University of the Witwatersrand, School of Humanities and Community Development, Division of Psychology Towards A Lacanian Methodology for Analyzing Extra-Analytic Textual Material R. L. Apteker/8906483A Supervisor: Professor Gavin Ivey A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2010 in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Arts in Clinical Psychology. 2 Declaration I declare that this research report is my own, unaided work. It has not been submitted before for any other degree or examination at this or any other university. Signed _________________at ____________ on ___ of ____, 2010 Word Count: _____________ 3 Abstract This research report presents a pilot study exploring the possibility of applying a Lacanian clinical methodology for analyzing unconscious dynamics in extra-analytic material. This research initially investigates the legitimacy and utility of this endeavour, followed by immersion in Lacanian thinking and the subsequent selection of potentially relevant data sets; samples of extra-analytic textual material. As this stage a recursive interaction between reading Lacanian theory and reflecting on the text is enacted. Five Lacanian concepts are identified (mirror phase, the three orders of the imaginary, the symbolic and the real, as well as the paternal agency). Although these concepts are, in process inextricable from another, they are presented as though discrete entities given that this allows for the foregrounding of different aspects in the process. The interaction between these concepts is considered with respect to Lacan?s requirement in clinical practice of a tentative preliminary diagnosis of the patient into one of three diagnostic categories; perversion, neurosis and psychosis. Consequently, in a step that mirrors the clinical process, the textual subject of the data sets is tentatively classified as a (Lacanian) psychotic whose characteristic psychic structure is constituted out of foreclosure. Ways of discerning this structure in textual matter outside of the analytic setting are then considered. Four ways are proposed here. These are the unified or unbounded use of personal pronouns; evidence of thinking towards resolution or disintegration; denial or tolerance of difference and fourthly, the manifestation of regressive or libidinal speech actions. These four provide the basis for approaching the analysis of the selected data sets, which consist of carefully selected instances of Jacob Zuma?s ostensibly unscripted public utterances. It is proposed that the four ways identified can be used in the analysis of other extra-analytic material. Keywords: Lacan, Lacanian, mirror phase, imaginary order, symbolic order, order of the real, paternal agency, paternal metaphor, Lacanian psychotic, foreclosure 4 Acknowledgements The candidate presenting this report wishes to acknowledge the input of Professor Gavin Ivey who acted as supervisor during the process of research and also Professor Carol Long who was able to fill the gap in the last stage of the process. Furthermore the heroic efforts of the candidate?s family to keep the ship sailing while she was elsewhere, whether physically or mentally, are acknowledged. 5 Contents Title Page 1 Declaration 2 Abstract 3 Acknowledgments 4 1. Towards a Lacanian Methodology 8 1.1 Rationale of Research 8 1.2 Aim of Research 11 1.3 Overview of the Research Design 12 1.4 Context of the Research 16 1.5 Structure of the Research Report 16 2. Literature Review and Conceptual Background 17 2.1 Literature Review of Relevant Research Material 18 2.1.1 Legitimacy of using extra-analytic material for analysis. 18 2.1.2 Lacanian Readings. 214 2.1.3 Psychoanalyzing Political Leaders. 24 2.2 The Lacanian Theoretical Framework 26 2.2.1 Lacan in the context of psychoanalysis. 26 2.2.2 Lacanian subjectivity. 32 3. Discussion of Key Lacanian Concepts 36 3.1 Key Lacanian Concepts 36 3.1.1 The imaginary order. 37 3.1.2 The symbolic order. 39 3.1.3 The real order. 40 3.1.4 The mirror phase. 41 3.1.5 The name-of the-father and the paternal agency. 44 3.2 Lacan?s Three Diagnostic Categories 45 4. Methodology 51 4.1 Research Procedure. 51 4.2 Scope. 54 4.3 Selection and Collection of Data. 54 4.4 The Socio-Historical Location of Jacob Zuma. 57 6 4.5 Reflection on the Overt Content of the Textual Matter Selected for Analysis. 62 5. Interpretation and Discussion of Data 64 5.1 Interpretation and Discussion of Data. 64 5.1.1 The subject?s use of unified or unbounded pronouns. 66 5.1.2 The manifestation of thinking towards resolution or disintegration. 73 5.1.3 Acknowledgement or denial of difference. 77 5.1.4 Appearance of aggressive or libidinal language. 81 5.2 Concluding Comments 84 5.2.1 Limitations and future areas of research. 85 Works Cited 86 Appendix A 93 Appendix B 105 Appendix C 110 7 8 1. Towards a Lacanian Methodology We can only grasp the unconscious finally when it is explicated, in that part of it which is articulated by passing into words. (Lacan, 1997, p. 32) For interpretation is not grounded in some assumption of divine archetypes, but in the fact that the unconscious has the radical structure of a language and that a material operates in the unconscious according to certain laws, which are the same laws as those discovered in the study of natural languages [langues] ? that is, languages [langues] that are or were actually spoken. (Lacan, 2006, p.496) 1.1 Rationale of Research It would be useful to have a methodology for Lacanian analysis that could be applied beyond the clinical setting. Lacan?s writing about the unconscious suggests that analysis outside of the analytic setting is possible. Lacan?s (1998) idea for example, that ?the unconscious is structured like a language? (p. 48), that it is accessible only in speech and writing and that its ?deepest recesses? (Minsky, 1998, p. 66) are evidenced ?through gaps, slippages, blunders, sighs? (Minsky, 1998, p. 66), presents the possibility that where there is language there are unconscious processes at work beneath it. It is true that discourse analysis makes use of a whole series of Lacanian conceptual ideas in order to analyse textual matter (Bracher 1993,1997; Chiesa 2007; Parker, 2010; Pav?n Cu?llar 2010; Verhaeghe 2002). This approach opens up the possibility of a seemingly non-clinical utilization of Lacanian concepts to do critical reading work. But the objectives of such readings are different to the overall aim towards which this research report begins to make a contribution; the possibility of arriving at ?diagnosis?. This research report, therefore, provides initial groundwork in considering the plausibility of such a venture as well as outlining some ways in which a Lacanian methodology for psychoanalyzing the psychic dynamics of the unconscious in textual material outside of the analytic setting might be undertaken. It is important to note here that the objective is the psychoanalysis of material and not a discourse analysis. This is an important distinction to make as it is the intention to legitimate (derived from Lacanian thinking) a process for the psychoanalysis of material outside of the clinic, but with Lacanian clinical principals in mind, that sets it apart from discourse analysis. This research is interested in, in a sense, regarding the textual matter as the 9 patient in need of a diagnosis, albeit a tentative one, in order to facilitate (at a later stage) a psychodynamic formulation and there after a ?treatment plan?. To consider the reasons why this kind of research may be useful one has only to look at the analyses and thinking that surrounds, for example; international relations, peace mediations, political campaigns and all forms of public and negotiated strategizing. These are situations where one of any number of interested parties might wish to get the other on the couch, as it were. In these situations, where the other is unavailable for face to face interrogation, it is the textual matter of the subject that provides the material for analysis. The public performances of the other, the possibly spontaneous utterances in public settings, the unguarded moment caught on camera, the doodles left on a hotel napkin, may all seem to offer insight into a public subject. The question is, however, is it possible to read into these scatterings the evidence of unconscious processes? Could all such material be useful, not merely in the context of discourse analysis but further, in relation to the objective of making an actual diagnosis, if not of the individual per se, but of the ?subject? of the textual matter presented? And if so, is there a methodology or an approach that might be useful in helping one to think about such material? Is there a way in which one might be able to arrive at a ?diagnosis?, and which, if thoughtfully applied could yield productive insights and ideas regarding future developments or pertinent interventions. One of the objectives of the research is therefore to explore the possibility for a tentative diagnosis of the subject of textual matter and to begin to consider ways in which one might set about working towards a diagnosis. In remaining within the realm of (Lacanian) psychoanalysis this research therefore remains by necessity more reductive than the broad application of various Lacanian conceptual features (utilized by Lacan himself, in his own reading of texts) would allow for. Diagnosis of a patient in a clinical setting presents its own ethical concerns. With respect to these concerns this research foregrounds its insistence on the fact that the material presented for discussion is essentially extra-clinical, and that the material used in working towards a diagnosis is material which exists wholly in the public domain. Furthermore this research takes care to explore the ways in which, drawing on Lacanian thinking, the notion of the ?subject? of the textual matter presented for discussion is not to be conflated with the speaking subject of the psychoanalytic session. Also, while this research aims to mirror features of the process whereby a 10 clinical diagnosis can be made in the clinical setting, this research takes care to distinguish its use of Lacan?s diagnostic terms (such as psychotic or pervert or neurotic) from this clinical setting by acknowledging the ?as if? nature of the possible diagnosis of the textual subject. This is done through the use of speech marks whenever diagnostic terms are utilized in relation to the textual subject to indicate that in relation to the material presented it is ?as if? the text present an ?unconscious? and within which one might find presenting features consistent various diagnostic positions. It should be noted that although this research aims to model itself on features of a Lacanian clinical process, given space constraints, the possibility for the presentation of a discussion of a differential diagnosis, necessary in a clinical context, is not possible here. The early findings of a proposed possible method are applied to the analysis of the selected extra-analytic textual material. This application aims to demonstrate the viability of the initial steps proposed here with a view to the development of a comprehensive methodology at a later stage. Secondly, the choice of the textual material and the analysis thereof aims to underscore the potential utility of this research project to the broader social arena. There has been significant research into establishing a Lacanian approach in relation to a methodology for practitioners in clinical work and analysis of patients in a clinical context (Bracher, 1993, 1997; Fink, 1999, 2005). Beyond the clinical setting Lacanian ideas have been widely appropriated but a specifically Lacanian methodology, as per the intentions of this research, developed for the purposes of analyzing material outside of the psychoanalytic setting does not appear to have a clear precedent. Its closest approximation can be found, as noted, in writing pertaining to Discourse Analysis (Bracher, 1993, 1997; Parker, 2005, 2010, Pav?n Cu?llar 2010; Verhaeghe, 2002) and Verhaeghe (1998), despite pursuing the possibility of applying Lacanian ideas outside the clinic observes with regard to method that anyone who seeks a ?discussion of methods? or of ?specific testing procedures will be disappointed,? although he adds, ?[t]his is not to say I consider such techniques unimportant? (p.ix). Secondly, the possibility of contributing towards establishing a methodology for analyzing extra-analytic material has numerous implications, some of which are 11 addressed in this report. Interpreting the speeches of political leaders and distance analysis, for example, opens up considerable scope for further application. 1.2 Aim of Research Broadly the aim of this research is to provide an initial demonstration of a way Lacanian theory can be applied usefully to everyday textual material with a view to revealing underlying psychic dynamics in relation to a diagnostic position. Such an application is useful because, if it can be successfully done, it is possible to begin to formulate or predict the orientation and underlying psychic dynamics of a subject selected for extra-analytic analysis. This can have any number of implications, not least of which, as this report tentatively points towards, is the possibility of using such analysis to contribute towards political strategizing, negotiation, mediation or policy making. An elucidation of five aspects of Lacan?s (2006) theoretical material, arguably his key concepts (the mirror phase, the paternal order and the orders of the imaginary, symbolic and the real) is presented. When these are considered in relation to the intention to analyze extra-analytic textual material it becomes possible to discern predictable psychic structures which exist relative to an overall textual form. This report aims to identify, at this point, four ways in which the underlying psychic dynamics of one of the three Lacanian psychoanalytic classifications (psychotic, neurotic and perverted), can be identified as manifesting in spontaneous speech (outside of the clinic). In clinical practice Lacan (2006) advocated an initial, tentative preliminary diagnosis of the patient according to one of three clinical categories (psychosis, neurosis or perversion) which, if found to be unsupported by the content and analysis of the analytic session, could be revisited. According to Lacan this diagnosis was based on intuition derived from clinical experience in the process of interacting with patients (2006). This report, in turn, draws on Lacan?s (2006) advocacy of an initial preliminary diagnosis and, in relation to the material selected herein for analysis. In light of Lacan?s thinking this report tentatively proposes that the underlying unconscious psychic dynamic of the textual subject is that of a (Lacanian) ?psychotic?. Through elucidating aspects of Lacan?s theory of the ?psychotic? structure characteristic features of this structure are identified and contextualized in 12 relation to Lacan?s understanding of psychic dynamics. It is perhaps worth noting at this point, in the manner of an aside, Chiesa?s (2007) observation that, in relation to the potentially sensitive matter of applying a term such as ?psychotic? to the material of a subject outside a clinical setting, ?Lacan also believes that all subjects are potentially psychotic? (p.7). It is true that Lacan?s way of reading extra analytic material (as in his case of Hamlet) does not function simply to develop or support a diagnosis or to reduce utterance or discourse to fit with a clinical picture. In this research, however, it is precisely the possibility of arriving at a diagnostic understanding of the subject that motivates using Lacan?s clinical approach in an extra-analytic context. This report then attempts to align the identified conceptual features with the ways they might present in everyday language (while remaining cognizant of how this presentation is integrally tied to the underlying dynamics of the psychic structure). This endeavour is premised upon the idea that (in relation to the psychotic structure) the failure of the paternal metaphor to order consciousness can be matched with demonstrable enactments in speech. In this report four ways in which characteristic features of the Lacanian psychotic structure might present in language or speech (in situations outside of the analytic frame) are proposed. These are uniquely identified as, the unified or unbounded use of personal pronouns; evidence of thinking towards resolution or disintegration; recognition or denial of difference and finally, the manifestations of libidinal drives through regressive speech actions. It is also noted here that the Lacanian diagnosis of psychosis does not is to be correlated with a clinical diagnosis that requires treatment, albeit that Lacan (2006) recommends particular kinds of interventions for such patients in the clinical setting. It is proposed that these four ways (and others that may follow) can be utilised in the analysis of the selected extra-analytic material as well as other such material. 1.3 Overview of the Research Design This report is really more an exploration of theory as it might be applied in relation to a case study but as it is endeavours to identify new and original ways of operationalizing the theoretical material it was felt useful that it be guided, albeit very broadly, by some basic tenets of qualitative design. In this regard the basic approach to interacting with the theoretical material can be mapped against the basic process of 13 a grounded theory research design (Charmaz, 2006; Glaser G. B., 1978; Glaser & Strauss, 1999). It must be stressed, however, (as the primary intention of this research) is to distinguish or identify ways in which future adherents to Lacanian theory might themselves be able to operationalize the theory in the understanding of extra clinical material) that this adherence to methodology is admittedly opportunistic. Nevertheless, in keeping with the explorative nature of grounded theory and given the scope of the research problem this report is presented as a pilot study exploring and hopefully demonstrating the feasibility of the larger objective. As opposed to the positivist emphasis on setting out to prove a previously formulated hypothesis, a broad research problem is presented at the outset of the report. This considers the possibility of legitimately using Lacanian psychoanalytic theory for analysis of material outside of the analytic frame and as such envisages the development of a methodology for such a purpose. At the same time, and in keeping with the underlying intention of grounded theorists (Glaser & Strauss, 1999; Glaser G. B., 1978 and Terre Blanche, 2004), the intention to adhere where possible to positivist principles, even while utilising the space for more explorative research, is maintained. In this regard the intention of the research ultimately is to distil from relevant Lacanian theory predictable characteristic patterns that can be aligned with particular ways such might present in language. The types of presentation, once identified, should be generalizable to a spectrum of extra-analytic matter and once applied can be used as the basis from which to formulate an understanding of this material?s psychic dynamics. Initially, the process of researching the problem, as recommended by grounded theorists (Charmaz, 2006, p. 5), foregrounds immersion in Lacanian theory. This immersion is mirrored in the presentation of the content of the report which begins with a discussion of the theory. As distinct categories emerge during reading of Lacanian theory (five aspects are proposed herein) and an appreciation for the clinical implications of the theory (Lacan?s three diagnostic categories) strategies for achieving the broad objectives of the research become apparent. At this stage the interactive process in which the theory is read concurrently with analysis of selected data sets (Charmaz, 2006, p. 5) directs the research. As the possibility of translating Lacan?s conceptual material into discrete yet dynamic structures locatable in textual matter emerges it becomes apparent that Lacanian analysis of extra-analytic material may be possible. This position does 14 acknowledge, however, that there will always be those who, in debating ideas about psychoanalysis and its relation to a precise clinical configuration, will tend to find that the utilization of clinical concepts is likely to fail outside the controlled domain of the clinical psychoanalytical interaction (Parker, 2010; Frosh, 2010). This report?s focus notwithstanding, is defining categories derived from analysis of the data with respect to Lacanian theory (Charmaz, 2006, p. 5). The extra analytic material or data for the ?case study? was initially selected on the basis that it provided instances of material produced by a highly politically relevant topical figure. It was a general intention that the analysis of this, and other such material, might provide insight into the psychic dynamics of the textual unconscious. Such insight might be useful in helping relevant parties respond to, engage with or even predict patterns in the underlying dynamics of this and other such material with a view to furthering social understanding and interactions. The initial tentative classification of the textual matter as being best aligned with the ?psychotic? structure emerged over the course of immersion in the text of the ?case study? material itself. This movement between theory and data accords with principles of grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006; Glaser, 1978; Terre Blanche, 2004). Three sets of extra-analytic data are sourced from the same highly topical speaker but are drawn from social circumstances in which the speaker, although acting in his public capacity, is faced with three distinct responses to his person. Because the speaker is not operating within the analytic frame and furthermore is acting in a public capacity the analysis of the material can only provide comment on the underlying structures of the textual matter in relation, both to itself, and to its audience. The psychotic structures identified in the textual matter are firstly, not necessarily attributable to the speaker. Secondly, the use of the Lacanian diagnostic category ?psychotic? cannot be conflated with the DSM-IV category. The design of this report aims to address five main considerations pertinent to the research process and objectives. Firstly, the relevance of the research topic generally is explored through a brief review of related research. This review finds that, in fact, while Lacan?s theories have been appropriated by numerous theorists, there is little practical research into the application of purely Lacanian theory to the analysis of the textual material pertaining to the unconscious outside of the clinical setting. This report also notes that Lacan?s writing does not in fact provide a clear methodology for such a task. In the few instances where theorists have attempted to 15 provide considered steps to assist in such analysis of textual material (Caudill, 1997; Fink, 1997, 2005; Parker, 2005) there is still a dearth of actual applications of the theoretical material to specific instances of analysis or even concrete guidance on how this might be done. A second area addressed by the research design is the necessity of fore- grounding five aspects of Lacanian concepts in relation to the broad conceptual framework of Lacanian theory. This is found necessary both with regard to helping demarcate the focus of this research in relation to the theoretical space but also with regard to demonstrating some capacity for mastery in the field. This discussion is also undertaken because it is from this theoretical space that the four proposed ways in which the psychotic structure of the textual subject manifests is drawn. The third research area addressed in the process of research design is the discussion of the foregrounded five Lacanian aspects drawn from his theory (the symbolic order, the order and the real, the paternal metaphor and the mirror phase), as well as the three clinical diagnostic categories (psychosis, neurosis and perversion). Discussion of the Lacanian concept of subjectivity is also provided. It is envisaged that in working towards an understanding of the psychic dynamics of the proposed textual subject, the discussion of these two areas (the application of five general theoretical concepts and the implications of the clinical classification) will intersect. Fourthly, a reflection on the process of the research itself, its approach and methodological issues are addressed. Because this report aims to take the preliminary steps towards establishing the outline of a Lacanian methodology in relation to extra- clinical analysis, precise versions of other already established methodologies reviewed are not intended to be applied. Instead relevant aspects of these approaches are fore-grounded for consideration. These are used to provide some guidelines for thinking. Fifthly, this research is aware of the need to identify and contextualize the material selected for analysis. A highly topical domain of textual material is selected of which the content as well as the unconscious dynamics could potentially have implications for readers. The choice of the subject of the textual material selected for analysis, however, remains secondary to the overarching aims of this report as already stated. This report has selected three transcriptions of a public figure, engaged in question and answer sessions with interviewers. The subject?s responses are arguably, at least in part, spontaneous in nature. This material has been easily accessible to the 16 public on the web and therefore may be seen to represent part of the public discourse of this nation. A brief discussion of the findings will be presented in the conclusion of the report with respect to their potential utility, the limitations of the research itself and also with regard to future areas of research. 1.4 Context of the Research What about the Lacanian subject? Where is he? (Chiesa, 2007, p. 6) For the sake of emphasis it is also important to stress, once again, at this point that this research does not aim to analyze the psyche of the selected public figure per se and, secondly, although the term ?discourse? is used at points in the discussion this report does not intend a discourse analysis. Instead, this discussion aims to show how the Lacanian constructs identified might be elucidated and aligned with concrete ways these might present in speech and then searched for or located in the extra- analytic material. As Chiesa (2007) observes in relation to Lacan?s writing on subjectivity it ?comes to be defined as an imaginary function? (p.7), and further that ?Lacan relates subjectivity to language understood as a structure, the symbolic order as the legal fabric of human culture (p.8). While it may be hypothesized that these structures have bearing on actual psychic processes in the subject producing the textual matter such associations can only be speculatively proposed in this context. Further, it should be noted that although this research may have overlap with and bear relationship to psycholinguistics, this report is not intended to be a psycholinguistic analysis either. This report is not the latter because, for example, it is not interested in the competence, performance and comprehension of the subject with regard to his production of language per se. 1.5 Structure of the Research Report This introductory chapter provides a brief overview of the general area covered by the report. The second chapter provides an overview of relevant research in the area proposed by the research topic and then considers theoretical concepts underpinning this research with respect to the relationship between Lacan?s clinical thinking and his theoretical writing. Fore-grounded aspects of Lacanian theory are identified and discussed in Chapter Three, these being the mirror phase, the three orders of the real and the 17 symbolic as well as the concept of the paternal function. The clinical categories presented by Lacan are also discussed with the emphasis being placed on the psychotic structure and its constitutive element of foreclosure. Chapter Four considers methodological issues of relevance in the process of discerning the way elements identified by Lacanian theory can be seen as being ?operationalized? in the textual material. Key points raised by methodologies aligned with the intentions of this research are taken into consideration, namely grounded theory. A consideration of the broad socio-historical backdrop of Zuma?s origins is also provided with respect to the concerns of a traditional psychoanalytic approach in which the subject?s symptoms are analyzed in relation to developmental history. The overt nature of the textual material selected (transcriptions of three question and answer session between Zuma and various interviewers sourced from the web but selected with respect to criteria discussed in Chapter Four) will also be examined. The fifth chapter uses the structural elements drawn from the discussion of Lacanian theory, to consider how these elements might present in speech or language and then attempts to discern these in the selected textual material. Holding the idea of how these elements might present in mind the selected texts are approached both with regard to the overt intentions of the speaker but also with respect to discerning the underlying orientation of the unconscious evidenced in the text. This provides the basis for a preliminary formulation, not of the unconscious of the subject but of the subject of the Lacanian textual unconscious as presented in the transcripts. Discussion and concluding comments on the nature of the findings are provided at the end of the chapter. Given the explorative nature of this research and the fact that it is one step in a much longer process the findings discussed herein will necessarily be brief and inconclusive but are envisaged as nevertheless contributing useful material towards the process. The three transcripts of the selected textual matter are included at the end of the report in Appendix A, B and C respectively. 18 2. Literature Review and Conceptual Background Indeed, what happens in an analysis is that the subject, strictly speaking, is constituted through a discourse to which the mere presence of the psychoanalyst, prior to any intervention he may make, brings the dimension of dialogue. (Lacan, 2006, p. 176) Firstly, this chapter reviews research relevant to this report?s objectives. Secondly, a broad conceptual context is provided for the subsequent discussion of the relevant theoretical writing. With regard to the first concern; the consideration of writing relevant to this research, three questions are raised. The first considers the legitimacy of using extra-analytic material for analysis of the unconscious and considers material where others have attempted to do so. Secondly, this research explores ways other thinkers have attempted to apply Lacanian theory given that no formally established methodology exists for such an endeavour. Thirdly, this chapter considers the relationship between other analytical approaches and the psychoanalysis of political figures and keeps in mind that the selected textual matter presented for research is drawn from the public utterance of a local politician. 