What about the "Stockholm Syndrome"!

SIRINE EL-AMINE



If you have read the incomparable Pauline Réage’s Histoire d’O (Story of O) you might have heard of the very bizarre story of Lord Glenelg, mentioned in the Jean Paulhan’s Preface (the French writer, critic, director of the NRF and member of the Académie Française) for the novel published in 1954.

It appears that in the spring of 1838, on the Caribbean Island of Barbados and in response to the new law on the abolition of slavery, a certain Lord Glenelg set his slaves free; however, these slaves refused their new found freedom and requested strongly that their Lord place them back under his authority. Glenelg refused, probably more out of respect for the law than out of Humanism… the essential thing is that he rejected utterly his previous slaves’ unusual demand. And what did these do, in response? They massacred their old oppressor along with his family, for denying them the “right” to be exploited!!
Apparently, a victim can develop a morbid affective bond with his executioner, an unexplainable infatuation that goes much beyond the cliché of Sadism and Masochism. This is the parallel drawn with Histoire d’O, the story of an obedient young woman, O, and her dominant jailer-lovers which explore this phenomenon, from an erotic, yet psychosocial and existential point of view.

That was in the 19th century; now a slightly different story from the 20th century. On August 1973, in Stockholm, an abducted bank employee, Kristin, fell under the charm of one of her abductors, Jan Erik, the man robbing the bank and holding the people inside. The hostage fell under the spell of the terrorist; moreover, she fell in love with him. She, along with five other victims, abandoned their fellow hostages and adopted the “ideology” of their kidnappers. Things did not stop here. After their release and his arrest, this “converted” group refused to press any charges against their abductors, visited them in prison and defended their cause! This rather unusual behaviour was named after the case by an American psychiatrist: the “Stockholm Syndrome”.


In more recent times in the 21st century, we heard a similar anecdote. It seems that every century has its own “fairy-tale”: Yvonne Ridley, the former British reporter for the Sunday Express was kidnapped by the Taliban while reporting in Afghanistan in September 2001.This ex-supporter of the Labour Party and later Muslim convert confessed after her release that the first thing she said the moment she laid eyes on her kidnapper, was: “Wow! You’re gorgeous!” and she admitted that she was taken by the beauty of his “amazing green eyes” and his big dark beard etc. etc. It wouldn’t come as a surprise that these stories tend to follow a certain predictable pattern. If we consider the last two cases, we observe a certain sexual submissive fantasy that is pushed beyond the norms (psychoanalytic theory, for instance, talks about a recurrent feminine fancy: “the fantasy of getting raped”).



What concerns me personally and the question that I have been asking myself is the following: Are we Arabs perpetually under the influence of this so called “Stockholm Syndrome”? Maybe my question has a specific validity in the Lebanese case, where in theory have the “freedom”, the “choice” to admire this or that popular leader, to scorn one and to applaud another while jeering at a third. In essence to vote for X, and not for Y.Do we praise and cherish the ones who will lead us eventually to catastrophe? It seems that we Lebanese have a considerable predisposition for this alarming syndrome and sustained humiliation. What better example than an old yet famous episode of the Lebanese version of Candid Camera, where the victim, a young man passing by, is asked to take part in a movie scene where an attractive young actress slaps him on his face. In response to which he repeats the following line “bardou ba7ibbak ya wa7sh” (“despite all, I still love you, O you savage!”) .However, as the “director” is displeased with the outcome the scene is repeated and so is the humiliation.
Take one: the accomplice slaps the victim on his face and the latter cries “bardou ba7ibbak ya wa7sh”
Take two: the accomplice slaps the victim on his face and the latter cries “bardou ba7ibbak ya wa7sh”
Take three, four, five until the crew realize this could go on and on……………………………………….

Who will break the karma’s never-ending cycle? When will we convert to the “Lima Syndrome” 1 instead, where our oppressors sympathize with their victims?



1. This syndrome is considered to be the opposite of the one we evoked, as in December 1996, “terrorists” (members of the MRTA Marxist guerillas) took over the Japanese embassy in Lima (in Peru! Of course), and they showed high empathy for their hostages, and their needs…