Reading Ahmadinejad: Underlying the Bombastic
Sep 25th, 2007 | 4 responses
I’ve looked at several films of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking. The one below is the one I’ll focus on here. In all the films, he uses repetitive gestures; holding up and pointing with his index finger… unremarkable in itself, but he then
…employs poking motions with that finger, gestures while holding his finger laterally sometimes, upright others, other times approaching the curved open and closed finger gesticulations of flamenco and eastern dance… a set of gestures that are oddly graceful in contrast to his asynchronous stabbing finger gestures.
Mr. Ahmadinejad also uses extreme arm extensions with throw away hand gestures, as though being rid of something; pushing gestures; touching his face, his ear. We might all do these gestures as we speak passionately about something.
But what stands out is that he displays body unrest, such as being unable to judge, in his ‘ ecstasy of speaking,’ where his own body begins and ends, typical of people who are ‘carried away’ by their own words…
(See film clip I’m referring to: Ahmadinejad in Amir Kabir University part 6/8
‘Table incident is at about 2:32 minutes into the clip.)
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=MoHcIwY1IQc
Watch him pull his chair up closer to the table and accidentally disrupt the microphones, but not pause to straighten nor to steady them. He is there in his chair, but somehow not present in body. What he has to say is far more important than balance, safety or composure.
There seems in his body, an energy hardly contained at that point. The recklessness and non-calculation of spatial planes makes it seem as though he might accidentally also tip his chair over with some definitive need to get close to the microphones.
It could be he suddenly moved his chair closer to the table to be more comfortable, or because he, like some others, doesn’t understand the nature of microphones; that they are able to pick up the speaker’s voice from a distance. Perhaps someone said they couldn’t hear him and he moved his chair closer to the mikes.
But it isn’t that he moved the chair, it’s the kind of move and the energy in it; the abruptness of it and the lack of care about where his chest is and where the edge of the table is, all forgotten in order to get ‘closer.’
That lack of awareness about potential injury to body in order to ‘seize forward,’ might be the anomaly that reveals the real subtext of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s appearances anywhere…. at fundament, he appears, aside from his position as President of a nation, to be carrying a profound anxiety to be heard. I should add that this kind of desire to be heard is not a desire to be found adequate, but a desire to hold life and death over others…to be the utter, final and infallible collater and controller of all beings, all matters.
Psychologically, it is an odd form, like a gnat taking on the rhetoric of a behemoth, hoping all behemoths in the area are mentally incapable of telling the difference between the two.
We all want to be heard, but we don’t often alternate between aggression and ‘injured animal persona’ in order to hold an audience. There’s the difference. Though Mr. Ahmadinejad appears to attempt to mask his subtexts, they still bleed through the studied “What, me worry?†of his softer persona; his “I come in peace,†tones in between his near strident tones; and “You are the ones who are violent toward me,†victim tones and word clusters.
Sometimes variations in upper body gesticulations such as his can be understood as the speaker’s body trying to display several ideas at once, the jarring, throwing and poking gestures far out-communicating his more genteel and refined ones.
With all the finger jabbing and pointing variations, someone like Ahmadinejad could be projecting all these covert and stentorian intents at once… such as:
“I am #1, I am, I am…
and I warn you to heed me…
and you will listen to me…
and I am telling you so that you will awaken…
and I am teaching you…
I Am. Teaching. You…
Listen to me!
Listen to me!â€
In analytical psychology as in psychopathology, there is the concept of ‘the incomplete personality.’ If we could draw a picture of a fairly full and organized psyche, it would be a circle made up of a pretty solid line with a few waverings here and there.
But ‘incomplete personality disorder’ describes a psyche that is more like an empty bag, waiting to be filled by others. The person so afflicted often aggressively and anxiously demands to be attended to, that is, filled by others. Many forms of aggression are merely covers for high anxiety.