2.1 Literature Review of Relevant Research Material 2.1.1 Legitimacy of using extra-analytic material for analysis. This literature review explores the legitimacy of using extra-analytic material for analysis. It is argued that the validity of this pursuit rests in an appreciation of what is meant by a Lacanian notion of the unconscious. Although Lacan has argued that his understanding is aligned with Freud?s it is clear the later theorist foregrounds different features to that of his predecessor. In this sample a range of thinkers from psychoanalysts to cultural commentators are drawn on to provide discussion of ideas related to an understanding of the Lacanian unconscious. This discussion also demonstrates how Lacan?s theories relating to the idea that the unconscious is like a language are embraced across a broad spectrum. Minsky (1998) promotes Lacan?s position on the relationship between the unconscious and language in the statement, ?the unconscious is accessible only in speech and writing? (p. 61). ?i?ek (1996) writes that for Lacan the unconscious is discerned through ?a method of reading texts, oral (the patient?s speech) or written? (p. ii). ?i?ek (1991) also restates Lacan?s original statement that the unconscious is like a language, declaring that ?everything can now be a text? (p.77). Minsky (1998) 19 understands Lacan to mean that it is through the analysis of such ?texts? that ?the deepest recesses of our unconscious? (p.61) can be revealed and moreover that, for Lacan, revelations of the dynamics of the unconscious are enabled through the enactment of ?gaps, slippages, blunders, sighs, hesitations or silences? (p. 62). Fink?s (1997) reading of Lacan contends that ?language as it operates at the unconscious level, obeys a kind of grammar, that is a set of rules that governs the transformation and slippage that goes on therein (pp. 8-9), that ?the unconscious has the tendency to break words down into their smallest units ? phonemes and letters ? and recombine them as it sees fit? (Fink, 1997, p.9). ?i?ek (1996) argues that to practice Lacan?s ?mode of reading? one should ?read other?s texts with Lacan? (p. ii). Not only have these thinkers enthusiastically discussed Lacan?s theories, many have attempted to apply his ideas to a multiplicity of settings, from the analysis of literary texts, films, fashion, to architecture and culture (?i?ek, 2006). ?i?ek (2006) has utilized Lacanian ideas to discern the unconscious in architecture and film Jameson (1991) in economics; Walkerdine (1987) has investigated the relationship between feminine desire and comics and Hollway (1989) has analyzed heterosexual subjectivity through interviews and journaling. Lacanian concepts are even appropriated to the context of interpreting urban planning (Hillier, 2005). Bracher (1993) appropriates Lacan into the context of cultural criticism. His is a discourse analysis approach which attempts to establish a method of cultural criticism based on principles of psychoanalytic treatment with the intention of helping, by altering subjectivity. In fact, Lacan (2006) appears to have authorized his own attempted psychoanalysis of ?texts? outside the analytic setting in, for example, his analysis of Poe?s ?The Purloined Letter? or again in his (1997) analysis of Sophacles? Antigone. There is much room for further debate on the legitimacy of such practice but for this report?s purposes it should suffice to say the precedent has been set. The idea of analysis outside of the clinical setting is not an anomaly. Lacan?s own thinking around the idea that unconscious dynamics are both present in and active in all forms of textual material is developed and reworked through the course of his career. As already noted, Lacan (2006) argued that his position on the unconscious and its manifestations was consistent with Freud?s thinking. He believed that his own writing was merely a restatement or elaboration of Freud?s position that human experience is structured by words and that only through this structure we can apprehend the operation of the unconscious. Lacan (2006) writes that ?[c]oncerning 20 the unconscious, one must go straight to the crux of Freud?s experience. The unconscious is a concept founded on a trail [trace] left by that which operates to constitute the subject? (p. 703). He (1997) argues that human experience is made up of language and that experience itself is subject to language; that we live ?in a universe structured by words, that language, symbolic processes, dominate and govern all? (p. 45). Even the ?inner processes? (Lacan, 1997, p. 32) are subject to the governance of language. Lacan (1997) writes that ?[o]f everything that occurs at the level of inner processes, and thought itself is such a process, according to Freud, the only signs of which the subject is consciously aware are signs of pleasure or pain. As with all the other unconscious processes, nothing else reaches the level of consciousness but those signs there? (p. 32). According to Lacan (1997) the possibility of apprehending the unconscious is possible ?only insofar as words are uttered? (p. 32). In other words apprehension begins through the process of articulating words. Lacan (1997) writes that, according to Freud, ?thought processes are only known to us through words? (p.32) and that what ?we know of the unconscious reaches us as a function of words? (p.32), that inner processes can only reach the outer world through the bridging function of a ?discharge?, for example, ?a cry? (p.32). This cry gives weight and potential expression to the inner and as yet unknown processes for ?the unconscious itself has in the end no other structure than the structure of language? (p. 32). Nasio (1998) argues that, for Lacan, speech ?provides the best opening for us to come into contact with the structural order of the unconscious? (p. 48). According to Nasio?s (1998) reading of Lacan it is through the structures of speech that the unconscious can be grasped and it is through the act of naming or of ?giving the right name to an event? that the unconscious emerges. It is the act of naming, or analyzing and interpreting that ?causes the structure of the unconscious to exist? (p. 47). This does not mean that the unconscious is created by the observer. Rather, it seems Nasio draws out Lacan?s thinking to emphasize the idea that it is through the act of observing or reflecting that those previously unrecognized aspects of being emerge and gain life and reality in the mind of the observer. As this happens it is as though the observing mind has created or called into being the unconscious elements he or she now perceives. According to Parker (2005) the Lacanian unconscious can be understood as a ?quality of speech? (p. 163). For Lacan (2002), meanwhile, the unconscious exists in 21 a certain part of the subject?s articulation which does not correspond with the speaker?s overt intentions or align with the conscious thrust of meaning. Lacan writes, in this regard, that the unconscious exists in that place between ?that part of concrete discourse qua transindividual, which is not at the subject?s disposal in re- establishing the continuity of his conscious discourse? (p. 50). 2.1.2 Lacanian Readings. So, beginning with the Lacanian assumption that the unconscious is structured like a language, it is pertinent to ask what research does attempt to use Lacanian ideas to grasp this ?unconscious?. The following discussion examines three areas. Firstly, writing pertaining to the application of psychoanalytical thinking to extra- analytic contexts is considered. Secondly, writing that considers the possibility of the analysis of all types of discourse (from the strict psychoanalytic context to the analysis of more or less unprepared or spontaneous utterances) is also reviewed. Thirdly, given that this report has selected the public utterances of a political figure, it seems relevant to review writing pertaining to analysis of political leaders. Material related to the conventional ways political leaders have been analyzed (for example, distance analysis) is considered so as to show where the development of a Lacanian methodology for analysis would open new and intriguing opportunities for future assessment. Researching material both topically as well as methodologically relevant to this research has had its challenges. As the contents pages of Clarke and Hoggett?s (2009) overview of new research methodologies in the field of psycho-social research demonstrates, while references to psychoanalysis abound, allusions to Lacan are much rarer. Furthermore, where Lacanian theory is considered, theoretical text is tailored by the practitioner to the purposes of a variety of other methodological or theoretical objectives such that the notion of a Lacanian analysis based on methodology innate to Lacanian theory for its own sake is hardly evident. Of the material reviewed Parker?s (2005, 2010) work presents the closest approximation to the intentions of this research. The crucial distinction, however, lies with Parker?s stated objectives. The emphasis in Parker?s research is on the development of a theory of discourse analysis using Lacanian thinking and this, as stated previously commits Parker?s research to a different end than that envisaged here. Parker has developed over a number of iterations of his research what he regards as seven elements in Lacan?s writing that would arguably facilitate a discourse 22 analysis reading of textual material, albeit with a psychoanalytic slant. This report, on the other hand, identifies five key concepts from which to develop an approach derived from Lacanian theory for the purpose of facilitating a Lacanian analysis of the text. Parker (2005) usefully extends his selection of his identified seven key elements to consider how these have direct bearing on an analytic reading of various difference kinds of discourse outside of the analytic frame. This is done, however, with aim of facilitating ?discourse-analysis? (p.12) of the material. Points of interest in this research include Parker?s (2005) discussion of what he terms Lacan?s ?anchoring of representation? (Parker, 2005), which requires a consideration of how the text, whether it is spoken by a particular subject or assembled by one or more subjects in writing, is structured (p.12). Parker (2005) argues that the analyst, when considering this concept, might look for the way the subject fixes meaning through the repetition of certain signifiers or metaphors that substitute for the signifier. This pattern of repetition conveys to the recipient of the discourse the idea that the text is anchored in or weighted with significance or meaning. Parker (2005) argues that for Lacan the existence of what might be called ?quilting points? can be seen often to deflect or avoid further examination of the subject by the recipient of the discourse (p.12). Other relevant ideas raised by Parker?s (2005, 2010) research include his emphasis on an assessment of the formal qualities of the text, (also a concern of grounded theory). This requires attention to the way signifiers are organized in the text. This consideration also aims to identify those signifying elements in the text that have no meaning and as such asks what role these elements play in organizing or disrupting the ostensible meaning of the text. Another formal quality of the text discussed by Parker (2005, 2010) regards the role of knowledge (which considers the way ?speech commits its author by investing the person to whom it is addressed with a new reality?, Lacan, in Parker, 2005, p. 172). Parker (2005) advocates that the analyst?s contemplation of the role knowledge plays in the construction of the textual meaning requires the identification of instances in the given ?text? in which knowledge is presumed or where authority and knowledge are assumed to lie. Such assumptions are, for Lacan, an indication of the subject?s idea of the Other and reveal important information about the way the textual subject is constituted in relation to this Other. 23 Parker?s (2005, 2010) objectives are stated in terms of discourse analysis; this is the intention to identify facets in Lacan?s theoretical writing that will help the discourse analyst to approach a text with discursive concepts in mind. Indeed, in researching this report, a cursory application of Parker?s ideas to the texts selected herein, did achieve his aims: to help one think discursively about the text. In the context of the overall objectives of discourse analysis such thinking may have its own end, in the context of Lacanian theory, however, the question of how these concepts could help the analyst to arrive at a Lacanian analysis of given textual matter was not a consideration. This report?s intention to begin discerning a Lacanian method for analyzing textual material (for the purposes of providing the basis for psychoanalytic formulation) holds that a somewhat different set of materials are necessary. Bracher?s (1997) research on Lacan?s notion of the four discourses is also briefly discussed here, not so much because it is central to the intentions of this research, but rather to demonstrate that this researcher is familiar enough with the area of discourse analysis to argue that while it offers pertinent material it is not, at this stage in the research process, key to this endeavour. Bracher?s (1997) makes the case for the four discourses as providing a formal framework for discourse structure. Bracher argues that Lacan identifies general patterns for the structure of interaction. Bracher writes that a ?major advantage that Lacan?s theory of discourse holds over other theories is its synthesis of categories with categories of psychological structure in a single model. This built-in connection between linguistic and discursive phenomena on the one hand and (both collective and individual) psychological structures on the other provides Lacanian theory with an unparalleled power to explain how a given discourse or text affects (both temporarily and consciously, and also more or less permanently, or structurally), the human subjects who either produce or receive it? (p.5). The focus on the augmenting of linguistic with discursive phenomena as well as psychological structures does sound promising for the purposes of utilizing Lacanian clinical methods in a non-clinical context. In his essay Bracher (1997) presents the case for the formula of a structure of interaction between the sender and the receiver of a body of communication based on the discourses of the university, the master, the hysteric and the analyst. These four discourses reflect four key social functions for Lacan namely educating, governing, protesting and revolutionizing. These four structures order four key psychological factors ? knowledge/belief, 24 values/ideals, self-division/alienation and jouissance/enjoyment. Each of these leads to four different effects. Depending on the way in which the material is received depends on how these aspects are positioned in relation to the receiver and the sender. This model is useful because it is argued that in recognizing the particular psychological or social effects of a text one is thereafter able to consider the application of appropriate interventions associated with each discourse for the purpose of achieving change. Bracher (1997) argues that Lacan?s approach to discourse means that by ?exposing the real that the system of signifiers, and particularly the master signifiers, fail to grasp, one can interpellate subjects to an activation of their alienated condition, their non-identity with their master signifiers, and thus create an impetus for the production of new master signifiers? (p. 126). The usefulness of Lacan?s theory is thus represented as relevant to ideology critique or cultural criticism. Bracher (1997) argues that the primary reason for its value is the fact that the theory ?unites psychic structure, the ground of motivation, with semiotic phenomena and discursive structure in a single model? (p.127). As such this synthesis ?allows for an analysis of discourse that views every linguistic and discursive phenomenon in terms of the role it might play in the full range of psychological and social functions and structures that underlie human motivation on various planes ? including identity, identification, values, alienation, anxiety, shame, desire, and fantasy? (p.127). For the purposes of this research these features of discourse analysis are pertinent and not to be disregarded. Indeed, these may well correlate with the application of Lacan?s clinical ideas to material from an extra-analytic setting. At this stage in the research process, however, it is useful to hold in mind the broad arena of discourse analysis while remaining focused on material that seems to remain fore- grounded in Lacan?s writing on clinical practice. Branney?s (2007) article has relevance for a number of reasons. Firstly this text documents the growing interest in psycho-discursive analysis which combines discourse theory and psychoanalysis. Secondly, Branney (2007) argues that the current trend towards psycho-discursive approaches has resulted in the fundamental re-conceptualization of the subject of analysis in which subjectivity replaces personality. As Lacan?s notion of the subject is difficult to grasp and yet remains a necessary consideration in analyzing extra-analytic textual matter Branney?s (2007) discussion provides a useful platform for the thinking around this topic. It also helps 25 to focus issues related to the problem of analyzing a subject through language instead of within the boundaried and reflexive environment of the analytic setting. Thirdly, Branney (2007) reviews three different methodological approaches that make use discourse analysis in conjunction with psychoanalysis. These approaches are identified as Free Association Narrative Interview Method; Psychoanalytic Discursive Psychology; as well as what Branney (2007) refers to as ?Lacanian excursions into social psychology?, p.574). This review, again, provides material for consideration with regard to coming to terms with Lacan?s own apparently un-methodological approach. Significantly Branney (2007) warns against ?conflating different psychoanalytic perspectives? with psycho-discursive practices (p. 577). Branney?s (2007) discussion of the combination of psychoanalytic theory and discourse analysis is constructive because it shows how the theory points towards possible dynamics at play in textual material as a site of subjectivity. This discussion does not, however, provide any preliminary commentary on what these dynamics might be. Georgaca?s (2003) article is useful in that it considers the relevance of Lacanian psychoanalytic theory to the understanding of subjectivity as a construct in language. This linguistically constructed subject, manifest in speech, is conceived of as an array of linguistically based and enacted patterns, often derived from the client?s past. Georgaca?s (2003) work, in examining the utterances exchanged between patient and therapist, does provide examples of the application of the insights generated. This analysis, however, remains specific to the psychoanalytic setting and the case material related to such. Georgaca (2003) considers dialogical patterns that develop out of interactions in the analytic setting. The implications of these insights regarding the nature of subjectivity allow for the possibility that the scope for psychoanalysis may be extended beyond the analytic situation to consider extra-analytic textual matter. 2.1.3 Psychoanalyzing Political Leaders. The application of psychoanalytic theories to an analysis of both the personas as well as the textual material attributed to political leaders is well represented. This general area is briefly reviewed to show where a Lacanian methodology for psychoanalysis could arguably contribute towards the analysis of political leaders, texts and contexts. Relevant research includes Steinberg (2005), Elovitz (2003), Renshon (1996, 2001) and Post (1986, 2005). Renshon?s (1996) work on the psychological 26 assessment of presidential candidates argues that an analysis of appropriate character is fundamental to good leadership. He argues that while psychology, judgment and leadership qualities need to be considered, more important is the question of the basis on which these assessments are made. Influential and pertinent among the research reviewed is Post?s (2005) text on the psychological assessment of political leaders. Post, a leading researcher in this area, (he is the founder of the CIA?s Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior), pursues the question of what drives leaders such as Hussein, Blair, Bush and Bin Laden. Through case studies of such figures, Post and other researchers devise systems of distance evaluation that draw upon a variety of disciplines such a political psychology, psychoanalytical thinking and psycholinguistics. These areas are combined in order to produce comprehensive political and psychological profiles with the intention of facilitating a deeper understanding of the many forces shaping personal and global dynamics. Post?s (2005) text usefully reviews the history of the psychology of leadership assessment. The text explores a variety of different methodologies devised to overcome the challenge of distance assessment. None of these consider a Lacanian perspective. Post (2005) provides fascinating anecdotes of the instances where psychological assessment of leaders has been crucial to the development of negotiations and strategy (for example, Jimmy Carter?s dependence upon psychoanalytic studies during the Camp David talks). This material touches upon and provides useful glimpses into the value psychoanalytic thinking generally can have in relation to both a leadership and politics. Renshon (2001) presents a study of political leaders, with special attention paid to John McCain. Like Post (2005) Renshon (2001) discusses challenges in distance analysis and reflects on the ensuing dependence on other types of material, for example, campaign scenes and statements. What is interesting, however, is that Renshon?s (2001) article, like his (1996) earlier text, touches on, but does not substantiate his observation regarding the value of the slips or gaps in self- presentation of political leaders. These ?gaps? are the very points a Lacanian analysis proposes as the starting point for the psychoanalytic endeavour and which, if plausible, can be seen as one valuable way of overcoming the challenges of distance analysis. 27 Despite the extensive work done in this area it seems that Lacanian theoretical ideas have a contribution to make. In summary, there is arguably a vast divide between the broad, sweeping theoretical applications (numerous) that make large, incontestable generalizations in Lacan?s name and the more modest carefully considered packages of Lacanian concepts (for example; Parker, 2005; Caudill, 1997) which could be used to analyze texts. Where research material has begun to think about methodological guidelines there is almost no supporting material that begins to enact the methodological steps suggested, and where such methodology as pertains to Lacan (for example; Parker, 2005) does exist, it fails to address the objectives of a Lacanian analysis. Here, (and the following is written with ironic self awareness of Lacanian terminology) in this ?gap? lies the space for a Lacanian analysis of the textual material. 2.2 The Lacanian Theoretical Framework The second concern of this chapter is to provide a broad reflection on Lacan?s psychoanalytic thinking. This endeavour aims to provide a context for subsequent discussion of the five key Lacanian concepts. This section also briefly discusses Lacan?s notion of the ?subject?. 2.2.1 Lacan in the context of psychoanalysis. The importance of contextualizing Lacan is well recognized (Pelt, 1997; Homer, 2005; Holland, 1998) in terms of the possibility of accessing his ideas. The first point to note in so situating Lacan is the intentional difficulty of his writing, (quite apart from the fact that for the English reader his ideas are only accessible through translation and, moreover, that these translations themselves are derived from transcriptions of the theorist?s oral deliveries). Branney (2008) writes, ?[t]he work of Lacan is wilfully obscure, often arrogant, and difficult to read? (p.585). Even a reading of what is arguably one of Lacan?s (1988) most concise elucidations of his ideas regarding psychoanalytic technique, may leave one with more questions than one arrived with. This (Lacan, 1988) seminar makes use of terms which are either difficult to define or which cannot be unilaterally agreed upon, leaving readers with conflicting positions about what it is the analyst of the client, or the text, should technically be looking to do, or what he or she should be looking out for, or listening for. This experience of trying to make sense of Lacan is in fact consistent with Lacan?s (1998) overall intentions, ?It is rather well known that those ?crits cannot be 28 read easily. I can make a little autobiographical admission ? that is exactly what I thought. I thought, perhaps, it goes that far, I thought they were not meant to be read? (Lacan, 1998, p. 26). Although in this case Lacan may be alluding to the fact that the majority of the material comprising this text was transcribed from his oral delivery and was therefore intended for a listening audience rather than a reader it is certainly the case that even in his own written material Lacan remains wilfully obscure. Lacan (1998) repeatedly expressed his belief that fundamentally psychoanalysis should not be regarded as a technique which can be learnt through observation, imitation or application of technical skills. Instead, according to Kennedy (1986), Lacan?s writing itself often ?obeys the laws of the unconscious as they were formalised by Freud ? it is full of puns, jokes, metaphors, irony and contradictions, and there are many similarities in form to that of psychotic writing? (p. 12). As Homer (2005) writes regarding Lacanian style, ?[t]his is a style of writing that is performative ? that attempts to enact its meaning through its own presentation and syntax? (p. 25). Beyond its difficulty, however, the first tenet already addressed by this report is Lacan?s (1998) assertions that his analytic theories manifest a return to Freud. Even though he elaborates his own vocabulary for the conceptions he discusses, these are all attributed, more or less, to his predecessor. What Lacan emphasizes is derived from his reading of Freud?s earliest writings, in which the later theorist saw in Freud?s earliest models of unconscious processes what Rabat? (2009) has called a ?sort of psychic writing? (p. 29) or an interaction of traces. Lacan, (in Rabat?, 2001) is seen to cite a passage from a letter Freud had written as central to his own understanding of Freud?s thinking: I am working on the assumption that our psychical mechanism has come about by a process of stratification: the material present in the shape of memory- traces is from time to time subjected to a rearrangement in accordance with fresh circumstances ? is, as it were, transcribed. Thus what is essentially new in my theory is the thesis that memory is present not once but several times over in various species of `signs?. (Lacan citing Freud, in Rabat?, 2001, p. 30) Lacan (1998) derives from this the idea of the unconscious as a ?place?, as having its own topology. The properties of this ?place? (the site of memory, for example) remain consistent, even as it can be regarded as a place or site of continuous transformations (the memories themselves). 29 The important point for this research is that for Lacan (2006) the entry point for the analyst is the same. To be able to discern or recognize these entry points Lacan (2006) believed that the analyst?s one tool is his or her own unconscious. Lacan (2006) held that a psychoanalyst?s training could only arise within the context of his or her own analysis. It is from this experience that an ability to interrogate one?s own unconscious and to see the way it is attached to the imaginary order (discussed in Chapter Three). In this way the analyst is able to learn to recognize the dynamics of the unconscious from within and so become aware of blind spots, narcissistic postures and strategies the subject employs in the attempt to avoid what is perceived undesirable (Lacan, 2006). Lacanian analysis is therefore the introduction to the language of the patient?s desire or ?to the primary language in which ? beyond what he tells us of himself ? he is already speaking to us unbeknown to himself, first and foremost, in the symbols of his symptoms? (Lacan, 2006, p. 243). For Lacan (2006) the point that is fundamental to all experience is that the subject is ?taken-in by language? (p.206). Lacan (2006) writes, ?[w]hether it wishes to be an agent of healing, training or sounding the depths, psychoanalysis has but one medium: the patient?s speech? (p. 206). This ?speech? with its cultural resonances, homonyms, phonemes, and all its forms of linkages is what is utilized by the unconscious in order to form or express outwardly to the world, the unarticulated desires of the subjective being. Lacan (2006) observes with regard to the use of symbols by the unconscious that Freud was steeped in literature; ?not to mention his broad background in the classics, his familiarity with the modern study of folklore, and his keeping abreast of contemporary humanism?s conquests in the areas of ethnography? (p. 243). He (Lacan, 2006)) advises analytic practitioners that it should be considered wise ?to follow Freud along this path? (p. 243). It is advice which reckons well with the practice of grounded theory (Terre Blanche, 2004). Lacan (2006) also advances the injunction to the researcher to be sensitized to cultural nuances. For Lacan (2006) the subject is both born into and taken into language but - and what this ?but? alludes to seems to be fundamental in relation to Lacan?s ideas and indeed in relation to the objectives of this report - in the process of being taken into language something happens; ?some pathogenic event dubbed traumatic? (p. 211). This identification of a ?traumatic event? is simply a recapitulation of, Lacan (2006) reminds us, ground Freud has already covered. 