Iakov Levi
Saddam Hussein and the Psychoanalytic Meaning of Hanging
2006-12-30
and they hanged
them in the mountain before Yahweh, and they fell [all] seven together.
They were put to death in the days
of harvest, in the first days, at
the beginning of barley harvest [...]
After that God was entreated for
the land. (II Sam.
21:9-14)
During his trial, Saddam
Hussein asked the
judge - in case of a capital punishment sentence - to be executed by
a firing
squad and not by hanging.
It occurred to me that the reason might be
that hanging is associated with physical pain more than shooting.
However, on a
second thinking, I came to realize that - in our days - death by hanging is
immediate, by the breaking of the neck, and not by suffocation. There
must be
something more in the natural aversion of being hanged.
Moreover, the question is not only why
Saddam Hussein personally preferred to be shot. The real question is
why to
his judges was so important hanging him rather than shooting
him. A
death is a death is a death. Or isn't it?
In Medieval and Renaissance England death by hanging was reserved to commoners, whilst beheading was reserved instead to noblemen. Beheading and hanging were considered equivalent. However, the former was apparently considered somewhat nobler.
As Freud has shown, beheading is equivalent of castration[1].
As Freud himself has sustained[2], every death is equivalent to castration. However, as we shall see, hanging is an even more concrete representation of the act of castrating. A man suspended by a rope represents an inversion of a rope – or a thread – suspended from him.
As Abraham has shown[3],
a thread is a penis’ symbol.
As
confirmation that the rope is a penis' symbol, I quote from a book by
Theodor
Reik: " A woman whose sexual life
was unsatisfactory
and who lived in an unhappy marriage began a psychoanalytic session
with the
words: 'I am at the end of my rope'. The woman unconsciously associated her sexual life with a 'rope' ”[4]
.
A
psychoanalyst told me of one of his patients who dreamed of his father,
attached to a rope, hanging on an abyss, and fishing into a waterfall.
As the
say goes: "To hang by a thread".
Then, the father stared at him with a very angry glance. By the chain
of
associations subsequent to the dream, it became clear that what the
patient was
omitting is that he had desired to cut that rope, which held his father
from
falling into the abyss. Therefore, the instinctual drive expressed by
the dream
is to castrate his father. Since water is always associated with the
mother, the dream expressed the fantasy of seeing
his father
performing intercourse with his mother (fishing into the water), and at
that
very time castrating him (cutting the rope). The penis’ symbol (the rope)
was displaced from the lower part of father’s body into the higher par
of the
representation. The inversion, typical to dreams, represented the
father held
by a rope, instead of the other way around: the father holding the rope.
A man suspended by a rope - penis represents the inversion of a rope - penis suspended from a man. It is a concretization of the unconscious equivalence between a man and his own penis. I have dealt with this issue in “Hamlet. The Puberty Rite of a Danish Prince and His Companions"
Furthermore, Theodor Reik
refers of
patients dealing with the penis as if it were a person[5]
In poetry, literature,
and in manner of speech, we are used to compare life itself with a
thread,
which as pointed by Abraham (Supra), is a penis' symbol.
Therefore,
cutting that thread is equivalent to castration = death. Tom Wolfe, one
of the
greatest contemporary writers, says: “You still
think you are going to live forever! And in fact, you are attached to
your
youth only by a thread, not a cord, not a cable, and that thread can
snap at
any moment, and it will snap soon in any case. And then where are you?”[6]
Now we are able to understand why it was so important to Saddam’s judges to hang him, instead of just shooting him.
It is an unconscious repetition
of the
prehistoric struggle between the strongest member of the horde and his
enemies.
As the prehistoric Father punished by castration his rebellious sons,
and as he
was himself castrated by a rival who could make it in overcoming and
substituting him, so the victors of this struggle too had to openly
demonstrate
their superiority by hanging – castrating – punishing Saddam Hussein, a
strong
leader himself accused of having usurped the Law.
Because, after all, the Law is the Law of
the Father. However, what it means? Who the Father is?
Who is in his right, and who is the
usurper?
Well, in our unconscious, the only right is
the right of the strongest member of the horde.
This is also the reason why captured
hostages - who feel impotent vis a vis their captors - begin to
identify
with their abductors. A very well known phenomenon called “The
Stockholm
Syndrome”. The circumstances of captivity draw them back into the
phylogenic
condition of the impotent sons, abused by their omnipotent father. If
he is
stronger beyond their capability of opposing him, he must be right,
after all.
In the same manner, little children - who are routinely abused by their parents - identify
with their
abusing parents, fixate their libido on their condition, and are
condemned to
repeat the childish situation in a sadistic or sadomasochistic position.
As long as Saddam Hussein was the strongest member of the horde, he could obtain his subjects’ submission. In a primitive society, it was his “right” to castrate and to abuse others, as long as he could prove to be the strongest.
Now, it had to be proved that
he was no
more the strongest member of the horde. Therefore the need to castrate
him in a
public act of demonstration of who the strongest member of the horde is
now,
and whose Law must be observed.
Addendum (Feb. 04, 2008)
Reading for the first time Theodor Reik's book Sex in Man and Woman (Vision Press, London 1975, p.138), I found the following sentence:
As the proverb goes: "He who must hang will not drown".
Henceforth, it confirms that Saddam Hussein did not want to allow anyone else to have an erection on him. Indeed, the little boy fantasizes to be threaten of castration by his father's erected penis. The fantasy is engendered - as a retaliation (Lex Talionis, which literally means "the Law of the cutting". And not by accident) - by the child's own drive to castrate his father by his erected penis. After all, there is a stage in the child's psycho - sexual development in which all the libidinal energies are concentrated in the genital, and that is the only tool for expressing love, aggression and possession.
As pointed above, the archaic struggle between the Father and the Sons was about the penis, and by the penis. The winner is the one who by the penis emasculates the other. In modern jails we can find a trace of this archaic struggle when the most violent inmate affirms his own control by penetrating weaker companions. In crowded jails populated only by males, the primal situation of the archaic brotherhood horde is restored. It is obviously not a question of obtaining genital pleasure using the others, but of affirming an unquestionable domination on the group. And that by the penis, what else?
Back to Saddam Hussein's aversion of been hanged and preference of being shot. True, also a revolver or a gun are penis substitutes, and therefore symbolize castration inflicted on the victim. However, it seems that the very mental representation of a man hanged by a rope is a more vivid and concrete display of the humiliation by castration. Perhaps guns - being a modern device - are conceived as more abstract representations. Moreover, shooting is usually done from a distance, diluting the crude closeness and intimacy of the acting out of castration.
The Bible warns against this ultimate humiliating abuse of the human image: