University of Bath PHD The Grief of Nations: An analysis of how nations behave in the wake of loss: does it constitute grief? Malamah-Thomas, Ann Award date: 2011 Awarding institution: University of Bath Link to publication Alternative formats If you require this document in an alternative format, please contact: [email protected] General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 07. Oct. 2021 The Grief of Nations An Analysis of How Nations Behave in the Wake of Loss: Does it Constitute Grief? Ann Malamah-Thomas A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Bath Department of Social and Policy Sciences July 2011 COPYRIGHT Attention is drawn to the fact that copyright of this thesis rests with the author. A copy of this thesis has been supplied on condition that anyone who consults it is understood to recognise that its copyright rests with the author and that they must not copy it or use material from it except as permitted by law or with the consent of the author. This thesis may be made available for consultation within the University Library and, with the exception of the visual images it contains, may be photocopied or lent to other libraries for the purposes of consultation. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1. THE NATURE OF GRIEF 9 Defining Grief 10 Approaching Grief 12 Analysing Grief: The Fundamentals 23 Summary 44 CHAPTER 2. COLLECTIVE GRIEF: THE GRIEF OF NATIONS 46 Collective Grief 47 Studies of Grieving Groups 54 The Nation 64 The Grieving Nation 70 Summary 83 CHAPTER 3. TRACING THE CONTOURS OF NATIONAL GRIEF: METHODOLOGY 84 Research Design 85 Case Selection 88 History Data Sources 91 Current Identity Data Sources 93 Ethical Issues 103 Limitations and Potential 108 CHAPTER 4. PALESTINE: A CASE OF DISENFRANCHISED GRIEF?111 The Nation 112 The Loss 118 The Emotional Reaction 127 Making Sense of the Loss 135 Context and Consequences 145 Summary 152 CHAPTER 5. ISRAEL: A NATION BUILT ON GRIEF? 154 The Nation 155 The Loss 162 The Emotional Reaction 170 Making Sense of the Loss 179 Context and Consequences 189 Summary 196 CHAPTER 6. THE PICTURE TODAY: ISRAELI AND PALESTINIAN CONTEMPORARY VISUAL ARTS 198 The Land 201 The Life 224 The Dream 250 Summary 262 CHAPTER 7. GRIEF AND NATIONS 267 National Grief 267 Nations 285 Grief 289 REFERENCES 296 The Grief of Nations Abstract This dissertation is concerned with the question of whether nations grieve, whether the behaviour they exhibit in the wake of loss can be said to constitute grief. Initially exploring the concepts of both grief and nation in order to establish the feasibility of national grief as a notion, it goes on to examine the applicability of grief theory, traditionally developed in the context of the individual suffering bereavement, to large-scale national collectives which have undergone significant shared loss. The investigation is conducted with reference to two case studies: the Palestinian people in the aftermath of the loss of their land to the creation of Israel in the nakba of 1948; and Israel itself, as a manifestation of the European Jewish response to the holocaust and the centuries of loss and suffering which led up to it. In both cases, the relevant periods of history are scanned to see to what extent, if any, historical accounts reflect the contours and parameters of the grieving experience as the latter is described and defined in the grief theory literature. In addition, and serving to triangulate the evidence thus gleaned from national history, the contemporary visual arts of both nations, with their observation of and comment on the dominant features and issues of current national identity, are employed as data sources and explored with a view to ascertaining whether they reflect any themes expressive of or pertinent to collective historical loss and grief. The findings from this research into national history and identity within a grief experience framework may serve to open up a new direction for the further development of grief theory. They may also, in revealing the insights afforded by a grief theory perspective on long-term interactions within the global community, offer some contribution to the study of international relations. INTRODUCTION “Scholarly research is often motivated by personal experiences” (Sand 2009, p.1) The motivation for this particular piece of research into national grief certainly fits into that category. It arose from personal experiences gained in the context of a career overseas in the field of international cultural relations. Not perhaps so inherently prone to either the power-games which can plague international relations per se, nor the inequality in relationships which can bedevil international development programmes, international cultural relations, at their most professional, involve the genuine attempt, from a position of respect and equality, to understand another way of life, to work out what makes another people tick. Cultural relations are often used in the service of the political or economic agendas of international relations practitioners; they can equally be employed in the furtherance of international development strategies and the facilitation of development projects. At their worst and most naive, international cultural relations can amount to little more than tub-thumping a nation’s opinions and showcasing their achievements. But at their best and most effective, they entail engagement and dialogue with another society to an extent that enhances the understanding of how that society functions; of its hopes and fears, its values and concerns; of what makes it proud and what gives it cause for shame and embarrassment; of what problems it has faced during the course of its history and how it has coped with those problems. For well over three decades, I worked at this international coal face, arriving in a new country every three or four years, trying to get to grips with its society and culture so as to more easily and relevantly present our own, and thus embark on a meaningful interchange conducted in cultural terms. Arriving at an appreciation of another nation’s way of life was my bread-and- butter, with the result that the acquisition of such an appreciation through everyday experiences and interactions became second nature over time, as 1 taken-for-granted as breathing. So much so that, whenever experience presented a challenge in terms of understanding, whenever some puzzling instances of collective conduct did not seem to easily fit into any previously acquired patterns, I could do nothing other than sit up and take notice. The specific experiences which gave direction to this research date from my time in the Lebanon, six years in the nineties from shortly after the Taif Accord which brought the fifteen year multi-faceted civil war there to an end. But they did not concern the Lebanese themselves. During my time in Lebanon, I learned a great deal about the highly complex and sophisticated society in which I was living (or, rather, societies, plural, since every bend in the road seemed to lead to another distinct culture in this tiny nation of over a dozen different ‘confessions’, or religious groupings). I slowly got to grips with its complicated demography and equally convoluted history, and grew to love it as no other country I had ever worked in. While fully aware that one can never completely understand another nation, in the same way as one can never wholly comprehend another individual, I managed to peel away a few layers of obfuscation in Lebanon and gain some degree of understanding of what makes the Lebanese tick. But what really intrigued me, and what I could not so readily explain, was the behaviour of two other peoples that I did not have such easy access to: the Israeli neighbours, and the Palestinians living around Lebanon, for the most part in various refugee camps. When I first arrived in Beirut, Israeli planes would fly over the city every day around lunchtime, breaking the sound barrier, presumably just to remind the inhabitants, if they needed any reminding, that Israel was there. After a few years, these regular daily forays were discontinued, and replaced by more irregular fly-overs, often at two or three in the morning, and frequently resulting in shattered windows in many parts of the city. These muscle- flexing, threatening gestures were accompanied by actions intended as reprisals for Hizbollah attack from the south of Lebanon, actions which from a Beirut-based perspective seemed way out of proportion to what in the mid- nineties amounted largely to the firing of old Katyusha rockets into the fields of northern Israel. The Israelis, for example, would send F16s up the coast on an almost annual basis to take out the main power station for Lebanon, 2 situated in the north of Beirut, and leave half the country in the dark, reliant on private and neighbourhood generators, for several weeks. Once, I remember, these planes even turned back, halfway home to Israel, so that they could take out the fire engines racing up the highway from central Beirut to put out the fires at the bombed power station.