30 But in Lacan?s hands a new emphasis is fore-grounded. Freud (1920/2005) proposed the model for how the polymorphously perverse child passes through the developmental phases (of which acquiring language is one), develops an unconscious and a superego and in the process is able to become both civilized and productive according to the norms of his or her day. Lacan focuses instead on how the developing infant formulates the notion of ?I?. In his writing on the mirror stage Lacan (2006) reworks the process already tackled by Freud, to show another aspect to the way the infant forms an illusion of an ego. In Lacan?s (2006) presentation the idea of a unified conscious self is identified with and bound to the word "I." Although the crucial (traumatic) event will be discussed shortly (in Chapter Three), the mirror phase is also briefly considered here in relation to its operation within the psychoanalytic context. As the subject is taken into language two things of significance occur. Firstly the way this taking into language occurs has to be considered. This is because for Lacan (2006) the way this process occurs fundamentally shapes the nature of the subject?s response to experience. Lacan (2006) identifies one of three possible ways that this process can occur. He (2006) calls these the psychotic, the perverted or the neurotic orientations towards experience (and these will be discussed shortly). These classifications form the basis of his diagnostic categories for use in clinical practice, although the classification system fits all who enter into language. The way the subject enters into language can therefore be seen as the decisive factor in the structuring of the unconscious material. This fact leads to the second point of significance which is the idea that the consequences of this structuring are embedded in the subject?s everyday use of language. As explained in Chapter Three, this way of entering into language is therefore fundamentally tied to the subject?s entry into the Symbolic order and to the paternal order. Lacan (2006) argues that in order for the subject to acquire language (that is to enter into the symbolic order which is the domain of the paternal), to take it in and to be taken in by it, something has to be given up, let go of or lost (p. 214). Lacan (2006) calls this something ?a lack? but this can also be understood as the giving up op or letting go of the idealization inherent to the imaginary order (p.55). In order to enter language and to participate in it, a lack has to be created or an awareness of a lack is created. The creation of this ?lack? (Lacan, 2006, p. 55) can be regarded as being both 31 the result of the inevitable process of growing awareness arising from the infant?s ongoing neurological development but equally can be viewed as arising as a result of a series of willed choices in response to this growing awareness in the infant to his or her own environment. This awareness of ?lack? is more than the lack that motivates a baby to scream in response to its awareness of a need for sustenance from the mother, although this is part of it. Lacanian ?lack? is an awareness that has existed at a pre-verbal level in the subject since infancy. This ?lack? is a deep sense that exists in the subject and is derived from the process in which the infant relinquishes the position of omnipotence enjoyed as a preconscious subject as well as from the process of entry into consciousness. Lacanian ?lack? is the growing sense, albeit unverbalized, in the subject that there is something out there that is absent within and is needed and that cannot be obtained unless one makes efforts or acquires the tools to obtain it. By entering into the process of acquiring speech the subject begins to learn the tools to acquiring what is out there. At the same time, the subject acquires tools to understand him or herself through this language and to describe oneself by it. Language is, however, fundamentally unable to capture the entirety of the person within words. No matter how eloquent, verbose or insightful the words are language will always fall short of capturing the whole person. Something is always missing, something of the entirety of the subject is always lacking. Something that the infant once believed in, his or her own omnipotence is lacking now that he or she has moved into the realm of language. Lacan?s term for this is ?manqu? ? ?tre? (2006, p. 524) or the lack of being. The lack is not simply an absence but the presence of an absence, a reminder of incompleteness. For the subject the lack, the area between fullness (the state of the infant whose position of omnipotence can be asserted by virtue of the absence of knowledge of lack) and the partial is, according to Lacan?s argument (2006) the source of tremendous anxiety. It is in this space, this site of lack, that ?the symptom was introduced, which was articulated on the basis of the fact that it represents the return of truth as such into the gap of a certain knowledge? (Lacan, 2006, p. 194). For Lacan (2006) the symptom is the subject?s way of avoiding the fear of this gap, or space between how he or she sees the self shaped in words and the awareness that there is more to individual experience than the way it seems in words. 32 The symptom may be described variously as a cover, lid or a curtain, a concealment over and a distraction from that gap. The symptom is a way of avoiding the confrontation with the gap. The next crucial feature in the passage through the mirror phase has to do with the paternal order. According to Lacan (2006) the individual goes to great lengths to avoid the experience of living with the knowledge of or the confrontation with or the experience of lack. This avoidance of lack is facilitated by utilizing the process of identification. Here an object is identified as itself not being flawed or in any state of lack. This ?object of desire?, construed by the observing mind as being complete is termed the ?phallus? by Lacan (2006). The phallus is the object, the concept or the experience, which if obtained or incorporated by the subject is believed, to be able to complete it by filling the gap and thus cancelling out the anxieties generated by the awareness of this space. If the subject identifies with this phallus or feels that the qualities necessary for an object to serve a phallic function are actually present, for example, in oneself, then the subject permits him or herself to believe he or she has been completed. In psychoanalytic terms this belief leads to presentation of narcissistic traits. If the subject identifies with the (phallic) object desired (and therefore lacked) by the Other then the subject attempts to complete the Other by offering a part of the self. Lacan (2006) envisages the process of analysis as providing the opportunity for the analysand to uncover how his or her own identifications have been made in order to disguise the painful experience of the ?lack? that entering into language initiates. The analysand learns to discover how the symptom manifests as the expression of this ?lack? borne out of being in language but also to discern how the confrontation and awareness of this experience of ?lack? is itself repressed. The symptom is therefore a focal point in analysis and is regarded as an expression of psychic suffering that needs to be understood and indeed interrogated or held up to scrutiny. In summary Lacan (2006) conceives the theoretical framework of psychoanalysis as one in which the analyst positions him or herself as one who has accepted the absence of a power that is desired. In psychoanalysis the analyst desires the power to intervene and fill the ?gap? presented by the patient?s symptoms. At the same the analyst recognizes the power to do so is not actually available to him or her. What is left is the simple awareness of this fact and the analyst?s ability to sit with the 33 client in the presence of this desire, holding it in mind but at the same time keeping it apart from the observations and reflections made. Interventions that are made are aimed at helping the patient to discern his or her own inner processes. From the outset the analyst observes these inner workings in order to make a preliminary diagnosis of the patient with regard to his or her orientation towards experience. 2.2.2 Lacanian subjectivity. Lacan?s (2006) conceptualization of subjectivity is important both for the analytic setting as well as for the analysis of extra-analytic material. Lacan?s (2006) use of the idea of the subject, however, is a fluid one. At times Lacan (2006) uses the word ?subject? to refer to the ego that consciously speaks (p. 253). At other times the term ?subject? alludes to the manifestation of the unconscious (Lacan, 2006, p. 6) and still again the ?subject? may be understand simply in terms of the topic of conversation. With regard to his purely theoretical use of the term ?subject?, however, Lacan (2006) does have very distinctive ideas and in order to delineate these it is important when reading Lacan to discern the context in which the term is being used. With regard to Lacan?s (2006) theoretical use of ?subject? then, some qualifying observations are necessary. Firstly, the Lacanian subject is not the grammatical subject of the sentence posited by the ?I? (which typically conveys to the listener the notion of a fixed entity). The subject is also not used to allude to an underlying masterful, continuous, but only momentarily seen agency, as implied at points in Freud?s writing (Fink, 2005). The Lacanian ?subject? is, instead a split subject (Lacan, 2006, p. 650) or, as termed variously in Lacan?s writing, the ?subject? is used to allude to something that is divided or incomplete. Lacan (2006) writes, therefore, of the ?divided subject? or the ?barred subject? (p.487). Fink (1995) describes Lacan?s intention when referring to the ?subject? in a theoretical context, as being an allusion to ?a speaking being?s two ?parts? or ?avatars??; that these parts, ?share no common ground: they are radically separated (the ego or false being requiring a refusal of unconscious thoughts, the unconscious thoughts having no concern whatsoever for the ego?s fine opinion of itself)? (p. 45). Lacan (2006) traces his idea of the splitness of subjectivity back to Freud?s (1938/1975) ideas regarding the splitting of the ego in the process of defence. In Lacan?s (2006) work, however, the split is attributed to or seen as a function of 34 language. The Lacanian subject (2006) is constituted out of the material of language. This language has a surface side or ego that is constructed out of parts of the language arranged according to some governing intention or objective. It also has a counter side which is also constituted out of language but which operates according to rules other than those consciously employed by the enunciating subject, (Lacan, p. 209). The analyst, when working with the split subject, must remain alert to and sensitized to both sides of the ?coin?. This means listening both to the speaker?s overt intentions as well as to those areas in the text or speech or idiom or discourse where something suddenly manifests a lack in relation to that overt intention. Lacan (2006) writes of this approach that the obverse part of speech, (for example, gestures) must be noted with the intention to integrate these parts back into speech. Lacan (2006) writes, ?thus the analyst cannot without danger track down the subject in the intimacy of his gestures ... unless he reintegrates them as silent parties into the subject?s discourse? (p. 209). The manifestation of the lack of integration can only be seen in relation to a signifier. Whatever the precise location of the textual subject the analyst is therefore effectively treating signifiers. When the signifier exhibits lack or a gap in the chain of the signifying system that is attempting to communicate the intended message of the speaker the analyst opens this fact up to the client. This means that both in the analytic setting as well as in the analysis of extra-analytic material the analyst is looking for places where it is unclear how one point leads to the next, for gaps in the connection between meanings. Of this process Lacan (2006) writes that the psychoanalyst?s part is: to figure out [entendre] to which `part? of this discourse the significant term is relegated and this is how he proceeds in the best of cases: he takes the description of an everyday event as a fable addressed as a word to the wise, a long prosopopeia as a direct interjection, and, contrariwise, a simple slip of the tongue as a highly complex statement and even the rest of the sentence as a whole lyrical development it stands in for. (p. 209) Lacan (2006) calls these disruptions from elsewhere ?a propitious punctuation that gives meaning to the subject?s discourse? (p. 209). Lacan?s (2006) regard for such punctuation led to his consideration of linguistics. Lacan (2006) utilizes Jakobsen?s (1971) ideas expounded in a paper which deals with the concept of 35 shifters. Jakobsen (1971) describes speech or writing as a code consisting of combinations of four different kinds of signifiers used to convey an intended message. Jakobsen?s (1971) combinations consist of firstly, quotations or messages which refer to other messages; definitions or messages which provide the meaning of an item in the code; proper names or that material within the code that refers back to the code itself and finally, shifters. These shifters are those components in the code that refer to the message itself and are typically personal pronouns whose specific meaning can only be confirmed by referencing the message in which they appear. The grammatical subject of the sentence is a shifter which refers back to the message- sending subject. It is also a signifier of the ego or the conscious subject whose intended communications can be seen to be interrupted or undermined by some other agency or force. Lacan (1997) refers to the agency that seems to speak against the speaking ego as the ?dit-que-non? (p. 64) or a momentum or force which seems to interfere with or speak a ?no? to the clear communication of the speaker?s overt message, almost as though something in the speaker is not entirely in agreement with what is being said. The material in a sentence which elicits this sense of no-saying is, of course, part of the code that comprises the overall communication, yet seems to suggest the presence of another agency that interferes with or intends a different communication. While the grammatical subject of the sentence, the speaker or ?I? intends one form of communication something in the code suggests a counterforce to the intentions of the speaking ?I?. This allows one to imagine a tear or rip in the fabric of the message that allows other material to protrude. At the same time this protrusion brings weakness or laxity into the force of the intended communication. While components in the speaker?s message are often comprised of material that by habit or cultural idiom have become standard, it is the fact that the speaker has selected these particular idioms or has retained these parts that is of significance to Lacan?s (2007) understanding of the underlying subject of the message. This other subject of the code, the split subject, is not regarded by Lacan as existing in entirety behind the speaking subject. Rather, Lacan envisages this unconscious subject as comprising part of the signifying chain of communication but specifically is that part of the chain which is excluded from consciousness for whatever reasons and which contains within its exclusion a particular kind of knowledge. This subject exists as a trace or a moment within the enunciating subject?s 36 message, long enough for ?dit-que-non? or to manifest a ?no? to the overt communication (Lacan, 1997, p. 64). In conclusion this chapter has established that a precedent exists in academic circles for the use of psychoanalysis outside of the clinical setting. Lacan?s (1996) conception of the unconscious has been discussed. Theorists who have tried to apply psychological theories to material other than case material have been considered. A brief review of writing pertaining to the types of analysis of political leaders has been presented in order to show where a gap exists in such thinking for a Lacanian approach. A broad Lacanian framework has been presented and finally some key ideas related to Lacan?s use both of the term, as well as the theory of the subject, have been presented. 37 3. Discussion of Key Lacanian Concepts This chapter aims to discuss the five Lacanian theoretical concepts identified as central to discerning the dynamics of the psyche at work within the selected textual materials. The concepts discussed are the mirror phase, the three orders of the imaginary, the real and the symbolic as well as the concept of the paternal agency. This chapter also presents a brief discussion of Lacan?s (2006) writing on clinical diagnostic categories in which it is argued that the population is divisible into one of three classifications, ?psychosis?; ?neurosis? or ?perversion?. Lacan?s (2006) position on the importance of making a tentative preliminary diagnosis when working analytically is also touched upon. Further, this section also considers the way Lacan?s thinking advocates the possibility of employing such diagnostic categories outside the clinical setting. In keeping with this thinking, this report considers a tentative preliminary diagnosis for the textual subject of the selected textual material. This is recommended by this report (in light of Lacan?s writing) as a preliminary step for approaching the analysis of the textual material (Lacan, 1993). Should this diagnosis prove plausible then the possibility of discerning the psychic dynamics of the subject through speech becomes more grounded. 3.1 Key Lacanian Concepts The central Lacanian concepts utilized in this report as being particularly relevant to the consideration of the structure of the unconscious as manifest through the discourse of spontaneous public utterance are, arguably, the concepts of the mirror phase and the paternal metaphor as well as the three orders of the imaginary, the symbolic and the real. The discussion of these three orders is derived from references and allusions to such throughout the several seminars which comprise ?crits (2006). Some might question the division of key concepts into a list of five given that the dialectics of the imaginary order are not really separate from the narrative of the mirror stage. However, given that the process of the mirror stage is not necessarily only developmental (and here I use the word ?developmental? to emphasize a model that proceeds in one direction building on what has come before,) but can in fact be seen, in Lacan?s application, to function more as a kind of flow chart in that linguistic material and structures can move forwards and backwards through the psychic model. These three orders proposed by Lacan, while they were developed and adjusted by their author over the course of his career, are also in many ways a 38 reworking of Freud?s tripartite model of ego, superego and id. Lacan, like his predecessor, proposes a tripartite model of the human psyche in which the three orders of the imaginary, the real and the symbolic interweave. Whereas Freud regarded the unconscious as essentially chaotic, Lacan (2006) regards the unconscious as possessing a structure that is like that of language. He also regards both the conscious and unconscious as both being shaped by language. From this structuring effect of language the sense of self is also shaped. As this report has argued, Lacan (2006) draws on Jakobsen?s work to argue that like all languages the unconscious is also based upon the ongoing movement between the units of language, or its signifiers, in order to create meaning. If, as Lacan proposes, the human psyche is divisible into three realms or terrains or topographies, (the imaginary, the symbolic order and the real) then it is between these three realms that the meaning of experience must be negotiated. 3.1.1 The imaginary order. Closely associated with his most influential notion, that of the mirror stage, Lacan identifies the notion of the imaginary order as being the state of consciousness or level or type of awareness into which humans are born. This is the order of being of fundamental narcissism. Here, the human subject lives in a place that is constituted out of an ?effect of perspective? (Lacan, 2006, p.54) of libidinal longings and feelings and imagings centred around him or herself as well as the ideal object of desire. From birth or thereabouts, (although arguably gestation could be part of this period) and for some months thereafter, the subject exists within this order of wishes and images. Like other developmental theorists Lacan suggests that in this state, the infant experiences itself as indivisible from the presence of or in union with the maternal agency. Slowly awareness expands and the subject enters what may be termed a transitional stage in which one recognizes an image or an ?other?, (which is the beginning of the mirror phase). The subject gradually comes to recognize the idea that there is a state of ?other?-ness, that there are subjects separate from him or herself and that these others are not part of the self. Lacan (2006) writes that it ?suffices to understand the mirror stage in this context as an identification? (p. 76). The growing awareness of the difference between oneself and another is, for Lacan, the beginning of the possibility of the entry into language. 39 At the same time as this realization of difference there is a concurrently growing awareness of a sense of loss. Lacan (2006) writes, ?It [the sense of loss] marks the crux of the function of lack with the question of the place this function can assume in a causal chain? (p. 55).The individual, in realizing difference or separation between itself and the other, also becomes aware of the feeling of having lost something or of missing something. This missing something is derived from the inner experience of once having felt oneself to have been complete. As this experience of completeness is part of the imaginary order what is perceived, by the subject, as having been lost is essentially an illusion, or again, as Lacan (2006) describes it, ?an effect of perspective? (p. 54). Nevertheless this illusion generated contentment in the early stage and at the same time protected the emerging consciousness through the imaginary experience of unity and oneness of being with the mother. Lacan (2006) argues that the imaginary order continues to exert its influence throughout adult life and is not simply superseded in the child's movement into the symbolic order (p. 56). On the contrary the imaginary and the symbolic orders are, according to Lacan, inextricably entwined (although never intermingled). These two orders work both with and against the real order. A succinct example of the effects of the imaginary order in the analytic sphere is provided by Lacan in his seminar entitled ?Beyond the Reality Principle? (2006, pp. 58-74) in which the analyst through adopting the ?customary attitude of grave neutrality? (p. 59) causes the subject to cease to address ?the listener who is truly present? but instead addresses ?some other now, someone who is imaginary but realer still: the phantom of a memory, witness of his solitude, statue of his duty, or messenger of his fate? (p. 60). It is, argues Lacan (2006), ?[i]n his very reaction to the listener?s refusal [to assume the role of interlocutor]? that ?the subject reveals the image he has replaced him with? (p. 67). This image is one that arises from some part of the imaginary realm, originating at some level of the subject?s passage through the mirror phase and is representative of some part of the subject?s experience that is unresolved and to which the subject remains bound and to which he or she finds him or herself repeatedly returning. According to Lacan (2006) the imaginary points of identification and desire are present in the subject in his or her imagistic memory (pp. 54-55). These points are reflected in his or her speech. These can be seen in impressions or imprints of initially unassimilated experiences. They are seen in responses or reactions which are 40 registered by the body before the subject is able to order or categorize incoming material. Only later does this material surface. As its relevance to the subject is interpreted in relation to the symbolic world it can take on the status, in retrospect, of trauma (Lacan, 2006, p. 230). Lacan?s (2006) essential example of an early unassimilated impression on the imaginary order that can later become registered or classified as traumatic is the child?s image of the primal scene. The first encounter with the primal scene (p. 322) may be registered by the body as an interaction of violent engagement with threatening or menacing implications to the bodily well-being of the self. The material sinks into the imagistic memory but only later does it resurface in response to another event that is structured out of similarly violent actions. Now the previous unassimilated experience of threat and possibility of violence becomes tied to or entwined with meanings about what is currently being witnessed. 3.1.2 The symbolic order. As consciousness emerges from the illusion of unity with the mother he or she become aware of the reality of this state of separateness. This step can be understood as the concluding stage of the mirror phase. Consciousness begins to recognize itself as separate to and apart from or as different from others. In this space of difference from the subject at the same time becomes aware of the father figure, ?le nom? or ?non du p?re?, (Lacan?s pun on the name of the father as well as the ?no? of the father, of the prohibition of the paternal order). In ?The Function of and Field of Speech and Language in Psychoanalysis? Lacan (2006) writes; ?[i]t is in the name of the father that we must recognize the basis of the symbolic function which since the dawn of historical time, has identified his person with the figure of the law? (p. 231). In order to enter fully into the symbolic order, the consciousness of the subject experiences itself as essentially cut off from the imaginary, primordial state (although as stated this original unity was itself only an illusion). This cutting-off from the primordial state is a type of metaphorical castration in the sense that the attitude of omnipotence is lost. The symbolic order for Lacan is therefore indicative of that order of experience involved with the social, with linguistic communication, with communication between subjects as well as with the knowledge of ideological norms and the most significantly the acceptance (or not) of the law. Once the child enters into the environment where language is the regulating factor of social interaction, and 41 accepts the rules and dictates of society, the child becomes able to transact with others (Lacan, 2006, pp. 494-427). The acceptance of language's rules can be aligned with Freud?s Oedipus complex. The child?s orientation of striving to return to or insistence of remaining at one with the mother, results in the child experiencing the threat of castration, or of losing the possibility of holding a position of social power through the act of relinquishing his dyadic closed relationship with his mother and entering into the social arena of language and of social exchange. Assimilating the threat of loss the child settles instead for a compensatory entry into the norms of culture and language with all its promised benefits. For Lacan (2006) only if one accepts the rules of social engagement, reflected in the rules that govern or underpin language, has one achieved acceptance of the Name of the Father. On the converse if one did not accept the paternal norms, then although we might emit noises, according to our own ideas of what constituted meaning, we would find ourselves isolated by our lack of agreement with and willingness to humble ourselves to the norms of the community. By accepting the rules of the group one is able to enter into community with others, through language; ?[f]or without kinship relationships, no power can institute the order of preferences and taboos that knot and braid the thread of lineage through the generations? (Lacan, 2006, p.231). 3.1.3 The real order. Later in his career Lacan argued that the fundamental conflict of the psyche consisted in not two different systems of cognition and memory (Symbolic and Imaginary) but of the fundamental inability of systems to co-exist peaceably alongside non-system; the non-system being that in experience which resists symbolization absolutely. The Real Order is depicted by Lacan at various points in his writing as the domain of what cannot be expressed by the subject, of that which is unable to be symbolized. The Real Order is the response to the physical world (2006, p. 17). The body in the sense of it as a biological functioning entity is termed the ?real? by Lacan but this zone of reality is at times domesticated and given various level or hierarchies of significance according to the dictates of the symbolic order. In the order of the real the body, however, retains the traces of the state of nature from which it has been forever separated by the entering into language. Lacan sometimes represents this state of nature as a time of fullness or completeness that is subsequently lost through the entrance into language (Lacan, 42 2006, p.86; p.249; p. 345). At the same time Lacan writes, "the real is impossible" (2006, p. 123). By ?impossible? Lacan means that the ?real? is that which cannot be put into words. It is impossible to do so. As the individual enters into language the part of him or herself that cannot be put into words is left behind. As far as we are linguistic beings this means there is a part of human experience that one can never know through language or words. By entering into language an irrevocable separation occurs. Despite being inaccessible to daily awareness (because it cannot be put into words), however, the effects of the order of the real remains throughout life. The real can be regarded as the traumatic encounter with the limits of language at a time when the containing effects of language might be most required. 