Zehra Mehdi - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Uploads
Papers by Zehra Mehdi
International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies
D.W. Winnicott and Political Theory, 2017
Successful therapy begins with the therapist (Axline 1969, 64), and psychoanalytic research must ... more Successful therapy begins with the therapist (Axline 1969, 64), and psychoanalytic research must carry the potential space for therapy to happen. Mehdi‘s work with children from Muzaffarnagar Relief Camp creates such a potential space. Over several visits and eleven 11 months of observation, a shared Winnicottian experience developed. The children‘s playsgames, Sugarcane Escape and Loyal Swine, emerge as possible answers to the question of Muslim identity and the trauma of the riot itself. Plays unfold different aspects of children‘s unconscious. In Sugarcane Escape, the older child expresses the search for the father in his aggressiveness while the younger child in Loyal Swine attempts to create the continuity of the mother through delinquent actions. Together they engage the unconscious struggle gripping the community of Muslim identity
When Donald Trump imposed the " Muslim ban " what was surprising was the absence of any pretense ... more When Donald Trump imposed the " Muslim ban " what was surprising was the absence of any pretense to make it political. It wasn't a ban against some countries, it was a ban against Muslim countries or pithily against Muslims. But then what happens when the fear of intrusion underlying " banning " finds its realization in lynching? In the existing discourse on Islamophobia, how do we understand not only the Muslim who isn't allowed to enter but also the Muslim who is quite simply killed for having entered ages ago. In this paper, I share the trajectory of Muslims in India through history, politics, and psychoanalytic theory to present the case of Islamophobia in India.
In Moses and Monotheism (1939), Freud narrates the mytho‐historical journey of an outcast Egyptia... more In Moses and Monotheism (1939), Freud narrates the mytho‐historical journey of an outcast Egyptian king who became the leader of Jews. This book becomes his first writing on religion where he speaks of religion 1 with reference to existing religious communities namely of Jews and Christians. He explained the difference between the two communities through the sin of patricide. For him, while Jews had killed the father and repressed it, Christians admitted guilt for the original sin. Freud had nothing much to say about Islam excepting an analytic comment in the book where he incorporates Islam in the discourse of patricide and writes how Arabs were able to recuperate the great and unique Father, Mohammad and therefore a unique self‐consciousness about it which made them attain material success. He goes on cryptically to say how Arabs do not have the same inner depth like the Jews who repressed the murder of the Father. In my reading of Freud's words, I have always felt how he uses this moment to stress the significance of repression as a psychic mechanism. What he seems to be saying is Arabs are too self‐conscious because they haven't repressed anything. They lack depth because they won't ever be able to remember what they have forgotten. Every time I have heard commentaries stressing how violence espoused by Islam is not only inscribed in the Quran but also a consequence of sexual repression pervasive in the religion and the stringent practice of it, I have often thought about Freud. I have wondered if this reading would make him exhale his cigar in amused agreement, for sex and violence have both been central to this theory of repression, or would it buttress his ideas on religion's obsessional neurotic potential following Islam's alleged reverence for the father and its inability to murder him? What would Freud say, as a Jewish immigrant exiled by Nazism, to the Muslim immigrant exiled as a result of Islamophobia? A two‐day conference on Psychoanalytic Islam/Islamic Psychoanalysis became a conversation of several such possible exchanges.
International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies
D.W. Winnicott and Political Theory, 2017
Successful therapy begins with the therapist (Axline 1969, 64), and psychoanalytic research must ... more Successful therapy begins with the therapist (Axline 1969, 64), and psychoanalytic research must carry the potential space for therapy to happen. Mehdi‘s work with children from Muzaffarnagar Relief Camp creates such a potential space. Over several visits and eleven 11 months of observation, a shared Winnicottian experience developed. The children‘s playsgames, Sugarcane Escape and Loyal Swine, emerge as possible answers to the question of Muslim identity and the trauma of the riot itself. Plays unfold different aspects of children‘s unconscious. In Sugarcane Escape, the older child expresses the search for the father in his aggressiveness while the younger child in Loyal Swine attempts to create the continuity of the mother through delinquent actions. Together they engage the unconscious struggle gripping the community of Muslim identity
When Donald Trump imposed the " Muslim ban " what was surprising was the absence of any pretense ... more When Donald Trump imposed the " Muslim ban " what was surprising was the absence of any pretense to make it political. It wasn't a ban against some countries, it was a ban against Muslim countries or pithily against Muslims. But then what happens when the fear of intrusion underlying " banning " finds its realization in lynching? In the existing discourse on Islamophobia, how do we understand not only the Muslim who isn't allowed to enter but also the Muslim who is quite simply killed for having entered ages ago. In this paper, I share the trajectory of Muslims in India through history, politics, and psychoanalytic theory to present the case of Islamophobia in India.
In Moses and Monotheism (1939), Freud narrates the mytho‐historical journey of an outcast Egyptia... more In Moses and Monotheism (1939), Freud narrates the mytho‐historical journey of an outcast Egyptian king who became the leader of Jews. This book becomes his first writing on religion where he speaks of religion 1 with reference to existing religious communities namely of Jews and Christians. He explained the difference between the two communities through the sin of patricide. For him, while Jews had killed the father and repressed it, Christians admitted guilt for the original sin. Freud had nothing much to say about Islam excepting an analytic comment in the book where he incorporates Islam in the discourse of patricide and writes how Arabs were able to recuperate the great and unique Father, Mohammad and therefore a unique self‐consciousness about it which made them attain material success. He goes on cryptically to say how Arabs do not have the same inner depth like the Jews who repressed the murder of the Father. In my reading of Freud's words, I have always felt how he uses this moment to stress the significance of repression as a psychic mechanism. What he seems to be saying is Arabs are too self‐conscious because they haven't repressed anything. They lack depth because they won't ever be able to remember what they have forgotten. Every time I have heard commentaries stressing how violence espoused by Islam is not only inscribed in the Quran but also a consequence of sexual repression pervasive in the religion and the stringent practice of it, I have often thought about Freud. I have wondered if this reading would make him exhale his cigar in amused agreement, for sex and violence have both been central to this theory of repression, or would it buttress his ideas on religion's obsessional neurotic potential following Islam's alleged reverence for the father and its inability to murder him? What would Freud say, as a Jewish immigrant exiled by Nazism, to the Muslim immigrant exiled as a result of Islamophobia? A two‐day conference on Psychoanalytic Islam/Islamic Psychoanalysis became a conversation of several such possible exchanges.