never been written about.
However, in spite of our reliance on patient
data, our interest is at the societal rather than
the individual level (i.e., shared anxieties and
romance, social defenses, projections and
introjections). Our main focus is on the psy-
chosocial consequences of living under dicta-
torships, the political context of the majority of
countries in the Arab world, in Islamic soci-
eties. We, therefore, endeavor to take into con-
sideration the ways in which Islam is likely to
be internalized, or the “Muslim within.”
Tunisia is particularly relevant as, unlike
other countries where massive protests
occurred, the transition went smoothly enough
to allow societal unconscious derivatives and
affects surrounding the Arab Spring to remain
sufficiently accessible.
The article is organized as follows: The fol-
lowing two sections examine the psychosocial
consequences of totalitarianism in the Arab
world and how the juxtaposition of repetitive
narcissistic injuries from living in dictatorships
and of Islam lead to an impossibility, an
unbearable shame from which there seems to
be no way out. But, this is not the whole story.
Deconstructing, at least partially, the explana-
tions provided in the second and third sec-
9
PANY Bulletin Spring 2015 3/6/15 10:57 AM
Why Not Martyrdom?
Ben Smail and Boccara
tions, the concluding section argues that
Daesh transcends cultures, possibly even reli-
gions, in the sense of representing, albeit in an
extreme form, a rebellion against a world that
has become meaningless and futureless.
Undoing narcissistic injuries
Daesh's significance cannot be understood
without reference to uprisings against dictato-
rial regimes as it came of age during the Syrian
civil war, which itself began in the context of
the Arab Spring protests. This article uses
Tunisia as a proxy for the various dictatorships,
which thrived in the Arab world prior to the
Arab Spring.
As argued in Boccara (2014), the worldwide
protests of 2011, including the Tunisian revolu-
tion, can be interpreted as a response to the
despair and ensuing loss of dignity brought on
by a social system experienced as perverse and
unfair. The most important characteristic of
the perverse state of mind that existed under
the dictatorship in Tunisia was the contempt
for the general population shamelessly
expressed by those in power. The elites experi-
enced pleasure at the expense of denigrated
others, whose existence they were incapable of
genuinely recognizing. As a consequence,
these others, reduced to objects of contempt,
experienced their powerlessness as psycholog-
ical death.
From a psychosocial perspective, life in
Tunisia before the 2011 revolution was experi-
enced as a succession of narcissistic injuries of
increasing intensity and, as such, as cumula-
tive traumas. In creating a society entirely
dependent upon an authoritarian regime, the
dictatorship reactivated archaic mental repre-
sentations of omnipotent parents (on whom
one depends entirely) and, as a result, ended
up placing its subjects in an infantile position.
As a defense against the narcissistic injuries,
and shame, resulting from the infantilizing dic-
tatorship, the social system in Tunisia had sev-
eral characteristics. Individuals often turned
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Page 10
into (unwilling) accomplices to the perverse
system. In an act of surrender, they engaged in
self-censorship of thought. In response to a
child-like unconscious need to be loved, they
adopted a masochist position in an environ-
ment where intimidation, humiliation, and
violence were the norm.
As a consequence, the youth inherited a nar-
cissistic injury from the previous generation;
parents who, in accepting the prevailing domi-
nant/dominated relationship, had allowed
themselves to be deceived and abused by the
regime. Identification with the previous gener-
ation was thus fraught with complexities.
In doing away with the infantile position, the
revolution opened the way for the recognition
of differences in subjectivities that were previ-
ously hidden. However, in spite of being humil-
iating, the infantile position was not necessari-
ly anxiety-provoking since most decisions were
delegated to the “Authority.” Furthermore, the
society's transformation implied by recogniz-
ing differences in subjectivities was experi-
enced as an attack on what had been introject-
ed following years of living in a dictatorship. As
a consequence, almost immediately after the
initial euphoria, the revolution brought anxi-
eties; recognizing subjectivities was, and still is,
resisted. The fact that a revolution can quickly
be perceived as dangerous is, for example, evi-
denced by a female patient when she says, “I
registered to vote! But ultimately it is God who
shall decide what is good for us.” An undoing,
transferring to God one's newly found respon-
sibilities, immediately follows the first action,
registering to vote. Thus, that patient regresses
to the point of abandoning her ability to think
and decide her fate and that of her society to
the “Authority,” an internalized totalitarian
object now threatened by the revolution.
Voting limits the omnipotence of the internal-
ized object and is therefore expected to pro-
voke its anger; the patient fears retaliation.
Note that the transfer of one's decision making
PANY Bulletin Spring 2015 3/6/15 10:57 AM
Why Not Martyrdom?
Ben Smail and Boccara
to God is precisely what drives extremist reli-
gious groups. Stein (2010), for example, argues
that Islamic extremists' actions are primarily
motivated by a love of God, with whom one
aims to merge, rather than by blind hatred.
Individuals also introjected the need to
belong, in a fusion-like fashion, to the homo-
geneous society that was the hallmark, albeit in
fantasy, of the dictatorship. As such, attempts
at independence of thought or action were
experienced as abandoning the group. In
Tunisia, the specter of the pariah, no longer
entitled to acceptance by others and con-
demned to solitude, was always seen as a real
threat.
In relying on childhood affects to consolidate
their power, Arab dictatorships led to signifi-
cant modifications in object relations at the
level of the entire society. Individuals, like
needy infants, submitted to the absolute power
and the will of the “Authority,” which, at the
psychic level, became like an all-encompassing
mother. Individuals, hostage to an imposed
authoritarian and rigid societal superego,
became traumatized. In the case of Tunisia, the
accompanying modification in object relations
at the level of the entire society was experi-
enced as a sadistic rape-like intrusion of the
environment upon each individual. This
repression was not compensated for by any
other gratification since neither institutions
nor the economic system could offer any sol-
ace. The more abusive the dictatorship was and
the less it recognized subjectivities, the greater
propensity there became for youth to respond
with violence, including dehumanized and
uninhibited sadism (e.g., lynching of
Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, gang rapes in
Cairo's Tahrir Square). The observed cruelty is
the consequence of the reversal of the internal-
ized victim/repressor relationship; the mental
representation of the repressor being that of an
executioner. The denial of any form of expres-
sion, mental and physical abuse, and lack of
Page 11
economic opportunities fed feelings of being
denigrated and desires for blind and sadistic
vengeance. The destructive impulses then
become the expression of impotence due to
the impossibility for the society to effectively
contain its citizens.
Passivity and suppression of the feminine in
Islam
This section deepens the analysis by arguing
that dictatorships in the Arab world ended up
creating unmanageable psychosocial dynam-
ics due to the unbearable shame that the expe-
rience of passivity may bring in Islamic soci-
eties.
As Benslama (2009) argues, origin in Islam2
manifests itself in the suppression of the femi-
nine. Thus, Hagar herself, mother of Ishmael
from whom the Arab people descend, is strik-
ingly not mentioned in the Koran. As danger-
ous objects, women are, therefore, hidden
from view; the proscriptions governing
women's lives in Islamic societies are well-
known. In such phallic societies, passivity
towards “Authority,” whose mental representa-
tion can only be of a male form, is likely to be
experienced as feminization, in the sense of
having to submit (sexually) to penetration.
These associations, strongly reinforced in the
Islamic context, explain, for example, why the
mental representation of totalitarianism in
Tunisia was that of a sadistic rape-like intru-
sion. As a consequence, in Islamic societies,
the narcissistic injury induced by feelings of
passivity has had a propensity to bring unbear-
able shame.
At the deepest level, it is this perceived femi-
nization—and what it implies in a society
where women are made purposely invisible—
that makes it impossible for youth to identify
with the generation of their parents; a genera-
tion they despise but nevertheless wish to
repair. Furthermore, the youth finds itself the
2. Arabs trace their ancestry to Abraham through Hagar, his
slave companion, and her son Ishmael.
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PANY Bulletin Spring 2015 3/6/15 10:57 AM
Why Not Martyrdom?
Ben Smail and Boccara
recipient of an intergenerational transmission
of a narcissistic injury at a time, or develop-
ment phase, when it is confronted with sexual
identity issues, precisely when masculine nar-
cissism is at its highest intensity. Furthermore,
homosexuality, associated with passivity and
feminization in the Arab world, is considered
an abomination and, as such, condemned
morally and socially.
The negation of the feminine renders the
passivity intolerable since feminization is akin
to annihilation. In response, violence, previ-
ously repressed, is mobilized. For some, it
becomes the only defense which can be mobi-
lized against anxieties inherited from both the
dictatorship and the recognition of alternative
subjectivities brought about by structural
changes in their societies.