If we were to draw a picture of ‘the incomplete personality,’ it would not be a circle with an unbroken solid line… it would be a circle made of a dotted line, with wide spaces between the dots… thus, much falls out; is uncontained, the person often pounces and blurts instead of weighing and speaking…
Also, too much flotsam and jetsam that is ‘not qualified by the rational mind’ enters the broken-line psyche…and those renegade and spare part ideas are not weighed in the present, the short and long terms. Think of ‘incomplete personality disorder’ as having a mind like a sieve; things can pour through in either direction. There are no cohesive boundaries. And as they say in the butcher’s trade, there is no fair weight scale. One day the scale weighs all matters to heavily; the next day, too lightly.
Thus Mr. Ahmadinejad could say, and believe his own internal off-kilter scale, that there are no homosexuals in his home country, (weighing perceived ‘purity’ too heavily) and that there is ‘no significant need for the United States,’ in world matters, (weighing too lightly one of the world powers,) and believe that also.
And yet, the person with the dotted line personality structure is ravenous for recognition and being ‘filled.’ They have to be filled, for like a bucket with a hole in its side, no matter how much you pour and pour, most runs right out. They are hungry. Hungry for being heard and seen, for being acknowledged that they in fact do, exist. But, it can never be enough. Hole in the bucket of the psyche means a psychological tyrant can never have peace… for what is peace, but in somewise to feel at least ‘full enough.’
‘The dotted’ line personality’ often tries to imitate other truly heroic figures he or she has heard or read about… to use similar tone, imitate the heroic in gesture and speech pattern, sometimes in dress and mannerisms as well…that’s the outer goal. The only problem is that such pretenders to the genuine throne try constantly to use heroics and hysterics in order to stridently ‘correct the world’ instead of ‘caring for the world.’
And their idea of trying to teach in order to ‘correct the world,’ is to harangue others and allow inflammatory words and ideas to fall through their dotted lines onto the public world. Self-awareness is usually quite low. And thus, so is innate satiation.
Episode after episode, the person with ‘a dotted-line psyche’ acts out in ongoing fits and starts of aggression towards others, alternating with feeling ‘hurt’ or puzzled when others react in anger or exclusion to their careless words and ways. Thus, after dropping the latest bombshell, such a compromised person takes the victim’s position most every time, asking plaintively, “What did I say or do to deserve such ill treatment from you?â€
And still a person with this configuration tries to convince, exhort, tell, teach, harangue, force his “pounce and blurt ideology†on others. And still this person is anxious to be heard. Even when they have been heard. And heard, and heard and heard.
I am reminded of something my father, who was from the old country, used to say: “It’s the failed teachers who become dictators.â€
4 Responses to “Reading Ahmadinejad: Underlying the Bombastic”
Very interesting analysis, Dr E!
I’m curious about some aspects.
Body language, certainly hand signals, often reflect cultural customs or habits. Were those taken into consideration, or do you consider some movements to be universal indicators independent of culture?
Also, I was surprised to read that the aggresoor+victim combination in a personality is considered rare. Relying simply on personal observations, with no official data, I would have guessed that it’s extemely common. When does an aggressor not use the ‘they made me do it’ excuse?
The conqueror bears the burden of his destiny and is, therefore, a ‘victim’ of his own power and capabilities.
I have the feeling I must be wrong about the commonness of this combination, but it keeps croping up to call my attention to it.
I you find the time, I would be interested to read your thoughts on this. If you’re too busy, please ignore.
H-tler did that pointing thing too. & Mussolini.
(And Bill Clinton and Larry Craig.)
In better news, won a genius grant.
Domajot, thank you re my time. Your insights are good. Intercultural studies is part of my early psych. training along with forensics. Cultural groups have ‘learned’ gestures, yes, also universal gestures that go beyond spec. cultures. (You prob recall I analyze film, photographic evidence and documents for lawyers, judges, law enforcement for these last 37 years. I always hesitate to put such vitae line in articles since its somewhere in the tmv bio I think; but perhaps I ought.)
aggression/ feigned injury and ‘aggression + victim’ appear to be two sides of same coin; control. Control is not just attempts to make others do x. It’s uninterrupted efforts to calm a constant unpleasant flurry inside oneself, by controlling what occurs outside oneself. A certain amount of trying to control the environs is the norm and survival oriented. You are accurate in thinking you’ve/we’ve seen a good deal of this configuration. What is uncommon is to also find petulance and miming of injury in a person of such power as that carried by MA.
To make such a brief analysis of MA, I looked at several other film clips of other men from his culture– Looking at the Shah for instance (late 20th c.) you see a different demeanor than MA’s entirely.
I also looked as Jilly Dybka noted, at two clips of Hitler, who has the same throw-away long arm extensions, a good deal of finger pointing and ‘attesting’ gesticulating, and interestingly literally ‘holds himself’ in an embrace with both arms while speaking, as well as hand-clasping in between bursts of speech… as though, unlike MA, to NOT let his very excited body run away with him while he, like MA, was in ‘high oratory’ mode.
I’d thought to put the links to both clips, Hitler’s and MA’s on this article, but am truly trying to ‘write shorter’ instead of practically writing a book each time …but you can go to YouTube and see for yourself the contrasts between the two.
“When does an aggressor not use the ‘Hey THEY made me do it’ excuse?†I think Domajot, some instances are… when more solid people just had an outburst that is uncharacteristic, or perhaps a person consciously learning to control their ‘pounces and blurts’… they often say apologies and mean it… and show it, by trying to give more forethought about others instead of only themselves. There are instances of fair people being aggressive in order to win or land something important in service of vulnerable others; though they might be injured in those battles, they tend to remain self-accountable, not whining as victim in order to gain a toehold.
However, the ‘punch you in the face’ and subsequent ‘how can you be so cruel as to call me on my own violence??’ is often a ploy in those who use it to deflect and defer others from judgments that might curtail the ‘victim.’ It is meant to show superiority and self-importance, but in fact often reveals the primal injury: el estomago vacio, the very hungry stomach of the person’s psyche… that bypasses sincerity, humanity, regard for self and the world for….. feed me, feed me, feed me…instead
This psychic configuration is also confusing to people at first; Many persons are inclined, at least at first, to be sympathetic and to think, my goodness, he/she is hungry, in need of respect, regard, how can we feed him/her?
Later, as people see that that ‘bucket cannot be filled’… they are appalled. Eventually, they think about how to expose and depose. Then much back and forth arguing about whether this is really needed, or how to… Often, somewhere in that ‘all sides trying to come to terms with,’ somewhere in that melee, then, finally one group or another acts to strip powers from such a person.
Much of the time in world affairs, the populace becomes mired in the back and forth of deciding the effectiveness-failure, goodness or not-goodness of the ‘minaret-like’ person who calls others to pray before them… sometimes focus is lost until a group, often a small but powerful group, says, “Enough!” and acts, hopefully with precision instead of scatter shot, to bring a denouement.
Jilly Dybka, you are accurate. Lots of finger’pointers’ in cultures. Literally. And figuratively. Just to add some levity to such serious matters, sometimes I wonder, why not toe-pointing, or ear pointing? lol.
Also, the MacArthur genius grants; so many wish for them, and it’s a good day when ‘the very few’ are granted them. It’s amazing that the national grants have dwindled so from direct strike/severance by Congress, and that private grants, like MacArthur far outstrip Gov’t support of the arts. But, that is a whole OTHER argument amongst many.
Though most of us for decades had only a walking stick and a bindle bag, still, thank you JD, for bringing that today some artists are deliriously happy they have recognition and financial resource ($500K ea.) to stabilize, to complete or continue or begin new work. That’s a blessing that will hopefully ripple outward far, far beyond those artists’/ thinkers’ personal reach.
I’m not sure why finger pointing & not toe pointing … maybe sometimes an index finger is just an index finger hahaha.