3.1.4. The mirror phase. The mirror stage establishes the watershed between the imaginary and the symbolic in the moment of capture by an historic inertia, responsibility for which is borne by everything that alleges to be psychology, even if it is by pathways that claim to release it from that responsibility. (Lacan, 2006, pp. 54-55) This report has already presented discussion of the mirror phase in relation to the discussion of the analyst/analysand relationship in the psychoanalytic setting. But it is useful to revisit this notion in order to see the ways it might manifest in the subject. This is all the more pertinent in light of the purposes of this report for it is at the mirror stage that, Lacan (2006) identifies in an off-hand observation at the end of his seminar, ?nature and culture? intersect and it is here that the imaginary and symbolic orders first become knotted together (p. 80). It is at this point of knotting which Lacan identifies as the place where the symptom forms and the place where repression occurs. It is, according to Lacan (2006), in the reconstruction of this knot, in formulating the way that it has been tied that we can gain a glimpse of the psychic dynamics of the textual matter under scrutiny. The first point useful for this report is the fact the mirror phase is identified by Lacan as being crucially tied to the formation and functioning of the concept, and thus the use of, the pronoun ?I?. Lacan (2006) writes that his mirror phase is ?formative of the function of I as revealed in the psychoanalytic experience? (p. 94) and regarded it as providing a description of the formation of the ego via the process of objectification. While locating the initiation of the process historically in infancy Lacan later held that the structural value of the model was relevant throughout life for the purposes of understanding the conflicted nature of subjectivity. Lacan writes that; 43 ?[t]he mirror stage is a phenomenon to which I assign a twofold value. In the first place, it has historical value as it marks a decisive turning-point in the mental development of the child. In the second place, it typifies an essential libidinal relationship with the body-image? (2006, p. 94). In having delineated the three realms of the imaginary, the symbolic and the real, Lacan envisages the subject as engaged in a process of moving between these realms through the enactment of a series of psychic steps. The nature of this enactment is vital in that it shifts the focus in the developing subject?s formation from an essentially biologically grounded basis to the order of language and thus into the symbolic order. This phase enacts a decentring of the subject who has until this point responded to the world from the position of omnipotence but must now make space for a new awareness. Lacan (2006) situates the initiation of the mirror phase at between six and eighteen months (p. 76) and provides the model of the infant seeing itself in a mirror as being akin to the facilitation of this process. The infant gazes into the mirror and comes to perceive an object standing there whose gaze in that it is entirely focused on him or herself initially transfixes. But as awareness is focused on this image a developing realization in the infant accompanies the fascination with the gaze. This is the awareness that the object seen in the mirror is in fact another (being), has an image or an appearance of a person, an imago and furthermore that this image is entirely committed to enacting the slightest move made by the infant. It is an image or appearance over whom the infant begins to perceive he or she has supreme mastery. Winnicott offered another version of the model of mirroring offered by Lacan in that he saw the activity of mirroring occurring in the loving gaze of the mother. Here it is the experience of receiving and being held in the undefended gaze of the mother that allows the child to receive an image or idea of him or herself as being an entire being, an entity or unity which although composed of parts is nevertheless held together by one overarching form. But the perception of mastery over the image in the mirror or of the responsive gaze of the mother is only part of the process. A further step is required in which the infant must apprehend what Lacan terms ?a gestalt? (2006, p. 76). The infant must see the image as being both itself and yet not itself, an appearance or an outward container. A signifier. In this realization of a signifier that appears like oneself yet at the same time lacks the essential inner reality of the perceiving infant comes the 44 capacity for the child to formulate the inner schema to begin to utilize language and words, like containers which stand in for and represent the inner world. This stage at the same time marks the beginning of the formation of the ego. For Lacan (2006) the subject gazing in the mirror apprehends an image which is whole, a unity which is contrasted with the part experience of the subject inside his body. This unified entity arouses aggressive tension in the subject which is resolved by the subject?s decision to identify with the image. This act or choice of primary identification with the image is what forms the ego. This identification is based on the idea of mastery which is also a misunderstanding. Taken from the French word for knowledge or ?conaissance? Lacan (1988) elsewhere introduces the term ?m?conaissance? (p. 167) for this act of misunderstanding or a failure to recognize what is a misconstruction. In this act of identification the ?I? or ?me? alienates one from him or herself though the creation of him or herself as a subject in the symbolic order. The identification functions as a promise of ever-pending wholeness whose realization the ego awaits. In terms of Lacan?s (2006) theoretical writing it is in the progression through the mirror phase that the symbolic nature of experience and the libidinal nature become bound together. These two orders or realms are twined together (along with those parts of experience that are unable to be incorporated; the real) and covered over with the linguistic; with language. In the ?The Function and Field of Speech in Psychoanalysis? (2006), Lacan foregrounds the idea that who one is and how one sees oneself is constituted out of symbols. He argues that subjectivity is symbolically constituted in language which is itself a system of differences. For Lacan language often says something other than what it says. Most importantly of all language speaks through humans as much as they speak it. Lacan (2006) writes; ?Man speaks ?but it is because the symbol has made him man? (p. 229). He argues that once the mirror phase has been completed then the individual begins to form as a subject within the system of order of signs, representations, significations and images that comprise the entry into the Symbolic order and wherein the subject is always the subject of the signifier. The way in which the subject learns to utilize and conceptualize the grammatical construct ?I? is, according to Lacan, part of a vital developmental phase. Lacan reworked Freud?s idea of the ego with his introduction of the idea of the notion of ?I? emerging from the process through the mirror stage. Lacan?s concept was 45 positioned in opposition to the Cartesian cogito. For Lacan the mirror stage represented a stage in the infant?s development during which the subject comes to recognize a whole image as being constitutive of himself or herself. As this chapter has discussed according to Lacan this developmental phase is necessary in order for the infant to obtain the capacity to be able to identify with others so that the possibility of the development of language occurs. 3.1.5 The name-of-the-father and the paternal agency. What happens if a certain lack has occurred in the formative function of the father? (Lacan, 1993, p. 230) Lacan assigns great importance in the psychoanalytic process to name-of-the- father, or the paternal function (2006, p. 688), sometimes called the paternal agency or even the paternal metaphor. Signifiers that the subject most deeply identifies with give meaning to the subject?s world. These signifiers are, however, according to Lacan, empty. Their value lies in the fact that they orientate the subject?s position in relation to all the other signifiers which structure one?s sense of self and the world (Lacan, 2006, p. 687). These ?signifiers without a signified?, according to Lacan?s (2006) description, are those signifiers which seem to prevent or to stop the slippage of the signified under the signifier. Fink (1995) clarifies this idea of the ?slippage of the signified under the signifier? (p.153) when he writes that in the analytic situation ?a master signifier presents itself as a dead end, a stopping point, a term, a word, or phrase that puts an end to association, that grinds the patient?s discourse to a halt ? it could be a proper name (the patient?s or the analyst?s) a reference to the death of a loved one, the name of a disease (such as AIDS, tuberculosis or meningitis), or a variety of other things? (p. 153). The master signifier as a representative of the paternal agency appears to fix meaning for the subject on the basis of which a stable symbolic order can be formed. It is a particular signifier with no signified of its own, which stands in for the "fullness" of the meaning of the symbolic system itself. However, although its meaning-fullness is taken as a given by the subject its meaning is in fact necessarily arbitrary. Lacan's (2006) position holds that during the progression through the mirror phase the child ideally confronts a choice. This choice is the point wherein the child is made to renounce its wish/goal/objective to be the ?phallic Thing? for the mother, 46 (this might be understand this as the child?s longing to be the thing that puts the sparkle in the mother?s eye whenever he or she enters the room) in order to receive the compensations of being accepted as a full member of the prevailing social order that constitutes his world. A subject's castration therefore amounts to, for Lacan, the acceptance of the injunctions of the ?le non du p?re? or the ?No? of the father. A hypothetical depiction of this state of affairs might be the child?s usual entry into the room at meal-time accompanied by the familiar sight of the mother?s smiling face. It is towards this image that the child orientates him or herself for comfort. On one particular occasion, however, this passage is intercepted by the firm rebuke of the father. This voice that disrupts the natural inclination of the child to seek comfort makes a demand of the child which is contrary to the natural inclination. This demand might be, for example, that from today the child will take a seat at the table and greet his entire family before receiving his milk. Here, the infant faces the traumatic reality of impeded access to the maternal figure due to the imposition of the paternal agency. The child can resist but the paternal voice is repeated until the child comes to realize that although immediate access is lost, other compensations are available. It can be inferred from Lacan?s writing that the degree to which the child has responded to this injunction, ignored it or assimilated it, can be traced in speech. For the purposes of this report the five concepts discussed; the three orders of the imaginary, the real and the symbolic and the mirror phase and the idea of the paternal order, are regarded as being central to understanding the nature and orientation of the textual subject?s experience. The paternal agency is of fundamental significance in understanding the subject?s psychic dynamics because it reveals the degree to which the subject has progressed through and graduated from the mirror phase. The manifestation of this agency or lack thereof is also central to understanding the way the mirror phase has been negotiated; whether partially, in part or entirely. 3. 2 Lacan?s Three Diagnostic Categories The transition through the mirror phase (or not) and the confrontation (or not) with the paternal agency is the essential concern underlying of Lacan?s presentation of his three diagnostic categories into which, according to Lacan?s theory, all members of a population can be classified. For the purposes of this report, however, only the 47 diagnostic category of psychosis will be discussed. Lacan (2006) argues that a tentative preliminary classification of the subject?s psychic structuring is necessary before applied analysis can begin. This report proposes to make use of this step in proceeding with the analysis of the selected textual material. This preliminary classification allows the report to begin to grapple with that element in the subject?s psyche (as it is presented in the textual material), which is constitutive of his or her orientation towards experience. In this regard it is proposed, through the consideration of the mirror phase and an initial assessment of the transcription material, that the classification of a (Lacanian) psychotic structure is most fitting to the preliminary assessment of the unconscious dynamics presented in the text, in which ?foreclosure? is the defining characteristic. Lacan (2006) identifies all individuals as operating along the spectrum of three possible orientations, these being perversion, neurosis and psychosis. These orientations can, in part, be discerned by their response to either the symbolic or the imaginary orders. The typical neurotic constitution, for example, has opposition to the symbolic other. The neurotic disposition is, according to Lacan, the typical constitution of the functional everyman, whose daily experience may register problematic interactions with the variety of authority figures and with respect to expectations and self esteem, indicative of a conflict between the subject?s sense of self and the internalized sense of the Other?s ideals with the resulting manifestation of, for example; anxiety, guilt or underachievement. Fink (2005) discussing Lacan?s diagnostic categories writes; ?People referred to in common parlance as ?normal? do not have some special structure of their own; they are generally neurotic, clinically speaking ? that is their basic mechanism is repression? (p. 77). The psychotic constitution, which is tentatively presented in this report as a preliminary diagnosis of the textual subject is, according to Lacan (2006), entrenched in issues to do with the imaginary order. This psychic structure arises from a failure of the symbolic order (a failure of the paternal agency) to overwrite the imaginary order; a failure literally to order it. It arises, Lacan argues, when the subject ?has not acquired the [symbolic] Other [language with its underlying structure] that he encounters the purely imaginary other. This negates him, literally kills him? (2006, p. 236). The psychotic constitution can also be understood as the absence or failure of the subject to assume ?the image of one?s body in the mirror? (Lacan, 2006, p. 54). 48 For the individual possessing a psychotic orientation, friction most commonly results from competitive interactions with those perceived to be on the same level as the subject. When competitive intent is suspected the psychotic mind imagines others are trying to oust the subject and seize for themselves that already occupied place. This perception results in the subject reporting a history of repeated experiences of persecution, of being overlooked, ignored or bypassed. It is evident that the individual experiences an underlying sense of paranoia (or of a knowingness or conviction about reality that arises from somewhere other than the material of everyday interaction). Typically in the case of clinical psychosis the psychotic state is accompanied by ?language disturbances? (Lacan, 2006, p. 106). Lacan (2006) argues that the psychotic constitution is fundamentally shaped by the absence of the paternal function. The paternal function is that which affects all the symbolic functions and thus everything to do with morality and conscience. Lacan (2006) writes, [f]or psychosis to be triggered, the Name-of-the-Father - verwofen, foreclosed, that is, never having come to the place of the Other ? must be summoned to that place in symbolic opposition to the subject? (p.481). Without the inhibitory and restraining voice of the internalized symbolic order the slightest trigger can result in excessive responses. The consequences of impulsive actions do not seem to afford the psychotic any experience of guilt. This is because the psychotic psyche is fundamentally unable to use repression as a defence. Because the essential break between the imaginary order and the individual has not completely, if at all, taken place, there is no awareness in this subject of loss, there is not anxiety regarding this loss to be avoided. Hence there is no need for repression. The idea of foreclosure, the primary constitutive element of the psychotic?s psychic structure, is understood by Lacan as being indicative of more than a rejection of some element by the ego or the refusal to admit something which may nevertheless, although unacknowledged have succeeding in obtaining access to memory. Foreclosure is the psychic act of ejecting from oneself, some element or aspect of experience or reality (2006, pp. 445-489). The question directing the analysis therefore is the consideration of the way in which the subject negates this aspect of experience. For Lacan (2006) the split between ego and unconscious does occur, or has not fully occurred in the case of the psychotic. For the perverse and the neurotic constitutions, the generation of split through the encounter with the paternal agency, is 49 a trauma but at the same time it is necessary for functional psychological health. In his discussion of the diagnosis of psychosis, for example, Lacan argues that this split cannot be assumed to have taken place (2006, pp. 445-489). Unconscious thought processes, therefore, do not appear to be hidden and this suggests that the split that occurs through the process of language assimilation has not occurred. Fink argues in fact that for Lacan psychosis can be regarded as a ?form of victory by the child over the Other, the child foregoing his or her advent as a divided subject so as not to submit to the Other as language (1995, p. 49). Here the possibility that the child is able to choose to submit to this Other is indicated and that this suggests the foreclosure of one?s advent as a subject. To become a subject one must choose to submit to language and so become, as Lacan argues, alienated from oneself in it. When one agrees to express needs through, as Fink writes; ?the distorting medium or straightjacket of language? so ones allows oneself ?to be represented by words? (1995, p. 50). Lacan?s depiction of psychosis in a ?On a Question Preliminary to any possible Treatment of Psychosis? (2006) is fundamentally tied to the idea of the paternal metaphor in which the psychotic condition is explicitly linked to the fact the child has not integrated a ?primordial? signifier which is then able to provide an architecture to the order of language, that is the symbolic order and without which the child remains free floating in language. Without the anchoring point provided by the paternal metaphor or the paternal function the signifiers that are incorporated by the child seem to drift or float. Fink (1995) writes that, ?the symbolic order serves to cancel out the real, to transform it into a social, if not socially acceptable, reality, and here the name that serves the paternal function bars and transforms the real, undifferentiated mother, child-unity. This ?name? that bars the child?s easy access to pleasurable contact with the mother therefore implicitly requires the child to pursue pleasure elsewhere, in places deemed more acceptable to the father figure and/or mOther? (p. 56). Lacan describes the effects that occur when the paternal function or the Name of the Father never arrives at the place of the Other or comes successfully to bar the child?s access to pleasurable contact with the mother (which at the same time bars or prevents the mother?s inclination to smother or devour the child). Lacan asks; ?what happens if a certain lack has occurred in the formative function of the father?, (2006, p. 230). 50 The result is the foreclosure in the subject of or against the name or the function of the father. Without the impediment against following his instinctual impulses (which is the convincing prohibition of the father), the subject is bound to his own impulses and doomed, in a sense, to wonder like a lost soul ?from the frustrating mother to the overfeeding mother, feeling nevertheless that in directing [his] attention to the father?s situation, that [he is] burning, as one says in the game of hide-the-thimble? (Lacan, 2006, p. 481), and tied to ?a groping search for a paternal failing? (p. 482) all of which results, according to Lacan, in the manifestations of the structure of psychosis (although not in the sense of a DSM-IV diagnosis) which (for Lacan) is ?the drama? of the subject?s relation to the signifier (2006, p. 478). A primary objective of Lacanian interpretation, whether it is of analysis or in relation to textual material in the extra-analytic situation, is to note the lack, which is desire revealed in the subject?s discourse. If this process is sufficiently enacted then the subject is brought to an area of truth or the truth of unconscious desires. The confrontation with this truth is either wanted or it is not wanted. One either wants to know or one does not want to know the truth. Analysis cannot be planned or preconceived. Interpretations cannot be plotted out. These can only occur as the opportunity to make them arises in a session. 51 4. Methodology I will spare myself the task of providing the rules of interpretation. It is not that they cannot be formulated, but that their formulations presuppose developments that I cannot presume to be known, since I cannot give a condensed account of them here. (Lacan, 2006, p.497) Consequently, it would seem that Lacanian psychoanalysis is potentially open to all possibilities of data collection [...] Although this does mean that there is little general guidance to offer on what data to use and why. (Branney, 2007, p. 584) This chapter aims to consider six areas related to the design and procedure of the research report. Firstly consideration is given to the methodological concerns of this report. Secondly the scope of the research topic is discussed. The third area has to do with the selection and collection of data to be utilised for the purposes of the analysis of the textual material. A fourth concern compares this content with other current research to identify examines methodological commonalities and differences. A brief reflection on the socio-historical location of Jacob Zuma is presented. This reflection is made with respect to psychoanalytic thinking, which typically locates pathology in relation to the personal and collective history of the individual. In light of the contentious nature of the textual subject, and with respect to concerns of reflexivity in research (Saville Young, 2009) a comment on the ideological orientation of the researcher is provided. The final component of this chapter provides a brief reflection on the overt intentions and content of the textual material presented for analysis. This is done with respect to the underlying concerns of grounded analysis which, as shown herein, advocates the constant moving between the theory in question and the ground of application. 4.1 Research Procedure This research design has tried to connect its own search for a Lacanian method for the purposes of extra-analytic analysis with some kind of underlying guideline or framework. This research report, therefore, has initially drawn on ideas from grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006; Glaser, 1978). As grounded theory advocates (Charmaz, 2006, p. 6) this research design has interacted with samples of data in the early stages of the research process for the purposes of helping to develop the theory. 52 An inductive line of inquiry has been undertaken and immersion in Lacan?s theories has provided a basis for discerning both key theoretical ideas as well as the interrelationships between these ideas. This is done with the intention of trying to understand these ideas in relation to an analysis of textual material. It is Lacan?s own writing, however, that has provided the backdrop for formulating the basis of the interpretive method for analysing the selected discourse. As has been noted Lacan?s theoretical writing does not offer a method as such; there is no specifically Lacanian method that can be extracted and then systematically applied to various portions of relevant text. What this report does have to work with is thirty-three volumes of theoretical material, the Lacanian concepts, ideas and insights accumulated, collected and translated by various scrupulous academics or colleagues, (most notable of which are Lacan?s own son-in-law Jacques-Alain Miller and more recently Bruce Fink). The primary Lacanian source for this report is ?crits (2006) although numerous other Lacanian texts are touched upon. So, a qualitative research approach, particularly that of the grounded theory approach favoured by social constructionist researchers has provided the research design for this report only insofar that it emphasizes the generation of theory from data in the process of conducting research which has been a particularly valuable basis from which to begin working with Lacan. Grounded theory advocates reading and then re-reading a source of textual matter to discern variables or categories, concepts and properties and to plot interrelationships. The researcher?s capacity to discern variables and relationships is called "theoretical sensitivity" (Glaser, 1978). Factors improving theoretical sensitivity include reading of relevant literature as well as selection and utilisation of appropriate techniques. Interestingly with regard to the overall objectives of this research the data selected for reading and rereading by the grounded theorist does not have to be literally ?text?. Data might included records of observations of behaviour and with regard to the data herein, recorded interactions, (Borgatti, 2009). This has promising implications for the possibility of analyzing visual textual material According to Glaser and Strauss (1999) in the process of attempting to generate theory or, as in the case of this research report, a theoretical methodology, it is necessary to ?generate conceptual categories or their properties from evidence? (p.23). In this regard the first step in this research design begins with immersion in Lacanian theory and shortly thereafter with repeated rereading of the selected textual 53 matter of Jacob Zuma. In order to elucidate key central concepts or ?conceptual categories? that can be distilled from Lacan for the purposes of formulating a viable procedure for analyzing textual material outside of the textual setting, constant re- reading and working through the central Lacanian texts seemed imperative. As a set of key concepts emerge these are held in mind and considered concurrently with the reading of the data samples (the transcripts of the utterances of the selected subject). As Glaser and Strauss (1991) stipulate, the generation of the conceptual categories ?arises from evidence? (in this case both theory and the data sets) and then ?the evidence from which the categories emerged is used to illustrate the concept? (p. 23). Another concern of grounded theory is that the researcher remain cognizant of the need not only to interpret the data in terms of the theory but of the need to understand and respect the voice of the subject (Terre Blanche, 2004), which in this case means acknowledging the overt intentions of the subject of the selected textual matter. As Terre Blanche (2004) argues grounded theory approach is well suited to this concern for it ?[spans] contextual and theoretical orientations? and is elaborated specifically ?as a system for developing theoretical accounts whilst keeping close to the phenomenological `ground?? ( p. 405). Pike (1967) holds that a researcher should aim to see that the theory is grounded by ensuring that at every phase the original raw material is connected back to the emerging account, so that it can be explained in relation to this and can be used to validate the theory. If necessary the researcher is required to return to the ?ground? to seek out further material that may corroborate the theory in question when existing data sets leave aspects of the theory unsettled. This notion has significant bearing on the intention to apply theoretical concepts to the analysis of the transcribed sessions of Zuma?s public discourse. The grounded theory approach advocates this circular relationship, between ground and theory. Terre Blanche (2004) reminds the researcher to examine the degree to which responses to the data have been led by the data itself and the extent to which the theory can be shown to emerge from the data, as well as the degree to which the researcher has relied on preconceived ideas or accepted as fact frameworks of understanding the data in the process of presenting the analytic account. Another consideration especially relevant to Lacan is the awareness of the degree to which the research has used or avoided using technical language in the 54 process of constructing the analysis (Terre Blanche, 2004). The objective is to keep an eye on the elucidation of the theoretical principles selected so that these may be applied to the text in question while an awareness of the context from which this data has been pulled is maintained. This research has attempted to remain thoughtful of these concerns even while being guided by the central principles. 4.2 Scope The first stage in this design has consisted of defining the scope of the research. With regard to using Lacan, the initial scope of this research was, at the outset, enormous. When this research report was conceived in terms of a qualitative pilot study, however, the magnitude of the research area became manageable. An extensive reading of Lacan?s work has arguably produced a dense but manageable set of key conceptual ideas selected for the purposes of exploring Lacan?s own assertions regarding the unconscious and language. It is necessary, however, to remain aware of this research as a small step in a much larger process. 4.3 Selection and Collection of Data It is useful to off-set or qualify this report?s account of its own methodological considerations of data collection with respect to a Lacanian analysis of extra-textual material in the context of Branney?s (2007) reflections on this process. Branney concludes some discussion on this topic with the observation; ?[c]onsequently, it would seem that Lacanian psychoanalysis is potentially open to all possibilities of data collection ... [a]lthough this does mean that there is little general guidance to offer on what data to use and why?, (p. 584). The final position herein argues that; ?considerations of data collection are perhaps best developed in parallel with conceptual development in the data analysis? (p. 584). Meanwhile the selection of data or the sample set intended for analysis has not attempted to be anywhere near as ambitious as the theoretical reading component of this research. In this regard the strategic thinking has been to utilize what might be termed non-probability sampling in which the selection criteria was generally the concern to provide an arena broad enough to be representative of the subject but also manageable enough to facilitate the application and discussion of the theoretical concepts in question. Given the intention to do in-depth qualitative interpretive research this approach is strongly favoured. 