Mothers of War
A young Israeli student studying in London recently came to the museum for 'work experience'. He is soon to go into the army. We had long chats and he described to me the potent combination of fear and frustration that now vitiates the relationship between his fellow Israelis and the Palestinians. In a moment of heart rending poignancy, he described how bitterly disappointed he had been as a child when told by a teacher that he would not have to go into the army, since by the time he was old enough there would be peace. Now his time has come and the prospect only fills him with fear. He looked back on his inoccent childhood enthusiasm with amused nostalgia; like so many little boys he was only too delighted to imagine himself with a gun, able to despatch his enemies at a distance with impunity. "If only the problem could just magically disappear!' he seemed to be saying, or 'go to the fwont!' as one of Freud's little informants said to his father in 'The Interpretation of Dreams'.
Despite his young age he was old enough to have traversed a political spectrum - from left wing peace activist to dissillusioned 'realist'. 'We offered them everything and they spat in our faces' he said. 'You cannot reason with these people'. He was particularly aghast that mothers would be pleased to send their sons to be blown up - what kind of mother would behave like that? This more than anything else was incontrovertable proof of the gulf between the civilized Israelis and the barbaric Palestinians. And with his openness and intelligence and his struggle for moral clarity I could see how anyone might come to the same conclusion.
How might Freud have responded to my young friend? It is a habit of Freud's thought to relate what seems initially bizarre and alien - revolting even - to something in our everyday experience, or even the sublime.Perhaps he would have pointed out that generations of mothers stretching back in time have sacrificed their sons to the male gods of war. In his characteristic way he may have generalised the experience to show that the idea of sacrifice - often of a child - is at the core of many religions. Whether by accident or design this has been one of the roles of mothers throughout history.
During the Great War, the 'White feather brigade' were women who would humiliate men in public by pinning white feathers to their lapels as a symbol of cowardice. The Personal Column of The Times (8th July, 1915) contained a typical admonition:
"Jack F.G. If you are not in khaki by the 20th I shall cut you dead. Ethel M."
Urging their sons and lovers to the front, the women of Britain were an enthusiastic means of recruitment for the war effort. Presumably Ethel M. would have been herself in some way humiliated if Jack had not joined up, and I am sure that, given the prospect of being cut dead by Ethel or facing German machine gunners, he took what he considered to be the safest course of action.
If Ethel lost something when Jack refused to go, it is clear that she would have gained something when he enlisted. It's not hard to imagine the scene with her friends: "My Jack's joined up you know. He looks so lovely in his uniform..." - conversations which in more peaceful times may have been about a proposal of marriage and the showing off of rings. Nor is it hard to imagine that when the telegram arrived with news of Jack's honourable death - and what fleeting fantasy may have passed through her mind as she read the words 'killed in action'? - she also may have gained something from a psychological point of view. A sense of pride of course, but also a kind of satisfaction. In some strange way, she felt 'fulfilled', as if Jack's death had indeed the religious significance of redemption. His sacrifice had made her whole.
In his paper 'Thoughts for the Times on War and Death', Freud illuminates some of the ambiguities about our attitude to death. He notices that: "Towards the actual person who has died we adopt a special attitude - something almost like admiration for someone who has accomplished a difficult task". The complexity of feeling is magnified with the death of those near to us. Had Freud been listening to the conversation in the pub, he may have picked up on the phrase 'My Jack'. It was as if Jack was part of her, as indeed he was, "an inner possession" as Freud called it in the same paper, a "component of our own ego".
Jack does something for Ethel. He dies for her. And out of this terrible loss something is gained. Pride, and something more. Jack is part of Ethel. An inner possession which she has put into the world. Just as many parents do with their children, she is living part of her life through Jack, her hopes and aspirations, her ideals and wishes. In some bizarre way, Jack's destruction gives her inner strength. Thus it might be that if we questioned the many women of the Great War who never married after their fiances or husbands were killed, we might find not that they were in mourning for their lost loves, but that they felt more complete and able to live without a man.
Perhaps Freud (and for those readers who take everything literally, yes, I'm making this up) walking back from the pub where he overheard Ethel and her friends, remembered a statue on his desk and the myth associated with it. It is a mother and child. Not the famous Christian version but the ancient Egyptian one of Isis and Horus. There's no nonsense about Holy Ghosts in this tale, but there is still a magical pregnancy. The father Osiris is killed by his brother, his body dismembered and the pieces buried across Egypt. In her despair and longing Isis searches for the fragments, joins them together and reanimates the body. You will not be surprised to know that one part of the body in particular was reserved for special mention. Osiris impregnates Isis and gives her a son. In the destruction of Osiris the magical potency of Isis is revealed.
For the Palestinian mothers today, like mothers of the past, what kind of gratification is there (from a psychoanalytic point of view) through the sacrifice (and bodily fragmentation) of the child? We are dealing here with a logic in which "two minuses make a plus". Part of me is lost, then it is lost again through sacrifice, and in that second loss I gain pride and potency. Wouldn't Freud simply say that the mother is losing a child but gaining a phallus?
I will leave it to feminist readers to supply an alternative answer.
Freud Today | Education Page