We are mistaken if we think
women, simply because they are women, are kinder, gentler than men.
The great psychiatrist Carl Jung
said that women carry a masculine soul (animus) within and that men carry a
feminine soul (anima) within. Whether the valence of these inner qualities is
negative or positive depends on a number of things. But, simply put, if a woman
carries her animus negatively, then she can be mean-spirited, vengeful, power
mongering. If a man carries his anima negatively, he may be ineffectual and
complaining. However, if a woman carries the masculine qualities of her soul
positively, she is forceful and goal-directed, yet is also compassionate. When
the man carries his feminine soul qualities positively, he can be receptive,
nurturing, gentle, and carries this into the world with focus and clarity and
determination.
When I view movies or read books,
I often look at the characters with a Jungian perspective. And so, it is with
this perspective that I recently saw the movie True Grit and also came upon I
Shall Not Hate : A Gaza Doctor’s Journey on the Road to Peace and Human Dignity,
the memoir of Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish.
Both stories arise in the wake of
tragedy. Mattie Ross, the late 1800s heroine of True Grit, has lost her father
and she is determined to avenge his murder. Dr. Abuelaish, contemporary
Palestinian physician, has lost three daughters and a niece in the 2009 Israeli
bombing of his Gaza home. Yet he seeks peace.
An early scene in True Grit
attests the quick avenging of post Civil War America: Three men are publicly
hanged before throngs of people—men and women—lusting for the kill. Our young
teenage heroine appears unflappable to the event—perhaps considering it a
harbinger of the justice she seeks for her father’s murderer.
Yes, she was bright, articulate,
and focused in her quest. True grit? Yes. However, when we see Mattie many
years later, she appears to remain one-dimensional, with no growth of character
beyond an un-developed black-white morality of vengeance: no gentle grace to
temper the grit.
How vastly different the living
hero, Izzeldin Abuelaish, is from the fictional heroine. In his memoir, he
describes his childhood in a refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. Surely, it was a
far more primitive life than Mattie’s in the last century. For Abuelaish, there
was no electricity, no running water, no privacy. There was, however, dirt and
hunger. Says Abuelaish, “in an over-crowded refugee camp, people cling to hope
by a thread that threatens to break at any moment.” (page 39)
As a 12-year-old, Abuelaish
witnessed the horror of the Six Day War: pandemonium prevailed, fleeing
families were separated—children and parents lost from each other. At one
point, Abuelaish was sure that the Israeli soldiers rounding up everyone were
going to kill them en masse. He survived the Six Day War only to be confronted
with Ariel Sharon’s bulldozing of many Palestinian family’s humble homes. With
the relentless and ruthless havoc that threatened families’ survival, Abuelaish
“learned the bitter lesson of what it means to be helpless in the face of one
man’s power.” Nevertheless, Abuelaish managed to eventually attain a medical
degree. While continuing to live in Gaza and raise a family there, he worked in
an Israeli hospital as an infertility specialist.
In 2009, a year after the death
of his wife from leukemia, there was another Israeli incursion into Gaza. It
was in this bombing of Gaza homes that three daughters and a niece were killed.
Even in the midst of the bombing, Abuelaish was straddling worlds. He called an
Israeli friend, a newscaster who was broadcasting live at the time of the call.
Abuelaish wailed the deaths of his family and beseeched his friend to help the
wounded survivors. He pleaded over Israeli TV to get ambulances to the border
so that they could get them to hospitals. Although this did occur, Abuelaish
still incurred the wrath of other Israelis who blamed him for the shelling,
accusing him of harboring militants, hiding guns. He says, “It was so painful
to hear the truth falsified. … I wanted the Israeli army to tell me why my
home, which had harbored no militants, which was filled with children whose
only weapons were love, hopes, and dreams, were fired upon.” Despite the fact
that Abuelaish never received any apologies or definitive answers from the
Israeli government, he refuses to hate.
“My three precious daughters and
my niece are dead. Revenge, a disorder that is endemic in the Middle East,
won’t get them back for me. It is important to feel anger in the wake of events
like this; anger that signals that you do not accept what has happened, that
spurs you to make a difference. But you have to choose not to spiral into hate.
All the desire for revenge and hatred does is drive away wisdom, increase
sorrow, and prolong strife.”
Abuelaish is far more our role
model than is Mattie Ross for the integration of the masculine and feminine.
Jung would say that he carries the feminine anima soul qualities of gentleness,
compassion, receptivity, and relationship as a man far better than does Mattie,
the moral avenger. True Grit lacks the true grace of a life beyond hate.
* Kayta Curzie Gajdos holds a doctorate in counseling psychology and is
in private practice in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. She welcomes comments atMindMatters@DrGajdos.com or (610)388-2888. Past columns are posted
towww.drgajdos.com.
Dr. Kathleen Curzie Gajdos ("Kayta") is a licensed psychologist (Pennsylvania and Delaware) who has worked with individuals, couples, and families with a spectrum of problems. She has experience and training in the fields of alcohol and drug addictions, hypnosis, family therapy, Jungian theory, Gestalt therapy, EMDR, and bereavement. Dr. Gajdos developed a private practice in the Pittsburgh area, and was affiliated with the Family Therapy Institute of Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, having written numerous articles for the Family Therapy Newsletter there. She has published in the American Psychological Association Bulletin, the Family Psychologist, and in the Swedenborgian publications, Chrysalis and The Messenger. Dr. Gajdos has taught at the college level, most recently for West Chester University and Wilmington College, and has served as field faculty for Vermont College of Norwich University the Union Institute's Center for Distance Learning, Cincinnati, Ohio. She has also served as consulting psychologist to the Irene Stacy Community MH/MR Center in Western Pennsylvania where she supervised psychologists in training. Currently active in disaster relief, Dr. Gajdos serves with the American Red Cross and participated in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts as a member of teams from the Department of Health and Human Services' Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.Now living in Chadds Ford, in the Brandywine Valley of eastern Pennsylvania, Dr. Gajdos combines her private practice working with individuals, couples and families, with leading workshops on such topics as grief and healing, the impact of multigenerational grief and trauma shame, the shadow and self, Women Who Run with the Wolves, motherless daughters, and mediation and relaxation. Each year at Temenos Retreat Center in West Chester, PA she leads a griefs of birthing ritual for those who have suffered losses of procreation (abortions, miscarriages, infertility, etc.); she also holds yearly A Day of Re-Collection at Temenos.Dr. Gajdos holds Master's degrees in both philosophy and clinical psychology and received her Ph.D. in counseling at the University of Pittsburgh. Among her professional affiliations, she includes having been a founding member and board member of the C.G. Jung Educational Center of Pittsburgh, as well as being listed in Who's Who of American Women. Currently, she is a member of the American Psychological Association, The Pennsylvania Psychological Association, the Delaware Psychological Association, the American Family Therapy Academy, The Association for Death Education and Counseling, and the Delaware County Mental Health and Mental Retardation Board. Woven into her professional career are Dr. Gajdos' pursuits of dancing, singing, and writing poetry.