55 A part objective of this research has been to try to enact an analysis of a topical and influential person of our time, one whose unconscious manifestations may have bearing on us all. The selection of a public figure involved in politics is not made simply for the possible intrigue such an analysis might engender but more importantly because it situates the textual material firmly within the context of Lacan?s most far-reaching statements regarding the possible manifestations of the unconscious and the implications for the analysis of such material. Part of the process of selecting data for this research has been to clarify how it is possible to be speaking of the ?unconscious? when considering the material of a ?public? and very consciously scripted figure. The material produced by a public figure is far removed from the analytic session. Indeed most material available in the public domain is the documented speech material written for political figures by bodies of writers. Lacan, however, does not qualify his assertions regarding the potential to discern the unconscious in all manifestations of language. Indeed it sometimes seems the case that the ?unconscious? Lacan is alluding to in these kind of statements may be a cultural one, an unconscious that possibly veers (dangerously, for some) close to Jung?s collective unconscious. This research, however, has chosen to focus on the presentation of a single subject, although the influence of culture and collective psychic concerns provide may be seen to provide a thematic backdrop to the analysis provided. Lacan?s theory makes it plausible to seek the unconscious in the gaps in slippages of entirely scripted performances of a public figure. Even so, it has seemed productive to focus on selecting material in which greater opportunity for spontaneous expression is apparent. In this regard seven criteria in selecting textual material were considered. The first criterion was the need to select a sufficient quantity of textual material such that there would be enough scope for analysis without itself overwhelming the theoretical aspect of the research. Secondly the material selected should be found to be reasonably accessible to the public, such that it could be considered part of the public discourse of Jacob Zuma. At the same time the selection of material should attempt to negotiate away from material that is clearly scripted for Zuma in favour of material that, while it will clearly have been influenced by scripted phrases and arguments (given his role as 56 public figure and politician), is nevertheless clearly open to the workings of the unconscious in that an element of spontaneity is evident. A further consideration is a contextual one. This criterion has to do with the selection of material that it places Zuma in relation to a variety of different audiences. This effort aims to bypass a recurrent criticism of Zuma?s public persona; his apparent attempts to be all things to all people. This feat is undertaken in the anticipation that the possibility of a variety of more or less consciously constructed personas will be undercut by the unconscious dynamics at play within the material. Another selection requirement has been that the transcriptions are of recent engagements; not exceeding twelve months prior to the beginning of this research. This concern has to do with consistency relating to Zuma?s self-presentation with regard to the pursuit and succession to the office of president. For these purposes the transcriptions of three sessions in which Zuma is engaged in question and answer sessions with interviewers have been selected. These are provided in the Appendices of this report (A, B and C respectively). These transcriptions have been or are all available from the internet and from sources which all have commercial credibility at least. The first transcription is of a question and answer session between Jacob Zuma in his role as President of the African National Congress and South Africa and Princeton N. Lyman, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies for Council of Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C. In attendance are members of the American Press. The second transcription is made from recorded video footage of an interview Zuma gave to the BBC on February 11, 2008 and is used in what was to become a notorious BBC documentary entitled No More Mandelas, the title having been provided by a comment Zuma made during the interview. The interviewer is Feargal Keane. The third transcript is taken from Internet footage of the question and answer session given by Zuma following a talk to the Sandton Jewish community at the Investec premises in March 2009. It is in relation to these data sets that this report proposes to utilize and apply the five key concepts of Lacanian theory in order to discern the unconscious dynamics in Jacob Zuma?s public discourse through the consideration of the interaction between the imaginary, the symbolic and the real orders. The attempt to establish the subject?s orientation with regard to these orders essentially affords the opportunity to gain insight into the relationship between the discourse and the mirror phase as well as to 57 the law or the paternal metaphor (that is the internalized law handed down by parental figures, social order and the culture in which the subject was born). This research seeks to identify, through analysis of the data, the nature and location of the conflicts that may be expected to arise. This is done through considering the ideals and symbols of value embedded in the subject?s discourse, (the voices of the internalized law). The report seek to identify from the outset, in the subject?s discourse the consequences of the encounter with the paternal agency, which according to Lacan, provides the orientation for all the others signifiers in the system. 4.4 The Socio-Historical Location of Jacob Zuma This section aims to provide a brief consideration of the context of Jacob Zuma?s origins in light of the emphasis psychoanalysis places on the interaction between early experience and the subsequent functioning of the unconscious. Freud (1969) in ?The Interpretation of Dreams? defined character in these terms; ?What we describe as our ?character? is based on the memory-traces of our impressions; and, moreover, the impressions which have had the greatest effect on us ? those of our earliest youth ? are precisely the ones which scarcely ever become conscious? (p. 689). If the dynamic aspect of character is fundamentally comprised of memory traces, then it follows that examining these traces of memory, whose shadow hangs over and penetrates our use of language, it is hoped that one may be able to glean a sense of the person invested in the language itself. Lacan?s theory, according to Benevuto and Kennedy (1986, p. 32), elaborates on Freud?s thinking around the interactions between a subject?s responses, the personality and the origins which have shaped him or her. And, as developmental theory argues, the analyses of the sources of such behaviour can demonstrate that this behaviour often has a psychological meaning which involves intelligible connections between symptoms and the events in one?s life and history. For this reason it is deemed useful to consider the sketchy details of Zuma?s available biography and to also to provide some social context so as briefly to consider how these details may be contextualized in relation to the broad patterning of the typical Zulu childhood in rural KwaZulu Natal around the time of the Zuma?s childhood. It is a broad map which may, or may not, have some bearing on the operation and organization of the psychological structures under consideration. 58 Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, according to Gordin?s (2008) Zuma: A Biography was born on 12 April 1942 into a deeply impoverished, (both in spirit and in material goods) forest community in Inkandla, KwaZulu-Natal Province (p. 1). His father died of an illness at the end of World War II. It is not specified how old he was, but one might assume it was in 1944. The memory of the Bhambatha Rebellion thirty- six years before Zuma was born was still deeply etched into the communal memory. Zuma recalls, as a young boy, encountering two elders who told of the rebellion, ?[a]nd that, more than anything else, is what made me appreciate the suffering of Africans. It was then, for the first time, when I was little, that I came to understand and to be angry about colonial oppression.? (Gordin, 2008, p. 3) The origin of Zuma?s middle name bears comment. The result of the shortened version of an isiZulu phrase constructed by his father, ?Ngeke ngithule umuntu engigedla engihlekisa? it translates as, ?I can?t keep quiet when someone pretends to love me with a deceitful smile.? The sentence was broken into two by the father and the portion ?engigedla engihlekisa? was given to Zuma while his younger brother was called Ngekengithule.? Zuma recollects he was supposed to begin school in KwaMaphonumulo where his mother returned with her three children after the death of her husband. Instead Zuma was asked by his grandfather to tend to his cattle for a while, but no other herdboy was found, ?so although I was supposed to go to school, I couldn?t. That was it.? (Gordin, 2008, p. 4) Zuma recalls this early period of his life and remembers his fear of snakes, ?We used to kill snakes. Actually I was terrified of snakes ? and I remember being told that the best way to deal with the fear was to kill even more of them. But, well ?.? (Gordin, 2008, p. 4) Gordin (2008) writes that after the father?s death Zuma?s mother took up employment as a domestic worker in Durban. Consequently Zuma spent his childhood moving between Zululand and the suburbs of Durban. By the time he turned fifteen he reportedly took on odd jobs so as to contribute towards his mother?s income. Of his first influences, apart from the stories of rebellions, Zuma names his father?s first son, (by his first wife), Muthukabongwa Zuma, who had fought in the Second World War (Gordin, 2008, pp. 4-5). Due to his economically deprived circumstances Zuma did not receive formal schooling although he actively sought out his own mentors and teachers. Heavily influenced by a trade unionist family member, he became involved in politics at an 59 early age and joined the African National Congress in 1959. He became an active member of Umkhonto We Sizwe in 1962, following the banning of the ANC in 1960 (Gordin, 2008, pp. 5-9). Endless studies confirm the systematic undermining by white rule; the effects of capitalism and especially forced labour migration on the traditional self-sufficient umuzi or African homestead during the early to middle part of the last century (Lambert; MacKinnon; McClendon; all in Carton, Laband & Sithole, 2008). Hunter (in) writes on isiZulu-speaking men and the changing nature of the household. He (Laband & Sithole, 2008) describes how in the traditional course of events the young Zulu male aspired to ukwakha umuzi or to building a home through the act of marriage. The acquisition of several wives was the realization of the traditional ideal of the Zulu male and father as a provider. As a competing ideology, however, began to interact with and dominate the indigenous culture one result was the emasculation of Zulu males. The masculine identities that had been held aloft as both possible and worth striving for, for the Zulu man, were now fundamentally undermined. In some contexts these roles were made impossible to achieve, as men were recast as ?boys? in urban workplaces under apartheid rule. It is inevitable that the force of the dominant culture would have impacted on the primacy of Zulu authority in a negative way. Now, instead of a social order that esteemed the pursuit of homestead reproduction, (through the practice of the courting rituals and the attendant meaning of love and gifts and social bonds), a new value system in which the pursuit of money and opportunity held sway. At the same time, Hunter (in Laband & Sithole, 2008) argues the avoidance of pain and humiliation was also a consideration (p. 568). It is not even a small step to see how these historical forces at play in the background have relevance to the Zulu culture of the late 1940s and early 1950?s in KwaZulu Natal around the time Zuma was passing through boyhood. This backdrop to Zuma?s early childhood suggests the experience of a childhood in which the effects of the erosion of the notion of patriarchal authority on the collective psyche of a culture was rapidly becoming manifest. These realities are, in fact, borne out in the brief details we have of Zuma?s early childhood. A child, any child, born into a rural environment during this period would inevitably be affected more or less by the patterns of power dynamics that impacted upon the community. 60 Absent fathers, for examples, who had left to seek work as migrant labourers in urban settings would be one norm. Fathers who did find work locally would be subject to the pull of white forces in that the focus was directed outwards and away from the homestead. The issue of migrant labour would have caused dislocation and unrest. As men left to find work women had to take over male work, upsetting the sexual division of labour and causing confusion, dissatisfaction and resentment. Lambert ( in Laband & Sithole, 2008) argues that when migrant labourers returned there were issues relating to the refusal to conform to traditional patriarchal authority. Conventions dictating the appropriate manner for conducting oneself around the beer pot, for example, were thrown into question (p. 214). When these conventions were ignored younger males, this effectively undermined the authority embodied by the head of the homestead head. Their disregard, Lambert argues, at the same time, had a trickle-down effect that ?emboldened women and youth? (p.214) and which instigated new forms of social groupings of young men and women which authorities in the homestead struggled to control. It is not far-fetched to speculate that a child born into a world of forcefully colliding and at times violently opposed ideologies must look up to the paternal forces that surrounded him with confusion. Even more challenging must have been the fact that the confusion surrounding these dynamics was prohibited from being addressed by the ideology of the oppressed culture. Denis, (in Laband & Sithole, 1998) who writes about whether or not Zulu children are allowed to ask questions, describes the tradition of ukuhlonipha or Zulu customary respect. This tradition requires that children, unmarried women and junior wives show deference to their social superiors (p. 587). Subordinates are obliged to express themselves indirectly so that the superior does not have to acknowledge that he has something to learn from an inferior. This tradition of not asking a direct question can be seen to be offset by the concurrent tradition of Zulu story telling as a form of socialization that allowed pertinent questions to be directed at the place of communal and collective knowledge. This once effective process, however, would be seen to be undermined by the breakdown of the sites and the occasions for such storytelling through the impact of western culture as well as forces of oppression. Along with the threat to the convention of storytelling the actual occasions for storytelling were threatened. Fathers were not often home to tell the stories. The stories themselves were rapidly being changed and altered by the new conventions 61 and ideas brought back by the young men and woman. There were new stories which challenged status quos. New stories undermined old stories and brought with them the introduction of new words to the lexicon of the community, foreign words not recognized by the elders and which challenged their knowledge. These were words that, according to Lacanian theory, would have intervened in the symbolic order of the subject and in his or her conceptualizations of what and who constituted the Other. With the notion of patriarchy under threat the implications for the development of the psyche are legion. In Lacanian theory, the childhood identification with the actual father is only one aspect of the development of the symbolic order. What are the ramifications for a subject growing up in a culture in which the symbolic place of the father is under fundamental and radical threat? The child confronts the disintegrating authority of his own patriarchal culture while at the same time being exposed to what must appear as an excessively threatening tyrannical Law of an alien but inescapable Other. Once, the mother might have appealed to the paternal function of the father/elders/community, whether these were absent or not, when chastising her child. She might have called, for example, on the child to consider what would the father would say, or not say, do or not do. Now, the mother might be more concerned with rebuking the child for exposing the family to the threat and ire of a monstrous Other who has no care for the subjects it orders. Speculative as these comments may be they are sufficient to establish the strong possibility of problematic relationships with and within the symbolic order for any subject coming into consciousness during this time and in this place. As Lacan (2006) has argued, the subject belongs to the symbolic order in terms of both the conscious and the unconscious. The drives succumb to or are formed by a cultural orchestration. If, as in Freudian thought, the unconscious is created through repression, then the unconscious is a product of culture, as one represses that which is taboo and that which is taboo is culturally formulated. In fact, how one interprets psychic drives is formulated by culture too. But in this (Zuma?s) case, his culture of origin is one which was itself in the process of being overwritten. 4.4.1 Ideological orientation. With respect to reflexive considerations (Saville Young, 2009) this report addresses the ideological positioning of the author in relation to the choice of analysis 62 of the material of Jacob Zuma. During the research process the question was raised, given the fraught and contested nature of Zuma?s public profile, as to whether or not this report?s author had already made up her mind regarding the nature of the subject?s characterological structure or prematurely foreclosed on the potential psychic constituents of the textual subject. It has already been mentioned in this report that Zuma does occupy a contested position in the minds of various sectors of the public with regard to his moral credibility. Some might question the whether or not a strong naysayer of Zuma?s moral worth should undertake such research. Or alternatively if the author were a staunch defender of Zuma?s character, could any measure of objectivity hope to be achieved? In response to this, this research would like to stress that the primary aim of this research is to demonstrate the utility of Lacanian concepts to the analysis of textual material. The selection of Zuma is made on the basis of finding a topical subject the analysis of whose discourse might provide some useful basis for further consideration. It is certainly the case that the conceptual categories outlined by Lacanian theory will determine the nature of the material sought in the data sets outlined but the fact that this is necessarily the case should not mean that these findings are at the same time necessarily pre-empted on preconceived notions with regard to the subject. Indeed a successful and genuine engagement with the process of achieving an authentic Lacanian analysis should make this question irrelevant. 4.5 Reflection on the Overt Content of the Textual Matter Selected for Analysis Grounded theory reflects on the need for a systematic interaction or movement between the theoretical application of the text and the practical overt functioning of the text in its common or everyday context (Terre Blanche, 2004). Lacanian theory too, reflects on the two sided nature of textual matter. Lacan (2006) uses an analogy that presents all human discourse as functioning like two sides of a coin. On the one side of the coin are the conscious or the overt intentions of the ego or the speaking subject of discourse or the bounded, unified agency represented by the pronoun. On the other side of the coin are found those moments of interruption; the ?dit que non?s? or moments which speak a ?no? to the ongoing discourse of the speaking subject; a chain of interruptions to the overt discourse. When these are considered over the duration of the process these ?no?s? present a specific kind of orientation to experience, to language. This orientation is one that is founded on the 63 repressed anxiety of the subject to avoid the traumatic encounter with the way in which language cannot entirely encapsulate experience. In Lacanian terminology it is the particular patterns that underlie the repetition of ?dit-que-non?s? that comprises the symptom. So, both in terms of grounded theory and Lacanian insight, this report pauses at this point to reflect on the overt functioning of the text; on that side of the coin that is uppermost and apparent to the gaze of the onlooker and audible to the ear of the everyday listener. Against this material it is hoped we will then be able to discern the ?dit-que-non?s? as they present during analysis of the textual material in Chapter Five. As this report has already discussed three transcripts of textual material recording the ostensibly spontaneous responses of the selected subject to questions posed are included. These three examples were selected for several reasons (already described) but most significantly it is noted here that each transcript represents three very different settings for the speaker. Despite the different tone of the interviewers the questions posed in each setting all cover the same ground. The transcript of Appendix A records an interview with Zuma held in Washington D.C. The tone of the interviewer is respectful and cordial. The journalists who address Zuma do so with a tone of respect. Zuma?s manner is respectful, relaxed and engaged. He speaks with confidence and a tone of authority in response to the questions addressed to him. In Appendix B the interviewer is directly confrontational, verging on hostile. His attacking manner leaves Zuma on the defensive. Zuma appears to be barely able to converse in English. He uses guttural noises and attempts to deflect the hostile attack with the use of humour. In Appendix C Zuma is recorded as he answers questions after a talk given to the Jewish community in Investec. His manner is disinterested; one might even say bored. He appears to ramble and meander around the questions posed, often appearing to lose his train of thought before he reaches the end of his response. 64 5. Interpretation and Discussion of Data In order to free the subject?s speech, we introduce him to the language of his desire, that is, to the primary language in which ? beyond what he tells us of himself ? he is already speaking to us unbeknown to himself, first and foremost, in the symbols of his symptom. (Lacan, 2006, p. 243) [...] everyone acknowledges in his own way that to confirm that an interpretation is well founded, it is not the conviction with which it is received by the subject that counts, its well-foundedness instead being gauged by the material that emerges afterward. (Lacan, 2006, p.497) 5.1 Interpretation and Discussion of Data This chapter aims to show that five fore-grounded aspects derived from Lacanian theory (the mirror phase, the paternal order and the orders of the imaginary, symbolic and the real) when considered in relation to the analysis of extra-analytic textual material allow for glimpses of the subjective unconscious. These key areas can be seen to be operationalized with respect to four considerations uniquely proposed by this report. These four areas are identified as being, the unified or unbounded use of personal pronouns; evidence of thinking towards resolution or disintegration; recognition or denial of difference; and manifestations of libidinal drives through regressive speech actions. When read in conjunction with Lacan?s advocacy, in the clinical setting, of a tentative preliminary diagnosis according to one of three clinical categories (?psychosis?, ?neurosis?, or ?perversion?) a tentative dynamic of the textual subject (in keeping with Lacan?s thinking but recognizing the extra-clinical context) as being that of a (Lacanian) ?psychotic? whose unconscious dynamic is constituted out of foreclosure. It is argued, moreover, that the four ways in which the ?psychotic? structure can be seen to manifest in extra-textual material reveals, at the same time, the concrete consequences of the failure of the paternal metaphor to order consciousness. For it is, Lacan argues, ?the lack of the Name-of-the-Father in that place which, by the hole it opens up in the signified, sets off a cascade of re-workings of the signifier from which the growing disaster of the imaginary proceeds? (2006, p.481). Lacan?s (2006) has a number of reasons for insisting that the analyst in clinical practice identify the particular category into which the subject falls (?psychosis?, 65 ?perversion? or ?neurosis?) at the outset of treatment. Among these reasons is the possibility that the practitioner?s aims can be conceptualized in terms of a psychodynamic formulation from the outset with consideration for relevant interventions. Furthermore, the analyst?s position in relation to the subject?s transference can be anticipated. Significantly it is also the fact that a patient may have a ?psychotic? psychic constitution (and therefore needs to be handled from the outset in a very different manner from other clients) that Lacan uses as a basis for promoting an early, tentative diagnosis. Lacan (2006), unlike most clinical practitioners, does not regard the ?psychotic? diagnosis as grounds for not pursuing treatment. Instead, once such a diagnosis is made he warns against using the techniques that might work elsewhere in analysis with; for example, ?neurotics?. Fink (1999) writes in relation to Lacanian diagnosis, that it ?is not merely a matter of performing perfunctory paperwork required by institutions and insurance companies; it is crucial in determining the therapist?s general approach to treating an individual patient.? (p. 75) Lacan?s (2006) basis for making this preliminary assessment is, however, imprecise and relies on intuitive insight gleaned from experience. From his perspective the diagnosis is tentative and may be retrospectively revised. Fink (1999) writes, ?this should not be taken to imply that Lacanians are always able to make a precise diagnosis immediately. As many clinicians are aware, it can sometimes take quite a long time before one manages to discern the most basic mechanisms in a person?s psychical economy. Nevertheless, a preliminary situating of the patient as most likely neurotic or psychotic is quite important.? (pp. 75-76) Lacan is emphatic regarding the possibility of a retrospective revision of the tentative diagnosis after the textual matter has been considered in relation to the manifestation of the identified themes. This limitation does not appear to compromise, too severely, the further process of analysis. In light of Lacan?s position on the matter this report similarly proposes a preliminary assessment of the psychic structure of the selected textual matter. It is proposed that this material manifests aspects or traits of the (Lacanian) psychotic in which the primary mechanism characterizing this structure is that of ?foreclosure?. This ?fore-closure?, identified as constitutive of the ?psychotic? structure, is aligned by Lacan (2006) with the ?foreclosure? of the signifier. Lacan (2006) describes how, at the point at which authority is required; at which a limit or a boundary must be 66 circumscribed or set for the purposes of advancement, it is ?a pure and simple hole [that] may thus answer in the Other? (p. 465). It is the response of the ?dead Father.? (Lacan, 2006, p.464) 5.1.1 The subject?s use of unified or unbounded pronouns. Lacan writes that his mirror phase is ?formative of the function of I as revealed in the psychoanalytic experience? (2006, p. 94) and that the theorist regarded it as providing a description of the formation of the ego via the process of objectification. It is in the mirror phase that the traumatic split should occur, such that a rent in the infant?s experience of idealized oneness and unity with the maternal presence is manifest. In relation to the textual material selected, this report tentatively proposes the possibility, however, that although the entry into language does occur, some fundamental aspect of the authority of the paternal agency has been ejected from the consciousness of the subject. This means, in keeping with Lacan, that the split or rent in consciousness has not occurred as fully as it should have at the outset of development. Implicit in Lacan?s (2006) writing is the idea that this ?fact? should be discernible or traceable in the ways the speaker uses language. The question here, however, concerns the way this ?trace? be discerned in a context where the interlocution between analyst and analysand, between the subject and the frame is not defined. Successful progress through the mirror phase should mean that the formation and function of the ?I? as the container and receptacle of the material of the ego is established (Lacan, 2006, p. 94). This means one could plausibly anticipate an encounter in the text with a speaker who has a concrete and coherent sense of his or her own ?I-ness?. It seems plausible too that one should be able to conceptualize a speaker who has his or her own distinct and separate identity apart from, even if at the same time still part of, a bigger group. One could also anticipate some level of consistency with regard to the use of the signifier ?I? and that the material contained by or inferred from the ?I? is regarded by the speaker as personal and specific to the speaker. On the other hand should some psychic act of foreclosure have occurred in the subject?s process through the mirror phase one might anticipate an encounter with the material produced by such a speaker in which the ?I? is less ?concrete?, or bounded or distinct. If foreclosure has occurred, (to whatever degree), due to the failure of the paternal metaphor to enforce its authority on the psyche of the given subject, a ?hole? 67 is left in its [the place that should have been occupied by an inner sense of incontestable authority or by the name of the father] place and this ?hole will give rise to a corresponding hole in the place of