Iterations of Hell: Settler Colonialism as Societal Abuse

This paper attempts to contribute to thinking about the ethical responsibilities of the psychoanalytic profession in the context of the Gaza genocide. In a world inured to mass suffering, and paralyzed by a sense of impotence, the crisis in Palestine has had a unique impact on the collective consciousness and conscience, engendering unprecedented mobilizations across society. A situation with such devastating consequences for the physical and psychological well-being of a whole society confronts health professionals with pressing questions about their response, as citizens and as members of civil society institutions, made more urgent by their location, more often than not, within societies that have participated in the genocide. The approach is idiosyncratic. The paper explores a perceived split between an acceptance of moral responsibility matched with a sense of agency where harm is perpetrated in the domestic and private setting, as against the denial or avoidance of a recognition of being implicated in analogous situations in the public realm. It does this through an overlapping discussion of two issues, one from each sphere: pedophilia/child sexual exploitation, and settler colonialism. With an eye to the relevance of this to the ethical life of psychoanalysis, this author argues that the basis for inaction—a performative commitment to human rights accompanied by a tenacious passivity or paralysis—is ripe for revision, to bring the profession into line with long-established medical ethics.