Therefore, Daesh's attractiveness to Arab
youth and, for some, a subsequent departure
for Syria, can only be understood as a psy-
chosocial response to complex issues. These
include the wish to undo the narcissistic injury
transmitted by previous generations, repair the
shared identity damaged by repeated humilia-
tion in history, and protect against the intru-
sion of alternative subjectivities, especially the
feminine, in the public space. The latter rein-
forces the correlation between adolescence (or
delayed adolescence) and the attraction to
jihad.
Furthermore, Islamist movements, jihadist
or not, offer a uniquely strong community
where all members become brothers, or as they
refer to one another in French, frères. Islam
also offers simple and reassuring rules, in par-
ticular regarding sexual identity. As a society, it
attempts to prevent potential conflicts sur-
rounding sexual identity with the forceful split-
ting of the space in which genders interact, the
adoption of mores, whose psychosocial role is
to signify boundaries between genders (e.g.,
the beard for men, the covering of women's
bodies), and the impossibility (out of fear) of
12
Page 12
recognizing feminine Jouissance. (See Ben
Smaïl (2013) for a psychoanalytic perspective
on sexuality and Islam.) At the unconscious
level, bisexuality can be repressed, with men
never having to confront their own femininity,
and castration anxiety defended against to the
extent that a phallic society only recognizes the
male sex. In a similar fashion, Daesh, as an
exclusively male community, preserves any
encounter with feminine subjectivity as
women are reduced to objects of consumption
in the service of fighters, as shown by the sale
of slaves and by alleged rape. Last, the brutal
images of beheadings bring to mind Medusa's
head, a metaphor for the feminine, which is
decapitated for the threat it poses.
Therefore, unbearable shame, anxieties sur-
rounding subjectivities, and wish to repair a
damaged identity can create a strong attraction
to Daesh. To those dreaming of going to Syria,
Daesh provides exactly what the world
deprives them of: meaning, future, and con-
tainment. It not only repairs what may have
been, for some, a deficient family structure but
also, and more importantly, what is for all of
them a perverse society unable to fulfill its con-
taining function. In joining Daesh, individuals
adopt an extremely harsh and unforgiving
superego, God. Although feared, God is also
respected and to them, worth the sacrifice of
one's life. But contrary to what might be the
assumption, jihadists do not consider them-
selves to be suicidal. Going further, their
action, even when they die, is not suicidal. In
saying, “We like death as much as infidels love
life… death is our goal3 ", Yassine is, in fact,
talking about what, to him, is experienced as
his rebirth. The same is also in evidence with a
Tunisian patient saying, "there the person dies
and lives again.” Incidentally, shahid (witness
in Arabic), the word chosen in the Koran to
describe martyrs refers to a death, which is
3.See, Thomson (2014), p. 17.
PANY Bulletin Spring 2015 3/6/15 10:57 AM
Why Not Martyrdom?
Ben Smail and Boccara
immediately undone4; the martyr, in
Benslama’s (2014) terminology is equated to a
“mort vivant”5. In a similar fashion, another
young Tunisian who ultimately chose not to
leave with his friends explained how he envied
them for having become martyrs, while anoth-
er potential recruit justified his intention to
join Daesh by stating, “we must create a new
world, undocked from the original, and regen-
erate ourselves.”
This rebirth into a new identity, whose psy-
chosocial function is to undo the unbearable
shame by bestowing upon the candidate to
martyrdom the authority that he never had
before, is symbolically enacted by the adoption
of a new name, a new lineage in fact, as the new
name begins with Abu, or father. Furthermore,
Daesh endows itself with magical qualities in
its capacity to undo what is likely to be the
most important chosen trauma of the Muslim
world. Thus, the experience of creating some-
thing new through rebirth is reinforced by the
fact that it occurs at both the individual and
the group level.
It is therefore primarily in the name of restor-
ing the subject's primary narcissism that mur-
ders are committed rather than solely in refer-
ence to religion. Beheadings do, however, carry
an important religious connotation. One of the
major Muslim celebrations commemorates
Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his own son
(and Ishmael's willingness to submit to God's
will), a sheep being ritually slaughtered in
remembrance of God having substituted a ram
for Ishmael. Furthermore, the religion itself
does not shy away from violence since sharia
law encourages proselytism, including by vio-
lent means, and recommends severe corporal
punishments for several offences, particularly
those concerning sexuality.