phallic signification.? (Lacan, 2006, p. 466) If such a ?hole? has formed the speaker?s use of the signifier ?I? might appear incomplete or inconsistent. One might further expect that the boundaries between what is contained by the ?I? and what is contained by the Other might be blurred such that one is reminded of the characteristics of the imaginary order in which awareness is bound up with an idealized experienced of omnipotent joining with the maternal presence in which the maternal is always present to one and is experienced indeed as part of oneself. The centrality of the ?I? to the functioning of the ego is defined by Lacan (2006) as the point of ?transformation that takes place in the subject when he assumes an image? (p. 76). What happens, however, to the individual?s possibility of assuming the image of ?I? when the speaker has foreclosed against the paternal organizing principle? Given what is understood from Lacan (2006) the possibility of the individual?s full assumption of, his complete identification with this position is problematic to say the least. From these observations the analyst who wishes to find in everyday speech evidence of the successful transition through the mirror phase one would expect to find in the instances of a speaker?s use of ?I? elements that correspond with the process described above. As such one could expect to find a speaker who utilizes ?I? in relation to the description of the material that is contained within his or her body, its sensations, the thoughts, affective states, experiences and observations. Similarly such a speaker would, following on from Lacan?s thinking, be able to respond to and connect with the material described by another speaker?s use of ?I? while simultaneously being able to distinguish its content from his or her own material. On the one hand this means that the successful processing through the mirror phase can be seen to result in firm boundaries and yet at the same time the speaker is able to match up with, and pair material from within, with material that is without. But, keeping in mind the tentative preliminary proposal presented by this report, what if the speaker?s psychic constitution was diagnosed as psychotic (in the Lacanian sense) and irrevocably characterized by the experience of foreclosure? If this tentative diagnosis were to have any merit what features could one expect to find 68 in the traces of the mirror phase still evident in the subject?s use of language ? the way in which the ?I? is used? For one, we should expect to find evidence of the foreclosure against any external authority. The ?non? of the father has been blocked out and overlooked. There is no finality, no final authority. There is no permanent boundary. Although many voices may try to occupy the position of authority none can sustain itself. On the other hand the more effectively the ?non? and all its associated patriarchal notions are assimilated, the more one would expect to find obedience to the rules and niceties of language, to the customs and politics of the time, to find these acknowledged and honoured. Without this obeisance to conventions and niceties, on the other hand, we could expect to see the ?I? shifting, forever bound to the deluded notion of union with the imaginary other. In such a situation there would be scant regard for the distinction between the ?I? and that which is held in the maternal space. The two spaces would be experienced as flowing together in ceaseless interweaving. If this is the underying psychic construction of the subject then it is not difficult to see how the manner in which the word ?I? is used in everyday speech could thus be anticipated to be uncertain. In Zuma?s case the use of these pronoun shifters and particularly the personal pronoun ?I? in his speech presents with some peculiarities which, if exhibited once or twice might bear passing comment, but utilized in the manner they are, and as pervasively as they are, bears scrutiny, or Lacan might have it, interrogation. The lack of identification with the idea of the ?I? as unified agency is evident throughout the three samples of Zuma?s ostensibly spontaneous interview speaking (provided in the appendices). We find instances in which the use of the pronoun ?I? is used in one context but later, although addressed as a first person subject, Zuma responds with the collective pronoun ?we? and shifts between the two interchangeably. In this way it seems that the idea of single unified identifiable entity, the bounded result of the successful processing through the mirror phase, is morphed, as one listens, into a blurred and apparently boundaryless space of many voices. It is as if Lacan?s (2006) idea of formation of the ?I?, (which the theorist describes as often being symbolized in dreams as a ?fortified camp or even a stadium?, p. 78) has been incompletely constructed. 69 Zuma, for instance, in his interview with Lyman, is addressed with two questions, the first pertaining to his personal position on the two term limit for a president, ?would you accept a two-term limit as president?? (Appendix A, p. 98) and in the second instance Zuma is addressed on questions concerning land, ?what changes would you like to see in the current South African constitution regarding land ownership, foreign businesses, et cetera?? (Appendix A, p.98). These two questions appear thematically similar and might appear to call forth the same degree of personal responsiveness but this in fact does not prove to be the case. In the case of the first question the terms of address indicate that the interrogator seeks a personal response from Zuma to the questions asked. A personal response is one in which the speaker would typically make use of the personal pronoun ?I?. But in this text, the respondent replies to the questions with apparent indifference to the terms of address. Instead of speaking for himself, Zuma speaks for a group; ?the constitution of South Africa, which we all follow, and we?ve committed ourselves to it. So there will be no change. Two terms will certainly be what the constitution says? (Appendix A, p. 98-99). The content of the original question; that is the matter of the two term presidency, is responded to by the speaker. But at another level, and with regard to the question addressed to the personality of the speaking subject, something is missing. There is a lack. A gap between the terms of the question and its response. The call, made in the formulation of the question, for a single unified voice (the ?I? addressed) to stand up to be identified with a unified position, is not answered by Zuma. Some observers hold the position that this resorting to the collective ?we? is endemic of ANC policy and is simply a manifestation of the political objective of presenting a collective front. At the ground level again, this may well be so (although there are analytical implications to be explored in the way such party political thinking is itself potentially endemic of a cultural kind of ?psychosis?). But if Zuma?s response is explained by his adherence to this tenet in cited instances, how then do we explain his response to the second question cited above? In this case the speaker?s response does not appear to remain consistent with the position just proposed. Here, this report notes that Zuma does indeed resort to the first person pronoun in response to a question that would seem to call forth the same degree of personal response as in the first case; ?I don?t think there has been effective advice from people because generally, when to the people the money is mentioned in millions, they think these 70 millions are coming to them? and ?So I think it?s a question of people understanding that the land is an important asset that they should not necessarily get rid of quickly? (Appendix A, p. 99). In this example one notes that Zuma demonstrates his ability to respond to questions in the first person despite possible infractions on the widely held notion that ANC members and leaders are expected to portray an exclusively communal front. So the question remains as to what underlies the apparently habitual meandering between ?I? and ?we? demonstrated by Zuma in these instances as well as elsewhere in the given transcriptions in questions and expressions which all appear to call forth the response of the ?I?. Returning to ground level considerations regarding the overt intentions of the speaker and the material being assessed, the reasons behind the move between the collective pronoun ?we? and the first person may be explained by any number of rational reasons. But at the level of the unconscious functioning of the text it remains apparent that a gap exists between the terms of engagement called for by the question and the response provided. This report has noted a possible tentative explanation for an underlying dynamic but at this stage it is sufficient to note the fact of this gap while continuing with further consideration of the speaker?s use of pronouns. Elsewhere Zuma is asked; ?what will you actively do to reduce crime in this country?? (Appendix C, p. 108). In this transcript the ?you? has been italicized to reflect the questioner?s emphasis on the word. In the YouTube video footage of this session the speaker was more than direct in confronting the speaker with a call or a demand for a personal response. The ?you? of this speaker?s question was emphatic. The emphasis in the form of the question was not on what could be done about crime per se but what, specifically the speaker, personally, would be able to do to address the matter in question. Despite the foregrounding of the call for the response of a bounded ego the speaker?s response again seems to move back and forth between the fixity of the ?I? and the collective ?we?: ?I believe that ? err ? one of the challenges that face ? our country ? a lot of us ? is the question of crime. And I believe that ? as I have said ? we could do more.? In this last instance the interrogator?s call for a personal response to the issue of crime is deflected or passed over onto a collective such that it is not that ?I? could do more but that the responsibility for action lies one step beyond the ?I?, in the community. 71 In this example the speaker does not respond to the terms of the question addressed although, once again, the overt content of the question is acknowledged. The subject matter has to do with crime and to the extent that crime is a problem the speaker?s response is one which acknowledges that more could be done. But once again, there is a gap. This gap consists of a space between the agency called upon to answer the question and the agency that does indeed answer the question. The unified bounded ?I? that steps forward to claim the content relevant to his or her own ?container?, or to produce this content for inspection when called upon, is not apparent. This ?gap? recalls Lacan (2006) who writes; ?[t]his is in effect, how discourse proceeds to con-vince, a word that involves strategy in the process of reaching an agreement [...] we know that the struggle continues over the terms, even when things have been agreed? (p. 293). With respect to the form and function of the ?I? one sees that the question is addressed in this context to a subject that does not exist or that passes out of focus even as it answers, as if the form and borders of the identity of the ?I? were being stripped away as the speaker tries to summon it to his aid. In this, one is reminded of Lacan?s (2006) image of the fortified camp that is incompletely built; or of a wall that is collapsing; of a beaker that has leaks. Again, in and of itself, the isolated instances of this type of response are quite unremarkable but in relation to the orientation of the subject towards experience the repeated evidence of this kind of gap speaks of an underlying ?dit-que-non? spoken by the unconscious against the possibility of a bounded ego assuming authoritative control over the content of the language which it handles. Continuing in his response to the issue of what he will do about crime, Zuma goes on to say; ?I believe we need to deal with it because it means if you spot a crime where do you report it to the next person? I think it is something we need to look at?, (Appendix C, p. 108). In this instance another gap is made evident. In terms of the way Lacan (2006) understands and explains Jakobsen?s concept of shifters and signifiers; the signifiers called upon by the question have to do with a call to action, as the speaker is asked to address what he will ?actively do? to reduce crime. In terms of the speaker?s response, however, the signifiers he uses to address the question do not have to do with action. The speaker?s response consists of emotive signifiers; for example, ?belief? (?I believe we need to ...?) and ?thought? (?I think it is something ...?). So once again a gap is noted between the signifiers called upon by 72 the interlocutor and the signifiers produced by the subject. At a ground level it is entirely plausible that the speaker occupies the tense political space of addressing party sensitive questions and that this fact is what compromises his ability to respond directly. At another level, however, it is also worth the tentative consideration that the subject, having foreclosed against the paternal agency, is consequently, unable, in the process of speaking, to discern distinctions between the signifiers he is called upon to produce (to do with action). Those he actually does deliver (to do with thinking and belief) are not, as Parker (2005) would have it, ?anchoring of representation? but shift and float above the fixed terms called upon by the questions. This point is not intended to imply that the subject would be unable to distinguish between the concept of a noun or an adjective, for example, but argues that at the site where the speaker stands, in answering the question, at the level where the symbolic order of language becomes entwined with the imaginary order of libidinal states these distinctions do not remain fixed. In countless examples the possibility of the individual having a personal opinion or a unique ideological position different from, although not necessarily threatening to the group, seems to be repeatedly denied, ignored; one might even say ?ejected? from consciousness in favour of having any thinking or identity joined with and inextricably bound up with the voice of the group. To reiterate, it is the idea of the Cartesian subject, the ?I? that corresponds with the level of the ego, the constructed self who takes him or herself to be master of his or her own thoughts that appears to be bypassed, ignored or deflected by the speaker. It is as though the speaker does not necessarily confront the reality of the Other, as though the notion of the other is as a fly; a vague, annoying buzzing to be swatted at but not substantial enough, real enough to warrant one?s full attention. The following questions taken from the text are clearly these are all addressed towards the notion of a fixed Cartesian subject ; ?would you accept a two-term limit as president?? (Appendix A, p.98); ?what changes would you like to see in the current South African constitution regarding land ownership, foreign businesses, et cetera?? (Appendix A, p.98) and ?what will you actively do to reduce crime in this country?? (Appendix C, p.102). The response of a coherent, bounded Cartesian subject, however, is not forthcoming. 73 Instead we see evidence that the place of agency is denied by the speaker who redirects his interlocutors to include the community, the ?we? who will respond. Individual agency is melted away or lost within the collective body who will together ? as a body ? consider the problem; ?I think we need to do something? (Appendix C, p.109). The speaker, through these responses, manifests an insistence on his attachment to the collective body and his inability to be separated from this body. Accordingly one might imagine that at some level the speaker is orientated towards the image of an all encompassing maternal body or that in fact, at the same level, the subject remains insistent on the ongoing connection to the order of the imaginary. These are but few selected instances showing the speaker?s shifting use of pronouns. These samples have been explored for the purposes of establishing the feasibility of this way of approaching a text according to Lacanian thinking in further research. Even at this early stage, it is not without grounds to suggest that it might be apparent to any reader, glancing through the transcripts (included in the Appendices), that these are by no means isolated examples but comprise an ongoing pattern throughout the material provided. Nevertheless, with respect to space constraints, this report continues with a consideration of the next proposed way Lacanian thinking can be manifest. 5.1.2 The manifestation of thinking towards resolution or disintegration. Lacan?s (2006) writing on the operation of the paternal function communicates the way human psychic structures depend on the ability to be, in a sense, humble before authority, in order to achieve order, to obtain structure and to be able to create meaning (through the organization of the signifying chain). Whatever that authority may be taken to be, the capacity to position oneself beneath authority is seen as vital for human society. According to the mirror phase this capacity is in part, willed; it is a choice made at some level of awareness between holding onto to one?s own will or relinquishing one?s own will in order to receive something else. By relinquishing one?s will one becomes part of the signifying chain of language, of meaning and one receives benefits thereof. At another level the capacity to accept authority appears almost to be an intrinsic organic structuring which is operationalized within the individual in response to appropriate social conditions at the appropriate developmental phase. It also 74 appears, from Lacan?s writing, that the theorist regards the capacity to accept authority as an organic impossibility for some. For those who operate along the spectrum of Lacan?s depiction of the psychotic the ability to hear or accept the ?non? of the paternal agency once it has been foreclosed upon, is forever lost. It is as though a window of opportunity in neurological development is forever shut. The foundations of being are irrevocably established during the initial mirror phase and cannot, thereafter be undone. This does not mean that the subject operating along the psychotic spectrum is unable to do what is asked of him or her or that such a person would be unable to listen to orders or follow instructions. It means that the value of such thinking or behaviour has no intrinsic worth to the subject such that the course of action or reasons for being can be seen to shift and alter without apparent concern for the underlying values of action. Because such thinking is not experienced to have value it is unable to author or arrange the internal world in a meaningful way. In light of this thinking one can infer that in speaking it would be difficult for such a speaker to grasp the idea of resolution, of finality and closure. Because there is no final authority, the question always remains open; meanings cannot be pinned down. This report investigates the way in which this aspect of the failure of the paternal function to inscribe itself upon the imaginary order of the subject would manifest in speech. It is proposed, in fact, that this failure is manifest in thinking towards resolution, or in the case of the psychotic orientation, the thinking towards disintegration. For Fink (1997), the foreclosure against the paternal metaphor is evidenced in the ?radical rejection of a particular element from the symbolic order (that is from language), and not just any element: it involves the element that in some sense grounds or anchors the symbolic order as whole? (p. 79). This means that in speech the foreclosure against the paternal function is manifest in instances in which a fundamental element of speech, an element which is essential to the organizing and arrangement of the ordering of language, of signifiers and meaning is ignored, rejected or overlooked. Or alternatively if, as Fink argues, this element that is foreclosed is the paternal function or the function that cuts off the union between mother and child, then one must expect to find indications in language of that incompletely severed tie, 75 and of the absence of the recognition of the authority of the ?because I said so? or the ?that?s just the way it is.? Fink (1997) present Lacan?s argument to be that when the paternal metaphor has failed to function effectively the structure of language is unable to be assimilated completely (p. 94) because the necessary respect and attention to the terms, conditions and requirements to acquiring language are absent. As a consequence, the ego, which is constructed in language, according to Lacan, is therefore unable fully to develop. As this report has suggested with respect to the speaker?s use of pronouns the boundaries of the ego are seen as flexible or even nonexistent and imaginary relations are seen to predominate. Fink (1997) cites from Lacan examples of possible instances of the ?psychotic? structuring of language (arising from the absence of the integration of the paternal metaphor), for example, sentences that break off just before the most important term is uttered; situations where words are replaced by words that are phonetically similar but completely distinct in meaning, and the use of neologisms, (for Lacan one of the ?signatures? of ?psychosis?, 2006, pp. 43-44). This report argues in light of the above reflection on the effects of foreclosure that a consequent manifestation of the failure of the paternal metaphor (in which material symptomatic of the incompleted process of the subject?s passage through the mirror phase can be found) should be traceable in examples of thinking that is orientated towards, what this report has termed ?disintegration? or possibly and more aptly ?dis-integration?. On the one hand the unbounded subject can hope to find containment either in merging with the body of the mother, reflected in the insistence on language which joins and covers the individual in the maternal body of the ANC. On the other hand, however, when ?thinking? is left to occur outside of the maternal, the subject is left to experience a chaotic scattering of unintegrated parts. This experience should, therefore, according to Lacan?s theory be evidenced in speech which is orientated towards fragmentation and disintegration. In Zuma?s case this situation of evidence of orientation towards fragmentation is apparent in the first transcript as Zuma is faced with questions (Appendix A, p.99) that deal with the issue of land and restoration. In responding to questions regarding policies to do with this matter Zuma states the intention to ?handle it responsibly so that we are able to resolve it? (Appendix A, p. 102). In response to the overt agenda 76 presented (the intention to resolve the problem), however, Zuma immediately goes on to detail a strategy that appears to move against the very thrust or stated objective of resolution. In fact the speaker?s vision of how to ?resolve? the issue of land redistribution in South Africa involves a course that on the contrary actually, in terms of his explanation of it, diffuses the possibility of resolution. What is apparent in the way the speaker?s response is structured is that something in this structure works against the overt intention of the speaker?s response. The overt intention of the speaker appears to be to provide a response to the question in which the focus is finding or depicting a solution. The implicit hope proffered by the question (that there is hope to be found) is at some level ?dis-integrated? in the way the speaker responds to the question. What seems to happen is that when confronted with the idea of ?a solution? the concept of a solution itself disintegrates. The speaker, instead of holding onto the divining stick of the possibility of a ?solution?, instead experiences the concept as disintegrating in his mind into the confrontation with the plethora of possibilities regarding why no resolution has yet been achieved. Consider the following response; ?But even before we say ? if we get people to talk about more land, as I saying earlier answering another question, are we able to ensure that what we have done already, we have done it appropriately, effectively, could we improve on that??, (Appendix A, p. 102). So in response to the question of how to resolve a problem, of what the necessary sequential steps to take are in order to bring together a diffuse and scattered situation and systematically direct that situation, and all its parties, towards a unified and bounded position, Zuma finds himself turning back on himself. Instead of looking forwards Zuma looks back again, at a re-examination of the diffuse and scattered parts. It is almost as though the unified and bounded possibility of resolution has no reality in Zuma?s mind. This observation does not imply that the investigation into whether or not past practices have been effective is in itself not useful, but rather is making the observation that when addressed with the request to impart the vision underlying one?s actions the subject who has not sufficiently progressed through the mirror phase is unlikely to be thinking forwards and is in fact more likely to be thinking towards disintegration. Again, in isolation, this event is of marginal value. It is in the repetition and the pattern of this thinking, discernible beneath the overt content and intentions of the speaker?s text that the orientation of the subject?s underlying position emerges. 77 Indeed holding in mind Lacan?s idea of the mirror phase (as creating the desire to unify or bring together the inner and the outer, to unite affect with the word, to create a coherent centre) one can read Zuma?s closing comments on the idea of there being two economies in South Africa. Zuma reflects on the need to ?close the gap between the two? and follows this, ironically, with his observation that in fact ?there?s been the opening of the gap rather the closing of the gap? (Appendix A, p. 105). 5.1.3 Acknowledgement or denial of difference. This report presents a third category for consideration when attempting to discern the appearance of the unconscious in language. Derived from the theoretical reading this report holds that in textual material related to the subject with a psychotic orientation one may be able to anticipate the manifestation of what is termed here ?the denial of difference?. This facet is associated with the psychotic orientation, once again, due to the failure of the paternal metaphor. Again, to contextualize this thinking of the manifestation of denial, Lacan?s theory holds that in relation to the successful progression through the mirror phase one might imagine that at some level, in the developing psyche of the child, there exists an increasing awareness of the split in language between what is said and what is experienced. This awareness lies in the idea that although the subject has entered into language and has, apparently chosen to do so, in a sense the subject has been duped. Language will never be enough to grasp the what-ness of experience or to reclaim the lost ideal of the imaginary order. The knowledge of this gap or split of the difference produces an uncomfortable awareness in the subject so that he or she feels compelled to attempt to repair the gap through the use of the idea of differences which can sustain and uphold and give meaning to experience. For this subject differences are important. The activity of marking differences in itself becomes a tool that can be used for marking and quantifying the gap. It thus becomes a way to manage the anxiety generated by the presence of this gap. Accordingly, the subject for whom this mirror phase has not been entirely concluded would not even be cognizant of the split having occurred, or even aware that such an experience was possible. The gap between affect and the words that contain the affect does not appear to exist. Similarly one could anticipate there would be little distinction between parts, (even as the subject has shown little regard for the difference between ?I? and ?we? and ?you?). 78 Suggesting that the psychotic orientation towards experience manifests a denial of difference in the conceptual arrangement of materials of speech is, once again, not to suggest that the subject does not know that difference exists. Intellectually and by evidence of the senses and depending where on the spectrum the psychotic is located the idea of difference is apparent. It is with regard to the way the subject organizes the signifiers in the chain of the signifying system of the textual material that this denial is manifest. This means that the speaker?s way of organizing concepts or ideas, categories or identities is done so that it is as though the speaker could not recognize, or tolerate or acknowledge difference. As though, at some fundamental level, the reality of difference (at least in the symbolic order) had no real meaning. With respect to three transcripts the speaker manifests clear instances in which he operates in speech, as though no differences were apparent. This indifference to difference is apparent in the stance on Healthcare touched on by Zuma in Appendix A in response to questions regarding Healthcare policy. Intellectually the speaker acknowledges that a change has been made. This is accepted as a fact but the speaker then goes on, actually to both articulate and to enact for us, in his own words, that although, intellectually a change has been made, in fact, for the speaker, it is as though no change at all has taken place. In the transcript Zuma?s words can be read as follows; ?President Motlanthe has changed the minister of Health? and then; ?There?s a new minister.? (Appendix A, p.101). He then adds; ?I?m sure if you follow what the new minister is saying in terms of --- she?s not saying anything new? (Appendix A, p. 101). She?s not saying anything new. [my italics] Read at a ground level clearly Zuma is emphasizing for his audience the continuity of Healthcare policy. There is also an apparent emphasis on the sense of the continuity of policy from one generation of party members to the next. But there is a gap. Quite obviously, in the speaker?s sentence, the actual content of the new minister?s Healthcare policy, (?what the new minister is saying in terms of -?) alluded to by the speaker in the way the sentence has been set up, is missing. It is as thought the content of the Healthcare minister?s actual policy has fallen into a hole, slipped away or been swallowed up. And instead we are left with ... a gap in the speaker?s text. Briefly one might pause to reflect back on Fink?s observations on Lacan on the 79 structure of psychotic thinking as being manifest in half-finished sentences (see Chapter 3.2). What we find then by virtue of acknowledging this gap, incorporating its presence into the sentence, is the fact that the actual content of the Healthcare minister?s policy is fundamentally unimportant to the speaker?s underlying orientation. It doesn?t matter what the Minister?s policy is or was. One might tentatively suggest that at an unconscious level the speaker has absolutely no interest in it. It could, one might say, for all he cared, be swallowed up by the ground. Instead, for the speaker, it is the orientation against acknowledging difference that is prioritized. That despite the fact that signifiers change, that new names appear, despite all the appearance of difference, the speaker: the subject; remains fundamentally committed to the position that no difference exists. This is effectively, to return to the level of theory, the refusal by the subject to recognize the other in the mirror as being separate from or different to him or herself. For this subject it is as though the image in the mirror is merely an extension of the self. The new minister of health is merely an extension of the old minister of health. Similarly, although by extension, Jacob Zuma is merely an extension of the ANC and nothing more than that. For the subject at the far end of the Lacanian psychotic spectrum, who has foreclosed against the ordering effects of the paternal agency and therefore against full entry into the symbolic order, the imperative to remain entrenched in the order of the imaginary is tantamount to a life or death cause. Because there can now, never be, any other reality than that experienced in the order of imaginary relations these relations must be protected at all costs. Furthermore, as this report has shown in relation to Fink?s reading of Lacan?s clinical diagnoses (see Chapter 3.2), without the inhibitive effects, or, the restraining voice of the internalized symbolic order to modulate affect through noting difference, degree and distinction, the slightest trigger can result in excessive and inappropriately impulsively driven responses. Taken further the ?psychotic? orientation against the acknowledgement of difference could be anticipated to manifest in speech as a radical intolerance of difference. The threat to the id posed by (what we might call the threat of) difference could arguably be exemplified in the speeches of Julius Malema. Malema is introduced in this discussion as his name features in the interview with Lyman. 