Semitic Roots, Tortured Cousins, and Healing Communities

Editors note:

Marc Levin is an American expatriate who moved to Denmark in 1973 after several years of consultancy between New York and Copenhagen. He worked in social work and has a masters degree in psychology and is a licensed psychologist in Denmark. As a foreigner, however, he often had to take whatever work the Danes do not want, since he has been blocked from getting his license until recently. As a result, Marc's path has been one of a traditional "healer", i.e., a person who is willing to take on the "hopeless" causes of a culture or group&emdash;or at least the ones that the members of the dominant culture consider not worth their while. At first Marc worked with drug addicts at a time when the Danes did not wish to do so. As they became more interested in those issues, Marc was out of work. Then, in 1989, The European countries decided to afford political refugees status to those from other parts of the world, in particular, from the Middle East, Asia and South America. Marc was hired by the Danish Refugee Council to work with those from the Middle East, since they were seen as "not adequately integrated" due to the difficulty they had in learning Danish, in spite of the fact that the education level of most of these individuals was quite high. One of Marc's clients for example is a neurosurgeon who consults with him regularly on others who have been brain-damaged as a result of their torture&emdash;but who cannot get a job in the health care system in spite of his training in the Africa and his superb recommendations where he worked ion Danish hospitals for welfare payments for a year. This is Marc's story of his healing relationships and the community that has evolved.

(SIR, DENMARK) The torture victims I've been working with since 1989, with the exception of the Tamils from Sri Lanka, are primarily Moslems from Iran, Iraq, Curdistan, Somalia, and Bosnia.

Spending a lot of my time in their homes, including refugee camps, where all they have is a parabola (satellite) antenna-TV (so they could watch programs in their native languages), the Koran and their Danish school books, I'm always amazed at the grace and respect that meets me.

The fruit, the tea and special cakes, the warm greetings of peace and thanks, give me a magical yet robust sense of my Semeticism, even before the Holocaust and the modern state of Israel.

Prejudices and suspicions about Islam and Arabs are still threats to these noble people, even in this quiet part of the world.

I've been asked to tell a little about my work, as a nice Jewish boy from Jersey City, who is loved as the "Hakim, Dr. Marc" in this healing state of exile and spirituality we share.

These events are true, though names and contexts are altered to protect confidentiality.

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When Ingrid called me she said they were tired of the psychologists they'd been using. She was one of those social workers who never seemed shocked or worn, though often "walking wounded," shot by arrows of pain and injustice, then pulling out those that hit, bleeding a while from the soul, and getting distracted by the strength of these warriors, joining the glory of their eyes, a mojahida among them. (Mojahida is a female mojahid, "warrior from the heart.")

She was now working for the Danish Refugee Council, an organization that received torture victims who had been granted asylum for their resistance to oppressive regimes. A few years before, it was drug addicts whom no one believed in; before that, incest victims whom no one believed.

The problem now was that the psychologists were using diagnostic tool kits to try to fix, instead of listening, learning and respecting the mental and spiritual immune systems, and allowing them to do their healing.

I was called in to meet Ali Al-Hussein, a Palestinian, raised in Saudi Arabia. He was a political refugee in Denmark about nine years and my certified translator for the day.

"I guess you've heard that I'm an American Jew!"

"Yup, and I'm a Suni Moslem with a Danish wife and lots of Shiites on my day plan, so let's see who gets through the day with the fewest number of scratches!!".

"I'm gonna tell them" I said, "as soon as I see them."

"Your shot pal. I know my people. They think with their hearts, they'll either love you or want to kill you.

Just remember one thing, I'm your translator, not your bodyguard."

 

Majid was the first, a Curd from Iraq who studied engineering at the University in Baghdad before joining the partisans in the mountains.

Marc: I know you've been asked a lot of questions since you arrived, so if it's OK I'd like to tell you what I've learned from my Semitic brothers and sisters.

In the languages of the middle east you have a beautiful word, Hakim, the wise man, and Hakima, the wise woman.

We are three Hakim.

Ali knows something of your language, your culture, the Danish

language, and the Danish culture, he's a refugee and knows how it is to

have your body in one time and place, and many of your thoughts and feelings in another, a past with dreams still living on the edges of your heart.

He's a Hakim….

I'm an older man who has worked with refugees and torture victims since 1989.

