Reflections on My Belgrade Symposium Experience
The symposium was held in Belgrade, Serbia, a city that a city tour guide told us has been razed and rebuilt 44 times throughout its history. There were 400 group analysts in attendance from 40 different countries. It was 34 Celsius most days. I enjoyed the warmth, the heat, and I must say that heat came in the other form as well. The heat of tension and conflict and generativity. I thrive in that kind of heat, which is surprising, since in my early life the values were primarily stasis, quiet, friendliness, denial, and sameness. Tension and heat are so much more interesting. The stasis I find cold and dull.
The conference began each of the four days with a small group, after the social dreaming event early every morning. My group provided a wonderful home base for the duration of the conference. One group member spoke very little, saying it was difficult to be here and be from Russia. This broke my heart. The Othering in the world is endless.
The first plenary began with the lights dimmed and a listening to the song “Blackbird”, by Paul McCartney.
“Blackbird singing in the dead of night.
Take these broken wings and learn to fly. “
We did do some flying in the time together. A particularly compelling workshop for me met for 3 afternoons. The title was “Can we talk about Palestine?” I notice it was not “Why can’t we talk about Palestine?” or “How can we talk about Palestine?” but “CAN we talk about Palestine?” Can we talk about talking about Palestine?
I recall the Barcelona conference 3 years earlier, the last time this group met, which was, tragically, on-line due to the pandemic. The organizers had amazingly arranged the work so that it could take place in 3 languages, all of which are spoken in that locality. This was truly a representation of non-colonialist practice, in that not all were required to work in English.
My memory of Palestinians at that conference, where voices were so readily matched with faces on the screen, was that they were on the other end often of a clear defensiveness and even attack. The leaders of this year’s workshop where we were being asked to consider talking about Palestine together, as I understand it, courageously offered this work in response to those experiences of 3 years ago, hoping for a new possibility, a new openness.
The registration for the workshop was capped at 25 but I am quite sure there were more in attendance as the room was very crowded. It was extremely hot and stuffy which to me symbolized something about the work. We opened the windows for some air, even though it was very hot outside as well. At least it felt as though we could breathe. I thought about George Floyd; “I can’t breathe”.
We viewed a film about a father and child treated with abuse and humiliation at a checkpoint while on a simple shopping trip. It illuminated in a clear way the level of chronic stress and cortisol Palestinians must tolerate to simply live their lives. I noticed my internal self move to a state of deep quiet in response.
I recall one Israeli person courageously speaking up about his experience of being Israeli and Jewish and being in this room. I saw it as an effort at disclosure and honesty about his own experience. I could feel his aloneness in that room. Thereafter, a Palestinian person asked him directly if he or his children had served in the IDF, the Israeli Defense Force, he responded hesitantly with a “Yes”. The Palestinian spoke of her struggle to tolerate that fact and continue to engage. I was so admiring of both who brought their voices forward with courage and honest disclosure. They remained engaged.
It is my belief that the antidote in these highly charged situations is deep attention and a call to radical empathy.
What I observed subsequently was what I see as a group resistance to feeling appropriate and necessary discomfort and a kind of progressive shame which is necessary for repair. The group moved the attention to the white man and his potential discomfort, offering understanding and support. This left the Palestinian woman, in my mind, alone. It’s an example of comforting the oppressor rather than tending to the oppressed. After a bit, I returned to her and asked about how she was doing, indicating that I noticed she had been left by the group. I am grateful to her and him, to the leaders, and to the group for this opportunity to use my own voice in responding to the question of “Can we talk about Palestine?” Can I talk about Palestine, holding the tension and discomfort and yet proceeding with my mind and heart in place? Is it even possible?
The next day another Israeli person entered the room and sat down in a vacant chair more in the middle of the room. Prior to sitting down, I heard him ask a question out loud, “Are you going to scapegoat me?” To me it felt more like a command than an inquiry. I’m quite certain there was a great deal of fear involved in walking into that room – a fear that I understand quite deeply. This person did not speak, as far as I remember, at all during the actual group meeting. I imagine it was enough stimulation to just be present in the room. I would, however, have loved to hear from him. His silence left me with feelings of fear and anger.