The expectation of rebirth through the cre-
ation of something entirely new and the pull of
being accepted into a community of frères
4.See, the third Surah, verse 169-170 in the Koran.
5.Mort vivant refers to a dead person who would also be
alive. See, Benslama (2014), p. 35.
Page 13
explain why many European recruits do not
even come from Muslim backgrounds while
recruits from Tunisia are often not from very
religious families. Extremism is first and fore-
most a disavowal of the previous—and pas-
sive—generation; joining Daesh is a defense
against the severe narcissistic injury inflicted
on a disenchanted and humiliated youth.
Psychological death can only be averted
through exiting the perverse social system.
Thus, although often nothing seems to suggest
a propensity for sadism amongst the would-be
or future jihadists, the most gruesome violence
nevertheless does not appear to be a source of
conflict once they reach Syria. See, for exam-
ple, Thomson's (2014) account of French
jihadists joking about decapitation.6 To the
contrary, Daesh is seen as performing a repair
act by terrorizing the world, violent acts against
“others” seen as a just retaliation for what has
been done to “them” and as forcing Western
countries and their leaders to respond. Some,
on the other hand, are in complete denial,
refusing to believe that their frères can commit
such horrific acts, either believing that execu-
tioners are renegades of Daesh or that the vic-
tims are, in fact, willing participants. Thus, a
young Tunisian explained as a matter of fact
how, “A woman stoned for adultery smiled,
proof that she was satisfied with her lot and
was thankful to finally be given the opportuni-
ty to submit to Allah's justice.” Finally, there
could ultimately be little difference in the men-
tal representations that youngsters may have
of violence shown on jihadist websites and on
hyper-realistic images of video games, such as
Assassin's Creed Unity.7 This would be particu-
larly relevant to individuals whose recruitment
6.Thus, two young French jihadists in Syria commented on
a Facebook profile of someone posting a particularly grue-
some decapitation video filmed with his phone, “At least, for
these two, one can say that they do not have their heads
firmly on their shoulders [meaning they are do not have
much sense] lol”. See, Thomson (2014), p. 88.
7. Le Figaro argues that Daesh's propaganda videos could
use decapitations in Assassin's Creed Unity, a video game
about the French revolution and its guillotine, to address
potential recruits in a language they can relate to.
13
PANY Bulletin Spring 2015 3/6/15 10:57 AM
Why Not Martyrdom?
Ben Smail and Boccara
—and, for some, conversion to Islam—is often
the result of self-indoctrination through the
web where a virtual community of frères exists.
These individuals are more likely to have had
their object relations impoverished through an
existence in a virtual world. The virtual com-
munity often coalesces around an apocalyptic
world, in which each member can become a
hero. Reality and fantasy collide and, at least
initially, Daesh may not be more real than a
video game.
Thus, between an omniscient and rejecting
West and the restrictions and lack of opportu-
nities imposed by omnipotent regimes, Arab
societies became unable to function as “good
enough” containers. For the youth alienated by
feelings of loneliness, despair can lead to
regression to primal hate and sadism. As a
social defense, Daesh, an apocalyptical rebirth
fantasy, is mobilized with the goal of killing
“others” in the name of a vengeful God. In ritu-
ally killing human beings, Daesh effectively
obeys God's initial injunction to Abraham,
blurring the difference between myth and real-
ity. In doing so, Daesh expresses its complete
submission to God, whom it is ready to avenge
no matter what. Furthermore, the apocalypti-
cal rebirth fantasy is anchored by the fact that
Daesh can pretend to be part of a Koranic
prophecy, Syria mentioned in hadiths8 as the
location of the apocalypse before the final
judgment.
The conclusion above, however, cannot be
applied as stated to Westerners. For them, an
intergenerational transmission of a narcissistic
injury exacerbated by Islam does not exist. But
yet, Westerners, including individuals never
exposed to intergenerational transmission of
humiliation, as might for example be the case
for children of immigrants from the Maghreb,
identify with and, in some cases, join Daesh.
Thus, something appears still to be missing.
8. Hadiths are the prophet Muhammad's teachings collected
after his death.
