Birth of a nation‐state: A battle for boundaries or dialogue?

Abstract

In this article, I propose extending group and family psychoanalytic theories to understand the unconscious dynamics that may underlie a nation‐state's constitution and the conflict that manifests during the process of establishment. I reflect on Lebanon's history, its birth, its development, and its crises during its process of “becoming.” An independent nation‐state requires clear borders or a body envelope to build itself; otherwise, its psychic envelope will fail to contain and transform primitive transgenerational persecutory and annihilating anxieties of its nation‐group and its citizens. I also analyze whether Lebanon's difficulty in delineating its borders has left it in a state of confusion with its two Siamese neighbors and characterize its group psychic apparatus as a pregenital, narcissistic, “incestual” mode of family functioning. I then reflect on whether Lebanese citizens are metaphorically part objects, who enact, through their fraternal pacts, the unconscious fratricidal fantasies of the archaic fraternal complex. Through these psychoanalytic reflections, I hope to contribute to the national and international dialogues and facilitate sibling countries to better mourn their original symbiotic state, thus allowing the Lebanese, as a result, to build their own nation‐state.

Israeli‐Palestinian conflict: The archaic fraternal complex

“…Similar to infants, they metaphorically mirrored the dynamics of the separation‐individuation developmental stage (Mahler, 1958). Their histories were, in my opinion (Salaam Abdel‐Malek, 2020), marked by narcissistic disturbance and by separation and individuation struggles to define ego boundaries. In Palestine, conflicting desires for autonomy over the same territory arose.…”