Throughout the conference I noticed a trend or a kind of contest perhaps, for who suffers the most. A teacher of mine once called it the suffering Olympics. I always wonder who really wants to win that contest. The position of the victim is so much more palatable than the position of the perpetrator. This was discussed in the group, and it is my belief that we each hold both within. We each have capacity for affection and aggression, for love and hate, for kindness and cruelty. Indeed, all of these are required for human survival. I observed throughout the days a new experience which might be summarized by the title of the book written by Susan Neiman called “Learning from the Germans”. There seemed to be value placed on the work on shame and guilt that German society has asked of itself – what Neiman calls Vergangenheitsaufarbeitung (“working off the past”) that is valuable to the experience of otherness worldwide.[1] It is my own German family history that has given me the opportunity and burden of building my emotional muscle for tolerating the discomfort of shame and guilt. This is the work that needs to happen in the United States as well regarding the occupation of indigenous peoples’ lands and the American history of slavery with its enduring and current impact.
The other issue that emerged in the room was that of Palestinians who have an Israeli passport and those that live in the West Bank and cannot move about or travel freely. This tension was also held, with a kind safety I thought, within the container of the group in that hot room on that hot day. The group held the possibility of maintaining engagement despite difference, a remarkable accomplishment.
There was a moment where a participant asked the Palestinian person, who was clearly in the marginalized minority in the room, to hold more space for empathy for the other, that is, another Israeli speaker in the room. I wondered in that moment, if he was speaking on behalf of the group in some way, asking the oppressed person to do the work for the oppressor/s. I was moved to consider the conflict between intention and impact. I regret not giving voice to this in the moment in the room. I do not want the Palestinians to hold the burden of my/our/the group’s opportunity for self-examination.
The second plenary involved a panel that endeavored to work with the issue of diversity as a group on stage. This followed their work over months of meeting on-line. One member of that group wondered on stage if there was a need to demolish our own identity for safety in the group. In the end, one of the leaders tenderly highlighted an early life message that I can relate to…that what she learned from the family she grew up in was that ‘there is no partner to speak with.’ The group demonstrated the opposite possibility…an effort to speak despite difference and difficulty, to continue talking amidst the conflict’s tensions. The audience later questioned the process of the group, how people were invited, noting that there were not people of color represented on the stage. Who is in and who is out was a theme for sure. We were asked to wonder about why people of color might have said “No” to the invitation.
The other very compelling workshop I attended was called Decolonizing Group Analysis. This workshop was the outcome of a group of marginalized persons in the field of Group Analysis meeting together for the 3 years since the Barcelona conference. I am privileged to have been a part of witnessing their courage and process. This group was assigned the basement and there were mixed reviews about the location. Some considered it a banning of sorts to the inferior location. Others found it to be an exciting subversive location where we could scheme and plan for future uprising! This group, in addition to the large group each day, was where I witnessed most clearly what I consider the Divide and Conquer strategy of White supremacist ideology in general. The antidotes offered to help us keep talking together were listening, being in the quiet, poetry, music and, of course, talking. Anger and rage, a feeling of being misunderstood were put into words rather than into destructive action. In the process of hurting and harming, repair and restoration are often elusive.
I did speak in the final large group when implored by a group peer with a request to hear from the Americans. I recalled the time my analyst said (and I hated her for it!) that hate comes before love. I have come to find this to be true – a difficult truth. I found the GASI conference in Belgrade to be an important step toward a deepening understanding of one another worldwide. This is indeed the value of group work over individual analysis. I am deeply and profoundly grateful to the leadership and volunteers that gave us the gift of this conference.
[1] Susan Neiman, Learning from the Germans: Race and Memory of Evil (New York: Picador, 2019).
Christine Fitzstevens, LCSW-R, CGP, Fellow/AGPA
New York, United States