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Page 14
Indignation in the age of Assassin's Creed
Unity
Societal anxieties, as a consequence of rapid
disruptions to ways of life and perverse societal
dynamics, are likely to be high and, thanks to
globalization, largely shared. See, for example,
Long (2008) and Stapley (2006). Thus, the pro-
found alienation due to the loss of meaning
and, therefore, disappearance of society's con-
taining function is not specific to either youth
in the Arab world or young Muslims. Although
the psychosocial mechanisms leading to this
alienation may seemingly differ, the end result
is the same. The narcissistic injury of being a
subject in perverse societies may, for some, be
nearly as intense as that of living in a dictatori-
al regime. Consumerism destroys meaning in
individual's lives by perpetrating culture's
obsession with individual pleasure, often at the
expense of others. This also leads to a sense of
deprivation, worthlessness, humiliation, and
being looked upon with contempt. Therefore,
Western societies are also becoming increas-
ingly unlikely to act as “good enough” contain-
ers. This outcome is a reflection of shifts in cul-
tures, which allow narcissism and instrumental
relations to profoundly alter object relations at
the level of entire societies, dramatically
increasing, as a consequence, the propensity
for perverse dynamics to take hold. The ensu-
ing feeling of alienation and revulsion at the
perverse system can sometimes become
unbearable. In an attempt to escape from what
becomes akin to one's psychological death,
individuals may deliberately choose to exit the
system. For some, whether or not Muslims and
whether or not Westerners, this leads to a com-
munity of frères, which is believed to flourish
within Daesh. Acceptance by Daesh, a flat
structure organization that strives, albeit in
death, to empower its recruits, gives a sense of
belonging and allows to fulfill the otherwise
elusive search to become respected. Regardless
of one's origin or religion of origin, narcissism
is repaired. The underlying despair goes how-
PANY Bulletin Spring 2015 3/6/15 10:57 AM
Why Not Martyrdom?
Ben Smail and Boccara
ever beyond what is caused by the wish to do
away with perverse societal dynamics; Daesh,
in turn, becoming a quixotic attempt to find a
sufficiently good container in a world where, to
the jihadists and other disenchanted individu-
als, there is none to be found.
In addition, similar to our reading of the
Tunisian revolution as a war on subjectivities,
Western societies can also be experienced as
dangerous. The concomitant revolution in sex-
ual mores (e.g., marriage equality, surrogacy,
right to adoption by homosexual couples) and
change in parental habits (e.g., children can do
no wrong) can be disconcerting because it
either blurs boundaries or makes them disap-
pear altogether. Constructing a superego may
become elusive. On the other hand, in protect-
ing adolescents, Muslim or non-Muslim, from
confronting castration and gender differences,
Islam provides an unforgiving but reassuring
superego.
Thus, Daesh seems capable to transcend cul-
tures, perhaps even religions. Incidentally,
jihadist videos today, many in languages other
than Arabic, are less prone to mention God but
will often have perverse societal dynamics, for
example in reference to injustice or unfairness,
figure prominently in their message.
This, of course, raises a serious issue. What
about the violence? How can youth today,
including from the Western world which does
not share the traumatic history of the Arab
world, decide to join a community for whom
killing becomes a source of perverse pleasure?
Although in absolute term, Daesh has only
attracted a small number of recruits, its ability
to do so signals unequivocally in our view that
regressive dynamics worldwide are at a turning
point. Thus, rather than considering Daesh as
solely an extreme manifestation of Islamic
extremism, it is likely that valuable insights can
be gained from also reflecting on its universal-
ity. Therefore, in our view, the significant chal-
lenge posed by groups such as Daesh can only
be adequately addressed by addressing upfront
Page 15
the profound and rapidly worsening psychoso-
cial issues which render societies, independ-
ently of religion and geography, incapable of
satisfactorily contain their members, particu-
larly the youth. Failure to do so will only
impoverish further societal level group rela-
tions and, as a consequence, increase the
propensity of groups worldwide to engage in
extreme violence.
.
References
Ben Smaïl, N. Vierges: La Nouvelle Sexualite
des Tunisiennes, Ceres, Tunis, Tunisia, 2013
Benslama, F. Psychoanalysis and the
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Edition Aubier Montaigne, Paris, 2002
Benslama, F. La Guerre des Subjectivités en
Islam, Editions Lignes, Paris 2014
Boccara, B., Socio-Analytic Dialogue:
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Public Policies, Lexington Books, Lanham, MD
2014
Long S., “The Perverse Organization and its
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Stein, R. For Love of the Father: A
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15