I'm a psychologist, born and trained in America.

I'm Jewish….

 

Majid: Hamdulah (thanks to God)

You are my cousin.

Your people gave us Moses, also our prophet.

You are proud and fair, a Nation with strength.

 

Marc: Shokran (Thank you)

But there's still one more Hakim, the person who knows you best, you yourself.

We are here to learn, three Hakim, to find the Hakim in each of us.

 

Majid: Ensha' Allah (with God's help)

 

Hamid had been tortured and imprisoned for seven years in Iran. He was a devout Moslem who tried to desert from the military, who spoke excellent English.

Hamid: An American Jew?. Wonderful ? I was afraid I'd get a Danish shrink!!

When I was in jail, they threw me in with Jews, two were Americans… I guess the militia were trying to humiliate me, but the energy and affection we generated got us through it all….

By the way, it was the Americans that helped me with my English ... .

 

As the day moved on, Ali's fear of scratches, transformed to a supportive wisdom, which has since that day become a valued friendship.

"Ali, why aren't they more angry or resistant to me?" I asked him that day.

"Habibi, (my sweet friend) politics are like the ax of a cruel woodsman... It cuts the tree in all of the wrong places... Our people know the difference between politics, people, love and God.

We've paid dearly for that lesson.

You're part of the tree, not because you're a Jew, but because you remind us of the Hakim and Hakima in all of us."

 

A young Arab woman telling of eitheen months in prison:

"Every tear you see is a word I cannot find."

 

An English-speaking school teacher from Iran, allowing me to hold the pain of his memory (he saw his pregnant wife tortured to death in front of him).

"Thank you doctor, I kiss your heart and pray for blessings for you and your family."

 

A Zionist professor from Israel, whom I met at a trauma intervention seminar in London, hearing of my work ... .

"All this is nonsense?just in your mind..."

My response: "You've got the second part right doc!"

 

Editors note:

What this professor failed to understand is that it is from our own wounds that we minister to others.

Marc has worked with many translators as he helps these refugees with Post Traumatic Stress Disorders resulting from their imprisonment and torture. They are beautiful in their work, but often not given much power or respect for what they do. Instead of the process of Marc looking at (e.g.) Ali and Ali looking at the client, the clients and Marc were looking directly at each other, as if there was no one in between. The descriptions were stark and real&emdash;no buffering&emdash;and so were the expressions of genuine regard and respect.

In working with people who have been tortured, Marc realized that they are honoring him by sharing the traumatic memories. It is both a sign of trust and a belief that he would understand and not need to question its reality. He also found that they hold on to these memories out of a sense of loyalty to the meaning they give their lives&emdash;sort of a badge of honor that they wish to have their courage and integrity witnessed. The memories are as precious as tears . . .

When allowed to hold the pain of a memory, like the school teacher from Iran, the relief is obvious as he was freed from the fixed images of her suffering, and realized that in her death, she had been released. One of the things that makes this kind of work possible is the knowledge that the suffering for these people can end with being able to share it with someone they respect and who honors their story.

Marc has told me that for the first time in his life, he feels a part of a community, composed of people in need of healing, the translators like Ali who unobtrusively facilitate and witness the re-experiencing and the relief from the suffering, those who are the counselors. In reflecting on his own leaving the USA, he has said he can understand these Iranian and Iraqi young men who have fled almost certain death for causes of hatred they did not support. In remembering his childhood filled with the pain of his mother's grief and depression over the death of her mother&emdash;and the torturous treatment she received (over 115 electroshock treatments in the eighteen months afterwards) that led to her later suicide, he has embraced that suffering cannot always be avoided. He can stay with these people and learn to appreciate the courage it takes to continue to live and to remain "loyal dissidents" to their countries and their culture, just as he feels about the US.

It is one of the ironies of his work that Marc now feel more connected in some ways to these people because of their courage and integrity than he does to many who share only his religious background. What is universal&emdash;and sustaining of connectedness between all people&emdash;is the universality of suffering, the power of forgiveness and the capacity to make meaning out of any life experience. Unlike the Zionist professor, It was in Marc's mind&emdash;and heart&emdash;to see connections that transcend twenty-five hundred years of political distancing and traumatization of the children of Abraham.

Return to the Index of Synapse 44, Summer 1998