80 In the given interview Lyman addresses what appears to be the troubling content of Malema?s rhetoric. He alludes to the fact that Zuma himself has previously had to contend with questions on the topic of Malema. Lyman says; ?Some of your supporters have been making some pretty radical statements. I know you said in an interview not long ago about Julius Malema, the head of the ANC Youth League, he?s a young man, let him grow. I mean, you said, bring him along? (Appendix A, p.97). The implication in Lyman?s reference to Zuma?s past stance on questions regarding the viability of Malema as a political leader or role model is that Zuma has been seen to be tolerant of, even supportive, fatherly and protective over Malema. Lyman goes on note the fact that for some people, however, Malema?s position and rhetoric has been associated with one who has a radical intolerance of difference; ?he?s said, really some things about anybody who gets in the way, has to be eliminated, pushed aside?. In response to Lyman?s reference to Malema?s rhetoric of elimination Zuma himself refuses to acknowledge that there is, in fact, anything unusual or extreme in Malema?s speech. Effectively Zuma appears to deny the validity in Lyman?s allusion to the radical nature of Malema?s speech. It is here, as though, Zuma is saying that Malema?s rhetoric is no different to the rhetoric of any young politician, anywhere. Zuma responds by calling on Lyman to recall another young politician who he wishes to compare with Malema; ?You?ll remember one was called ---(inaudible) ? who probably said more things than what Malema has said. And that?s before Malema.? Zuma adds this other politician has ?also been very vocal? (Appendix A, p.97). It is clearly Zuma?s overt intention, as a politician, as political figure on a public stage, speaking to a foreign nation, to reassure and mitigate the challenges and concerns that are presented to him. Yet the manner in which this intention is enacted is significant in that this enactment once again belies the possibility of an underlying orientation towards the necessity of denying difference. As before the speaker?s response manifests a gap. In the process of trying to summon an important reference to support his thesis that Malema is no different to any other young politician the very name he needs to support his contention is lost to him (or at least with respect to the audio quality ? to us- and this loss is not corrected); ?You?ll remember one was called --?. Once again the unconscious may be argued to have manifested a presence through this absenting agency. At the same time the orientation of the unconscious may arguably be discerned through the elision of the required name. It is as though the 81 unconscious, at that moment, irrupted like an angry eavesdropper to insist that the name be confounded, that what is important is the insistence that signifier (Malema) is no different to any other signifier. A further example of the denial of difference (and there are numerous evident in the Appendices which, but for space constraints, could fill many pages) is evident in the speaker?s refusal to acknowledge the authority of his own unified agency even within his capacity as President. This example has bearing both on this report?s position on what is has identified as a key feature of speech, the ?absence or lack of a unified agency? (see 5.2.1) as well as with regard to the denial of difference. Again this report notes that at the ground level the position adopted by the speaker in the following comment is easily attributable to ANC policy approach and is acknowledged as quite realistically in fact demonstrating the overt intention of the speaker to enforce his alignment with party policy. And yet this report holds that in the pattern of the repetition of these extruding features of the speaker?s text lies the possibility that, at the same time, on the other side of the coin, as it were, another agency speaks through the subject. In response to questions regarding his personal policy intentions upon becoming president Zuma insists; ?I have absolutely continued to say I will change no policies if I become the president. I have no capacity and authority to do so. That is in the hands of the ANC? (Appendix A, p.101). Zuma asserts the emphasis on personal agency only in order to deny the fact of it as if saying; ?I absolutely refuse to acknowledge that I am.? Effectively the possibility of a unified bounded agency is ejected/foreclosed from the discussion. Furthermore, the speaker appears to deny his own capacity to effect change, to make a difference in his personal capacity. As a signifier, the speaker is insistent, that he is just the same as all the other signifiers and interchangeable with these others. Or again the speaker insists that the speaking ?I? does not exist apart from or function as a separate body; ?I have no capacity and authority to do so? (Appendix A, p. 101). Instead the speaking ?I? is inextricably bound up with an over-arching (maternal) super-body in which the idealized connection and imaginary relation is held as paramount, ?in the hands of the ANC?. 5.1.4 Appearance of aggressive or libidinal language. Other ways of foreclosure of the paternal agency in the process of the mirror phase is evident in the use of implicit acts of linguistic defiance. Such defiance, for 82 example, is the insistence that one thing means another. It is also found in the repeated refusing to repair the gaps found in understanding, in language. In an interview with Fergal Keane from the BBC documentary entitled ?No More Mandelas? when asked if the accusations of rape and revelation of Zuma?s act of showering to wash off the HIV virus cast ?grave doubt on [Zuma?s] fitness for any kind of office, let alone the presidency of South Africa?, Zuma responds with, ?No, it can?t be .. it can?t be? (Appendix B, p. 107). There are a number of points to consider here. Firstly at a ground level the speaker?s position is a difficult one. He is, quite clearly, subjected to a hostile barrage of accusatory questions which are, in their pointedness, blatantly disrespectful of the statesman?s position. Under the scrutiny of the camera and with the knowledge that millions will be watching, fresh from the series of recent scandals that dogged his every move, the speaker faces his interlocutor under conditions of what can only be tremendous pressure. At a very realistic level it is likely that the impulse to respond with aggression, hostility or anger is high. That many statesmen and most individuals faced with such scrutiny, judgement and accusation regarding their personal life and conduct would arguably respond in kind is probable. But Zuma does not, overtly, manifest aggression. In this sense the gap manifest in the transcription of the interaction is evident in the space that is opened up between the interlocutor?s tone of accusation, confrontation and disrespect and the speaker?s tone of diffident, amused disbelief. The unconscious emerges, in this instance in the space between the speaker and the questioner. The material produced by the questioner is effectively absorbed or ingested, consumed by the speaker, taken in. And yet its consumption leaves the speaker with an attitude of disbelief that he should be subjected to such an unpleasant feed. There is a way in which one can imagine the speaker digesting the substance ingested and reflecting on the taste of it, with disbelief, with denial. This presentation makes sense if we consider the tentative proposal regarding the subject?s unconscious orientation. The only reality imaginable to the subject of the imaginary order is one in which the material offered by the maternal body is sustaining, nourishing and ever-present. Zuma?s response of disbelief and incredulity at the situation to which he is being subjected lends to the possibility that at some level the interview set-up had led the speaker to anticipate a friendly and supportive context in which the speaker had anticipated receiving a ?good feed?. Because the 83 reality of the maternal body producing harmful substances is in effect a threat to the subject?s very being the only recourse to this experience is one of denial. The speaker does not encounter the idea of ?grave doubts? regarding his fitness of for office within anything like the gravity implied in the question. In fact the speaker does not appear to have absorbed or incorporated the content of question. Instead the speaker adopts a stance based purely on denial. Herein the denial is not of the accusations levelled against him but seems more endemic of a blanket refusal to contemplate the possibility that anything as intangible (nonexistent) as ?grave doubts? could impede the opportunity to become president. As Keane?s questions freeze the subject in a mirror in which a particularly unpleasant other is reflected back the frustration, anguish and disavowal produced by this presence become manifest in what might be termed a libidinal production of language as the pure expression of feeling beyond any semantics. Keane confronts Zuma with the theoretical image; ?[a] lot of people think you?re a crook? to which Zuma responds by deflecting the image, ?Is that so?? His laugh is followed by the sound, ?Ahh uhh? (Appendix B, p.113). The place where signifier and signified are entirely denied and again is evident when Keane confronts Zuma with the statement that there a ?whole army of prosecutors who clearly think [Zuma is a crook]?. Zuma replies with, ?Uhhh huhh ?.?, and ?is that so?? and ?Oh! Serious? (Appendix B, p. 113). Zuma manifestly refuses to engage with these accusations. This may be on the basis of their patent absurdity (in his eyes) but it is also a possibility that at an unconscious level the reality of these accusations and the detail of their content do not actually exist; that they are not real. There is no need in this reality to repair or make reparation because the threat is not real, nothing has been lost. With respect to Zuma?s use of long breathing sounds and exclamatory expressions one sees here how the unconscious affords the speaking ego a defensive posture. The unconscious emerges to substitute another discourse in place of rhetorical discourse. This is one which consists of sounds and expressions, that serve only to syncopate the gaps as it were, providing the sound of a response and cover over the gap of what is not answered ? that is the refusal to confront a symbolized loss followed by an attempt to repair it. Or, more accurately in terms of the psychotic?s position, the inability to confront, because it has ejected from consciousness, the symbolized loss. Through the idea of the subject?s foreclosure against the paternal agency and therefore through the failure of the subject to complete the mirror phase 84 Lacan?s idea of the imaginary order is able to be sustained in the subject. In this order there is no difference, or more precisely there is no difference between the image in the mirror and oneself. That image is merely an extension of the self. 5.2 Concluding Comments These four elements extracted from the consideration of the interplay between the five key Lacanian concepts provide a convenient platform for the analysis of extra-analytic material. Proposed in support of the tentative preliminary diagnosis of the psychotic orientation towards experience these elements provide an elementary foundation from which to proceed with an analysis of the orientation of the unconscious in the textual material. This tentative preliminary diagnosis of the textual subject as manifesting an underlying psychotic orientation has a number of potential implications. Firstly, and most obviously, the limited preliminary diagnosis can be explored in relation to further analysis of this material and in relation to the other instances of textual matter. Possibly other ways in which the foreclosure against the paternal agency is manifest in speech could be considered. Secondly, should the preliminary diagnosis be found to stand, there are a number of things that can be anticipated as likely as a consequence of the orientation. Some of these consequences are presented in the discussed of Fink?s reading of Lacan (see Chapter 3.2). These anticipated consequences include the psychotically orientated individual being likely to perceive threat; in relation to his or her own contemporaries, colleagues or equals, as opposed to, for example, feeling oneself to be persecuted by one?s superiors. Conflict for the psychotic typically arises in relation to competitors who, it is suspected, are trying to oust the subject and seize for him or herself that already occupied place. Themes of persecution, of being overlooked, ignored or bypassed are evident. The underlying sense is one of paranoia and, as in the case of clinical psychosis, it is accompanied by ?language disturbances? (Fink, 1999, p. 106). A further consequence of the psychotic orientation is one which is not discussed in this report but which certainly merits further research. This has to do with the propensity for psychotic breaks or triggering events that can lead to psychotic breaks in which the already tenuous, shifting hold on reality is, at least for a time, severed. Another consideration is Lacan?s idea that the psychotic orientation can 85 never be altered. It can only be supplemented. The individual may never learn to incorporate the authority of the paternal agency into the inner symbolic order of language in order to order experience but the techniques and habits acquired from such an incorporation can be supplemented by an individual who has learnt to recognize the way in which the absence of an anchoring agency has had detrimental effects on life choices, and so on. With regard to politicial leaders, by identifying who of these might be, for example, of a ?psychotic ? orientation?, means that policy interactions with such individuals, mediation and strategy might be tailored with respect to the individual?s or collective?s psychic orientation. This research has proposed concretely discernible ways in which aspects of Lacan?s idea of the psychotic psyche might present in speech. There is clearly similar scope for other ideas of how the other two diagnostic criteria might manifest. 5.2.1 Limitations and future areas of research By aiming to undertake a pilot study of the selected area of research this research report has been interested in opening up dialogue and discussion around further ways a Lacanian methodology might be developed. This research did anticipate at the outset the compilation of several categories or ways to be used when interacting with extra-analytic material apart from the four presented here. These anticipated categories still present as viable and appear to offer numerous further avenues of approach but space and time constraints prohibit further discussion here. Further consideration with respect to Lacan?s writing on the characteristics of clinically psychotic speech presentation would have been useful. There is certainly scope to explore the conditions and circumstances under which psychosis might be triggered and this event may be prefigured in speech. This research had also hoped to touch upon the implications of ANC policy with regard to the manifestation of an underlying collective (Lacanian) psychotic structure as well as the implications for an entire culture in which the fundamental circumstances under which the paternal agency can be manifest. I refer here to the brief discussion (see Chapter 4.4) on the circumstantial effects of apartheid history on the cultural environment in which Jacob Zuma grew up. A clinical practitioner would no doubt comment that the report needs both a far more extensive personal history, and far more examples of speech. This report holds, however, given both Lacan?s notion of the subject as well as his own 86 model of clinical practice, that although interesting and worthwhile, the exploration of the personal history is essential to the diagnosis. The ways in which the notion of the ANC may be seen to have served a symptomatic function in relation to the psychotic foreclosure of an entire culture against the imposed authority of external paternal agency even while the internal paternal forces were being systematically undermined bears further consideration. This research has aimed to limit the possibility of wild or speculative analysis by focusing on the content of the textual material with respect to the adherence to Lacanian theory and also to the broad tenets of grounded analysis. It is worth noting, however, that in terms of Lacanian theory there is also room to move more boldly into a discussion of the history and development of the subject. Due to space constraints possible areas of the discussion of Lacanian theory may have benefitted from being further elucidated; for example a richer discussion of Lacan?s notion of the Other would have been useful especially as Chiesa (2007) observes in relation to Lacan that identity can only be understood in relation to the other. This discussion may have helped to provide firmer grounding for the diagnostic position tentatively arrived at herein. Also with regard to the possibility of enriching the diagnostic position a more in depth discussion of jouissance would have been desirable. This report also notes that while the discussion of Lacanian ?lack? is elucidated, it would have been useful to more thoroughly have considered the its relationship to the concept of castration and the way in which such an understanding helps to clarify the different modes or dimensions of lack. It is also noted that this report does not present a differential diagnosis. This is acknowledged but it should also be observed that as the diagnosis is, at this stage, still being explored, this feature would form part of the process of diagnosis at a later stage. Also, due to the limits of this report, the opportunity of fully discussing the clinical categories relevant to such a diagnosis (e.g. obsessional/hysteric differentiation) is not possible. This report identifies elements of foreclosure in the analysis of the textual matter and links this with the ?psychotic? structure. This does not mean that the ?psychotic? structure is confirmed but rather that, in identifying features of ?psychosis?, this report shows that, given the evidence thus far in the research process, it is relevant to pursue the proposed tentative diagnosis further. Clearly, there is also a need to more clearly identify ways in which, due to the absence of something crucial, (the lack) the symbolic domain can be shown to be unanchored 87 or without quilting points. An exploration of the way the textual matter can be seen to respond to key turning points in the subject matter might help to discern these features of lack. Given that psychotic subjects usually find taking on different symbolic coordinates, and particularly paternal functions, very difficult, even catastrophic, it would certainly be useful, to identify ways in which this potential difficulty/catastrophe can be identified in textual matter. Questions to explore in relation to the textual matter might be whether or not the big Other changes in such moments or can it be seen to take on a persecutory aspect. The exploration of the idea of ordinary ?psychosis? or ?non-triggered psychosis? as opposed to ?triggered psychosis? would also merit exploration in subsequent research. One area that certainly invites a speculative analysis in relation to Lacanian thinking has to do with the documented origins of Zuma?s middle name and the ways in which this act of naming can potentially be seen, as Lacan argues, to have shaped and framed the subject, called him into being as it were, before his existence on the earth. This idea refers back to Lacan?s notion of ?letters? purloined or stolen or overheard from one?s elders, while still children, and which can alter the progression of later development. Another area of consideration that would have been worth further investigation is into the effects of bilingualism or multilingualism on the expression and manifestation of the unconscious in extra-analytic material. Lacan?s own position holds that the unconscious speaks through any level of human language in a way that remains consistent and faithful to the speaker?s underlying orientation. From this researcher?s own limited work with patients in therapy in two languages this Lacanian position does seem to hold true but further research into this area is worthwhile and may prove or have proved to yield its own unique set of considerations. This report has not intended to prove the clinical accuracy of the diagnosis at this stage in the research. Rather this report aims to show that such an application of Lacanian theory to extra- analytic material is viable and that the manner in which the application is undertaken is promising in that it may be able to provide useful matter for subsequent research. This report holds that the four areas of consideration discussed in relation to the analysis of the textual material offer a viable approach to a preliminary reading of other extra-textual material. There is much room to develop further areas derived from working with Lacan?s notions of the mirror phase and paternal agency and the three orders. 88 89 Works Cited Benvenuto, B. & Kennedy, R. (1986). The Works of Jacques Lacan: An Introduction. London, England: Free Association Books. Borgatti, S. M. (2009). Network Analysis in the Social Sciences. Science, 323, 892-895. Bracher, M. (1993). Lacan, Discourse and Social Change: A Psychoanalytic Cultural Criticism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Bracher, M., Alcorn, J., Corthell, R., & Massardier-Kennedy, F. (1997). Lacanian Theory of Discourse: Subject, Structure and Society. New York: NYU Press. Branney, P. (2008). Subjectivity, Not Personality: Combining Discourse Analysis and Psychoanalysis. Social and Personality Psychology Compass 2/2, 574-590. Braungardt, J. (1957). Interview with Lacan. Retrieved August 14, 2009, from http://www.braungardt.com/Psychoanalysis/Lacan-Interview.htm. Carlton, B., Laband. J., & Sithole, J. (Eds). (2008). Zulu Identities: Being Zulu, Past and Present. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press. Caudill, D. (1997). Lacan and the Subject of the Law: Towards a Psychoanalytic Critical Legal Theory. Amherst, N.Y.: Humanity Books Chiesa, L. (2007) Subjectivity and Otherness: A Philosopical Reading of Lacan. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Clarke, S. (2009). Researching Beneath the Surface: psycho-social research methods in practice. London, England: Karnac. Dor, J. (1999). Introduction to the Reading of Lacan: The Unconscious is Structured Like a Language. New York, N.Y.: Other Press. Eidelstein, A. (2009). The Graph of Desire: Using the Works of Jacques Lacan. London, England: Karnac Books. Elovitz, P. (2003). Psychoanalytic Scholarship on American Presidents. Annual of Psychoanalysis. 31, 135-149.Evans, D. (1996). An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis. New York, N.Y.: Routledge. Feher-Gurewich, J. (2000). The Philanthropy of Perversion. In J-M Rabat? (Ed.), Lacan in America (pp. 361-400). New York, N.Y.: Other Press. Fink, B. (1997). The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Fink, B. (1999) A Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis: Theory and Technique. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Freud, S. (1960). Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious. New York, N.Y.: W. W. Norton & Sons Freud, S. (1975). On the History of the Psycho-analytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology and Other Works. London, England: Vintage Press. Freud, S. (2002). The Psychopathology of Everyday Life. London: Penguin Books. Freud, S. (2005). The Essentials of Psycho-analysis. London: Vintage Books. Freud, S. (2008). The Interpretation of Dreams. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Friedlander, M. (2000). The Subject of Lacan. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press. Frosh, S. (2010). Psychoanalysis Outside the Clinic: Interventions in Psychosocial Studies. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Georgaca, E. (2003). Exploring signs and voices in the therapeutic space. Theory and Psychology, 13, 541-560. Glaser, B. G. (1978). Theoretical Sensitivity: Advances in the Methodology of Grounded Theory. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press. Gordin, J. (2008). Zuma: A Biography. Cape Town: Struik. Hillier, M. G. (2005). Not Over Your Dead Bodies! A Lacanian Interpretation of Urban Planning Disourse and Practice. Environment and Planning, 21, 1049 -1068. Holden, P. (2008). The Arms Deal in Your Pocket. Jeppestown, Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball Publishers. Holland, N. N. (1998). The Trouble(s) With Lacan. Retrieved August 14, 2009, from Web site: http://www.clas.ufl.edu.users/nholland/lacan.htm. Hollway, W. (1989). Subjectivity and Method in Psychology: Gender, Meaning, and Science. London, England: Sage. Homer, S. (2005). Jacques Lacan. New York, N.Y.: Routledge. Hughes, R. & Ror Malone. K. (2002). Clinical Practice and the Subject of the Unconscious. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press. Jakobsen, R. (1971). Shifters, Verbal Categories, and the Russian Verb, (pp. 130-147). In S. Rudy 90 (Ed.) Selected Writings II: Word and Language. Paris, France: Mouton. Jameson, F. (1991). Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. Kennedy, B. (1986). The Works of Jacques Lacan: An Introduction. London: Free Association Books. Lacan, J. (1988). The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book I: Freud's Papers on Technique 1953-54. New York: New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Lacan, J. (1991). The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book II: The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis 1954-1955. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Lacan, J. (1993). The Psychoses. New York, N.Y.: W. W. Norton & Company. Lacan, J. (1997). The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book VIII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Lacan, J. (1998). The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book XX: Encore, On Feminine Sexuality, The Limits of Love and Knowledge. New York: Norton. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Lacan, J. (2006). ?crits: The First Complete Edition in English. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Lang, H (1997). Language and the Unconscious: Jacques Lacan?s Hermeneutics of Psychoanalysis. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books. Mallon, E. The Unconscious is Structured like a Language. Retrieved August 14, 2009, from http://baysiders.com/Site/Lacan.html. Minsky, R. (1998). Psychoanalysis and Culture: Contemporary States of Mind. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Motsei, M. (2007). The Kanga and the Kangaroo Court: Reflection on the Rape Trial of Jacob Zuma. Cape Town: Jacana. Nasio, J-D. (1998). Five Lessons on the Psychoanalytic Theory of Jacques Lacan. Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press. Parker, I. (2005). Lacanian Discourse Analysis in Psychology: Seven Theoretical Elements. Theory and Psychology. 15, 163-182. Parker, I. (2010). Lacanian Discourse Analysis negotiating interview text. Psychoanalysis,Culture and Society. 15, 156-172. Pav?n Cu?llar, D. (2010). From the conscious Interior to an Exterior Unconscious: Lacan, discourse analysis and social psychology. London: Karnac Books Ltd. Pike, K. L. (1967). Language in Relation to a Unified Theory of the Structure of Human Behaviour. The Hague: Mouton. Post, J. M. (1986). Narcissism and the Charismatic Leader-Follower Relationship. Political Psychology, 7, 675-688. Rabat?, J.-M. (2001). Jacques Lacan. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan. Renshon, S. (1996). The Psychological Assessment of Presidential Candidates. York: NYU Press. Renshon, S. (2001) Profiling Political Leaders. In O. Eldman & L. Valery, (Eds.), Profiling Political Leaders. Santa Barbara, CA.: Greenwood Publishing Group. Roper, B. (2009). Practice, Provenance, Homologies? Annual Review of Critical Psychology, 7, 91- 100. Saville Young, L. (2009). Not Knowing: towards an ethics for employing psychoanalysis in psychoanalysis in psychosocial research. Psycho-analytic Psychotherapy in South Africa, 1- 21. Steinberg, B. (2005). Indira Ghandi: the relationship between personality profile and leadership style. Political Psychology, 26, 775-789. Strauss, A. L. (1990). Basics of Qualitative Research: grounded theory, procedures and techniques. Newbury Park, CA.: Sage Publications. Terre Blanche, M. & Kelly, K. (2004). Interpretive Methods. In Terre Blanche, M. &. Durrheim, K. (Eds). Research in Practice: Applied Methods for the Social Sciences. Cape Town, Western Province: UCT Press, pp. 123-146. Van Pelt, T. (1997). Lacan in Context: An Introduction to Lacan for the English Speaking Reader. College Literature, 6, 24. Retrieved November 06, 2009 from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3709/is_199706/ai_n8766363/?tag=content Verhaeghe, P. (2002). ?Lacan?s Answer to the Classical Mind/Body Deadlock: Retracing Freud?s Beyond?. In D. Bernard and B. Fink (eds)., Reading Seminar XX: Lacan?s Major Work on Love, Knowledge, and Feminine Sexuality (pp 109-140). Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. Verhaeghe, P. (2008) On Being Normal and Other Disoders: A Manual for Clinical Psychodiagnostics. London: Karnac Books. 91 Walkerdine, V. (1987). No laughing matter: Girls' comics and the preparation for adolescent sexuality. In J. M. Broughton (Ed.), Critical Theories of Psychological Deveopment (pp. 87-125). New York, N.Y., Plenum Press. Webster, R. The Cult of Lacan: Freud, Lacan and the Mirror Stage. Retrieved August 14, 2009 from http://www.richardwebster.net/index.html. ?i?ek, S. (1996). The Indivisible Remainder: An Essay on Schelling and Related Matters. London, England: Verso. ?i?ek, S. (2006). How to Read Lacan. London, England: Granta Books. Zuma. J. (2008). Transcript of interview with Jacob Zuma, President, African National Congress, South Africa and Princeton N. Lyman, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies for Council of Foreign Relations. Retrieved December 5, 2009, from http://cfr.org/publication/17594/conversation_with_jacob_zuma.html - Zuma, J. (2008). No More Mandelas: transcription of Jacob Zuma interview. Retrieved last December 5, 2009, from BBC Web site: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/7243095.stm Zuma, J. (2008). Portion of transcription from video footage of question and answer session between Jacob Zuma and Jewish community at Investec in Sandton. Retrieved last December. 5, 2009, from http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3126237176894351782# 92 93 Appendix A Transcript of conversation between Jacob Zuma, President, African National Congress, South Africa and Princeton N. Lyman, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies for Council of Foreign Relations (October 21, 2008) in Washington, D.C. PRINCETON LYMAN: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all, and welcome to the Council on Foreign Relations, a conversation with Jacob Zuma. We're delighted to have so many people here for this event. Let me make a few administrative comments first. I'm Princeton Lyman. I'm an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations on African Studies. Our meeting today will be on the record, and we're delighted and grateful to C-SPAN which will be broadcasting this meeting live. We have also via teleconference, we have council members participating around the country and indeed around the world. Let me ask you all, please, to turn off, not just turn silent, to turn off all electronic communications devices because it interferes with the transmission. Thank you very much. I'm also delighted that our event today is the Darryl Behrman lecture. The Darryl Behrman Lecture Series was endowed by the Behrman family in the memory of Darryl Behrman, who came from South Africa, was a very successful businessman in the United States but very concerned with international peace, with Africa and with South Africa. He died unexpectedly in 2002. The family has endowed the Behrman Lecture Series. This is our third in the series, and we're very grateful to the Behrman family. Now, how we're going to proceed today is that we're going to make its conversation style. I'm going to ask our guest to open up with some remarks, et cetera. Then he and I will have a bit of a conversation. And then we'll throw it open for questions. And we will end promptly at 1:30. These are very momentous times in South Africa, perhaps the most momentous since the end of apartheid in 1994. There are major changes underway in the leadership of the African National Congress. We had the resignation of President Thabo Mbeki just seven months short of the end of his second term. We have movement underway by some people in that administration to break away from the ANC and talk of establishing a separate party. And perhaps fueling a lot of these changes and much of the debate, an unhappiness in the country or in certain elements of the country that in spite of 15 years of relatively good growth, the benefits of that growth have not reached the majority of the population in jobs and in terms indeed of moving out of poverty. And that has fueled much of the debate and some of the changes that are taking place in the country. All of this, of course, happening as the world is going through a financial crisis. And that, too, may have a bearing on all of this. Our guest today, Jacob Zuma, is very much at the center of all these developments, and we're delighted to have you here. You have a full bio of Mr. Zuma in your papers. And I will be only brief in introducing him. He was born in 1942. He joined the ANC at 17 (years) and devoted 94 much of his life to the liberation of South Africa from apartheid. He was imprisoned for 10 years on Robin Island where Nelson Mandela was also serving in prison. After 1994 -- he was part of the negotiations leading up to 1994 -- he rose rapidly in the ANC. After that, he became national chairman of the ANC. In 1999, he was elected executive deputy president of South Africa. Then in 2005, things seemed to change a little bit. There were allegations of corruption, and President Mbeki asked him to leave. And Mr. Zuma has fought those charges with vigor, and he led a campaign to change the leadership of the ANC. In December 2007, Mr. Zuma was elected president of the ANC, defeating Thabo Mbeki. And he is, in our election terms, the presumptive ANC candidate for president and, if history is any guide, perhaps the next president of South Africa. He is a man of some controversy. But if I can add a personal note, Mr. Zuma, when I was in South Africa during that period of 1992 to '94 when the violence in KwaZulu-Natal, your province, was so threatening and even threatened civil war on the beginning of South Africa's democracy, which would have been a tragedy, no one, in my view, worked harder than you to contain that violence, to reach across to the Inkatha Freedom Party, to bring it under control and avoid a civil war. And I know you brought that same skill to your work in bringing peace to Burundi. So welcome to the council. And we look forward to your opening remarks. Thank you very much. JACOB ZUMA: Well, thank you very much for your kind words and for the opportunity. Before I say a few words, allow me to introduce my colleagues here. As you know, we are here as a delegation of the ANC. I'm with the colleagues, some attending other meetings. But we have the ambassador, who is here, Ambassador -- (inaudible). We have also Mathews Phosa, who is the treasurer general of the ANC, an old freedom fighter as well who was the first premier of Mpumalanga province. He now tries to see that the ANC has money to function. (Laughter.) LYMAN: Very important. ZUMA: Very important indeed. We also have Dr. Zweli Mkhize. The people didn't see you. They just saw the little hand showing. (Laughter.) I think if you could stand. That's Phosa. (Applause.) Yes, please. And then Zweli Mkhize. (Applause.) He is also the member of the National Executive Committee of the ANC but also the chairperson of the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal province. He's also an MEC for finance. MEC means Member of the Executive Council which, in simple terms -- we are very fancy with words -- it means the provincial ministry, really, in simple terms. Other colleagues are somewhere else, as I said. But thank you very much for the opportunity indeed. Firstly, we are here as a delegation. We have had meetings or are in the process of having meetings with Madam Secretary this morning. We have also met with the president. We have had a meeting in the White House with some of the key people there who was passing through. And it started to get into meeting and greet, and we were grateful for that and, of course, had some discussions as you'd imagine. If you were in this part of the world or in Europe, the issue of Zimbabwe is always the issue on the agenda. So those matters have been discussed. But we are very happy. We are here because we believe that there has been a relationship between South Africa and the United States in the process of the history, as it were, in a democratic society. There is going to be change in the United States. There are changes already that were referred to in South Africa that are taking place. And both sides felt it was very necessary that we touch base to ensure that those relations continue. That we, therefore, don't meet for the first time if we'll all be there after next 95 year. We could meet now and look at the situation. Fortunately, we have been part of the administration in one form or the other. There has been those kind of communications. But also to meet the investor, the private sector and other concerned people to discuss the issues of South Africa. We have already talked about the issue of the financial problems that face the globe today with both meetings and other meetings that have taken place. Of course, among other issues, there has been the issue of what is happening in South Africa. Well, if I could say a few words on that one because I think it would be saying why is, you know, not discussing South Africa but discussing everything in the world. You will recall that South Africa is relatively a young country. We are just about to complete 15 years of age. So we are in our teens, if you were to make the analogy of a human being really. But nevertheless, we believe that we have made a good start, firstly because we were able to achieve change in South Africa from apartheid in a manner that not many people expected will happen. Of course, I'm sure many people would say we all made the contribution. And indeed, we all made a contribution to that. I'm sure my good friend sitting there, the former leader of DA will say we made a contribution. The DA serves as a progressive party. We have had a very important member who kept the opposite regime in check all the time. But from the ANC point of view, we believe that over the years, we matured our policies and culture. And because of our clarity, we had confidence in addressing the issues of South Africa, which the question of negotiations was critical. We did things that many -- liberation movement did not do at the beginning. We are not afraid to conduct the negotiation within the borders of South Africa, which many liberation movements would not have done. I think that goes a long way to indicate the confidence of the ANC and its certainty about what it wanted to do. But we've also done something which we believe was important to take every political entity in South Africa as part of that process. So we had an inclusive process. We did not seek to exclude other people. We felt everybody should be part of the process. We felt gains could only be done by people who were confident, who knew exactly what they were doing, and then gains also in a process where all parties -- some of them who been quarreling, calling them names -- popheads (ph) and sell outs -- because of -- (inaudible) -- et cetera. But at that point was we realized a defining moment in South Africa had come. Every political entity had to be part of the process. And we were, therefore, in a better position to organize the Convention for a Democratic South Africa, which, at times, is referred to as the major party in negotiations, and produced a kind of an agreement that actually shocked the world. And people said this is a miracle because nobody ever thought apartheid will end in a negotiated settlement given the intensity and the depth of the conflict and racial nature of it. I think that -- (audio break) -- going a long way to say to people whatever challenges that we are faced with, how we're going to deal with them. You will also, of course, be certain that as we started, led by the former President Nelson Mandela in 1994, we establish a democracy that we believed was important. The nitty gritties of reaching there are also important because we finally agreed that the constitution, the final constitution of the country had to be negotiated by the elected representatives, not by the parties that met at Codesa because we all agreed we're not elected, even if the ANC was a big organization. But we believed 96 that you need people to write the constitution of the country who are elected by the representatives or by the people. So we said -- (audio break) -- Parliament. We will, therefore, turn it something to a constitutional assembly to write the constitution. All we could do was to write an -- (inaudible) -- which in itself was entrusted because it entrenched unity of the country given the fact that we were coming from racially divided society. I think from that point of view, every South African was really confident we established a rainbow nation. We had an economy that has been growing since that time. So democracy has been there. Our constitution is one of the constitutions that is commented about as the best constitution so far -- I mean, all constitutions cannot be very perfect -- with checks and balances, with guarantees that it cannot be abused by an individual or a strong political party, which then makes the South African citizens to be comfortable. So if you look at what is happening today in the ANC firstly -- and I must say this, and we could, again, quarrel with my friend -- that the ANC has been in the center of this because of its size, because of its clarity, because of its commitment to democracy. I think we've been in a position to live relatively comfortably to say things are going to move okay. But given the ANC as an organization, there have been developments within the ANC, which started in the years that you just alluded to and that began to see some developments within the ANC. Now, ANC is a strong culture of collective leadership, of the membership that is very active, participating in the affairs of the organization, jealously guarding that the ANC remains what they believe it is. At some point, I think, there were feelings that things were not moving the way they would've wanted. And those who observed the South African senate after 2005, in fact during 2005, we had what was called the National General council which is a bigger government of the ANC between the two conferences wherein the membership of the ANC put the leadership of the ANC on the spot on the development that had taken place -- (inaudible) -- to observe some of the decisions, even the decisions that I've taken as an individual. The membership said no, you do what we want you to do. Clearly, again, that must tell you that you're dealing with an organization that has a very particular culture but that it does not depend on an individual. It depends on the collective as well as its membership. I think that was played out, to a large extent, as we went for the conference last year. I think it is going to be important again just to indicate that leaping into that one, you had a situation where because the country's constitution has two terms for a president and the ANC's constitution doesn't have limitations, and people were saying, what's going to happen given the people of -- (inaudible) -- been noticed in the process? And of course, you know these guys. I'm sure they are all over here, the media, were rushing to people to say, look, what will happen. And they began to say to President Mbeki, what's going to be your position? Well, his indication was, well, the question of the -- (inaudible) -- serve them because the constitution is very clear. I'm going to be loyal to the constitution. But the ANC does not. And therefore, if the ANC members are saying we still needed to continue, I will have said to -- (inaudible). That provoked a debate in the ANC because the people were saying, could you have a president of the ANC not being the president of the country? Wouldn't that create two centers? It's a debate which went on, and it went into the branches of the ANC until it was resolved in a national policy conference of the ANC, which was held a few 97 months before December. The ANC took a position that the ANC president to the ANC would be the country's president, so to speak. And therefore, that was a position that was taken. But of course, after that position, the guys that said they're very active came to the president. And it still continued well if I'm elected, I will. That led to, I think, a contestation of some kind because when the nominations were done, some ANC members nominated Mbeki, some nominated Zuma. And therefore, that's what you saw going to Polokwane. In Polokwane, of course, the conference spoke. What is important, which I think our friends maybe missed, is the kind of strong traditions of democracy within the ANC. What I think is not very common that a sitting president is voted out of his position while still sitting. But in the ANC, as I just described it, was in a position to do so. Of course, in the process of elections, there were quite a number of people who were not elected, who had been sitting in the ANC, some of them, since 1991 in the executive. It is clear from the behavior of some of them that it has been difficult to accept the fact that they are no longer members, they are no longer taking part in the decision-making. And when first decisions as the ANC has taken to ask the president to resign and they were not party to it, they were not informed about the nitty gritties of it, I think it has just difficult for some to accept. And I think that is why some of them are feeling, well, maybe it's time that we disagreed, this ANC is different, et cetera. That has brought to the point that many people have been talking about over the period. Can the ANC break or whatever? And of course, you have in the details what I'm talking about, the possibility of a convention. And I heard that my friend's party has said they will attend the convention. (Laughter.) If that is not -- (Inaudible) - - this was an open convention. In any case, that's democracy -- whoever attends it will be very fine. And that could lead to a formation of the party. We are still waiting, all of us, to see. From the ANC point of view, we're trying our level best to engage but we have taken certain decisions to those who have acted outside of the constitution of the ANC. Once again, as the situation moves forward from the ANC, we are confident that our policies are very strong, are very clear. And even those who are speaking from the ANC, talking about the convention, a possible formation of a party, so far have not articulated any alternative kind of policy positions that will be different from those of the ANC. We are still waiting to see. And we'll see the situation as we move forward. We are certainly approaching the election with the usual vigor, hoping to raise the percentage as we already do. And then people are beginning to see that possible. That's a debatable point, but that's our determination, that's what we want to do. We don't think that what is happening in South Africa politically should actually make anybody to -- (inaudible). We have a very mature democratic that could take such decisions. I've been making an example that a few weeks ago, I was visited by former generals from some countries in Africa who, when they greeted me, said if this decision was taken in any of our countries there would be a civil war. But in South Africa, there is none. I think that it's smooth moving forward. And of course, people are politically making their points. That is the essence of democracy. So I don't think people should be worried about that. 98 With regard to policies, the ANC has pronounced some policies in its conference, and we are, as creator of the ANC, going to be undertaking that mandate to ensure that we are able to move forward. And therefore, we have made it a point we are going to change no policies. It is the ANC that do set policies, change them when it is necessary. It's not the job of individuals, whoever's the president, whatever. Even the collectives discussion have to work very hard to make recommendations for those changes. ANC is a very sensitive organization to its policies, so you cannot do that. So there should be no worry. The situation is going to continue no matter, and the collective leadership of the ANC is going to do so as we can see right now. There is President Kgalema Motlanthe, who is in this period, who hasn't changed any of them. He's adhering to the policies of the ANC. So I don't think there will be anyone who will do so. So in a sense, I'm saying no panic. Everything is fine in South Africa. Thank you very much. LYMAN: Thank you very much, Mr. Zuma. That was a very interesting assessment of how the process works. But let me ask a question about some of the things that people are worried about. Some of your supporters have been making some pretty radical statements. I know you said in an interview not long ago about Julius Malema, the head of the ANC Youth League, he's a young man, let him grow. I mean, you said, bring him along. But he's said really some things about anybody who gets in the way has to be eliminated, pushed aside. It raises questions about independence of the judiciary, freedom of the press, et cetera. But I think, even more fundamentally, the challenges that the next government of South Africa will face on economics are very grave. And when you have supporters, as you do, from the Labor Federation, the Communist Party, the Youth League who want, I think, quite radical changes from the policies that have been followed, how do you deal with that? And how do you, to put it more bluntly, keep those groups from trampling on some of the constitutional principles that you've talked about? ZUMA: Well, as you know, we have the Youth League. ANC Youth League is an old organization. President Mandela was one of the founders. You know what he said one day in a serious meeting of the ANC to the president of the ANC? He challenged him and said, I'm going to be the president of the ANC, and I'll deal with this matter very radically. We believe that the Youth League -- in fact, I swear we trained -- (inaudible) - - to become leaders of tomorrow. Remember, it's not the first one. We have had quite a radical youth. You'll remember one called -- (inaudible) -- who probably said more things than what Malema has said. And that's before Malema. Figyelem Balula (ph) has been also very vocal, Malema as well. I think, in a sense, in a democratic situation, the youth have always moved from that point. It becomes our job to help them, train them as we've done. And I'm sure you will agree today that Malema is not saying those kind of things. That must say something about what the ANC is doing in terms of preparing and making its young people appreciate what is the development to be done in a particular way. If there was a youth who doesn't do that, then we wouldn't have a vibrant youth that could tomorrow be the leaders of tomorrow. I said one time when I was talking to one journalist, I'm sure in South Africa, we know people now who learn computers, they don't learn grammar. Is there no longer any figure of speech -- I mean, that is said figuratively -- that people learn, some people who make statements. 99 Politically, people that come make very strong statements, which you could think they are about to fight. I'm sure if you went into many parliaments in the world, you can even seem to -- (inaudible). They stand and shout while one is speaking, et cetera. I think it is in the nature of politics. I don't think Malema meant what he said that he's going to do it. Fortunately, he has clarified that to the authorities that wanted that clarification. So I don't think we should worry about it. That's why the ANC is handling internally as a matter that it needs to handle it. But the remarks that you talked about, which I think I would like to deal with, the threat to the judiciary, et cetera, I think you should bear in mind that there has been a case which I can't comment about was about me. The manner in which the case has been handled, there has been a very obvious realization from the ANC broad kind of membership that there's political manipulation of the case. And there are certain things that happened. For an example, at one point, which is not done, you first heard of NPA which is the National Prosecuting Authority. When everybody was saying after this investigation of this case, we'll then have Zuma being taken to court. Then they got trials. The allegations have been tested, and a verdict will come. He suddenly called a meeting which it called of -- (inaudible) -- select editors which were called to have off-the-record briefings, and advised to them the details of the investigation and allegations. That way, they tried not just me alone. There are other few people that he talked to. And then pleaded with the editors that helped me. I want to try Zuma in the court of public opinion -- (inaudible). And it became open knowledge. And people said, but what investigation is this? What is happening? And that's when people began to fear that it was not a suspicion, it was in fact a statement made by the man in charge of the investigation, that he has an agenda to try Zuma in the court of public opinion. So it did not emerge for Malema or my supporters, if there were supporters at all. But it did not end there. When he concluded the investigation, he had conducted his own trial in the press conference and made a determination that nobody made in court, whether there is a prima fascia case or not, and said to Zuma there's a prima fascia case. But I'm not going to take him to court because my case is not winnable in court. It was never done. Unprecedented. Sitting next to him was a minister -- Maduna, Peneull Maduna -- who's a political -- (inaudible). What did he want there? He actually said things himself. Now, if there is no political manipulation, why did the -- (inaudible) -- say that? Why would Maduna fit in that situation? Now, that is what influenced people to say there is a problem here. What is happening? Now, of course, at some point, the case was thrown out of court. There were threats thereafter that I'll be charged. And as we went into Polokwane, the rumor about me being recharged, the tension and -- (inaudible) -- was growing, became even more intense -- (inaudible). That this was very much a test to political temperature in the country. I think our conference ended on the 28th of December. During the holidays, I was recharged as if it was a response to the results of the Polokwane. So there has been a lot by the state (organizations ?) suggesting the political manipulation of the case. And this is what people have been saying that, from the basis of that, this is a political matter. And therefore, it might need a political solution. This is their own view. 100 But at the end, the judge looked at them. (Inaudible) -- NPA. Along the line, that there had been in fact dealing with this matter politically and even say there was interference from the president. And he indicated earlier -- now, this is a judge, not Malema -- who said there has been interference. I think we should take all of that into account when we say why then the ANC people will be saying what they say. I think that is the background which I think we should take into account because the ANC believes very fully in the rule of law and to respect the judiciary. And we'll defend it to the end. We respect the freedom of speech as well as the freedom of the press. If we were to deal with these matters, we must take that into account. With regard to the issue of -- (inaudible) -- to end South African Communist Party. Now, I've been saying to the media -- they've got short memories -- when Mandela became the president, he was fully supported by Cosatu and the South African Communist Party. Nobody said now Mandela is going to deviate to socialism. What we are part of our multi forces as the ANC. (Inaudible) -- when President Mbeki was to be elected president, he was also supported by this, too, fully. So there is nothing new and strange with Zuma today. I think people just forget that in fact there's nothing new with this, too. And you cannot then say from Mandela to Mbeki because of the support of Cosatu and the South African Communist Party, then we succumb to the pressure and move to socialism. Not at all. A very important fact where an important factor so far is they are able to be the voice of the poor who remain poor all the time. And therefore in a sense they bring the balance in the debate, so to speak. And to us, that is not at all a wrong thing for them to exist and have the views about what happens. I've just made a statement here that the ANC policies will remain. One of the things that many people don't know, the evolution of ANC policies is actually -- which is their participation. It's not that they make policies when it?s concluded -- much of the debate between us and them that they are part of the policies. So there isn't anything to worry about. These are the colleagues who have been with for a long time, since Mandela, Mbeki, and they will be here, I'm sure, to the one who will follow. They will still be there. LYMAN: Thank you. I have many more questions, but I'm going to open it up to many people here. I think I'm going to take about two questions at a time so we can get in as many people as possible. When I call on someone, you have to stand up and give your name and your affiliation and then a very brief question so we can get in as many as possible. So let's start here, the lady right here and wait for a microphone. QUESTIONER: Hi. Barbara Slavin from The Washington Times. Sir, I wonder if you could tell us, if you become the president of South Africa, would you accept a two-term limit as president? And also, what changes would you like to see in the current South Africa constitution regarding land ownership, foreign businesses, et cetera? Thank you. LYMAN: Let's take one more and then we'll -- yes, Pauline, right here. QUESTIONER: Thank you. Pauline Baker from the Fund for Peace. Mr. Zuma, again, in the future, you said that all ANC policies would be maintained. Does that apply to HIV/AIDS? And how important is that issue to you? LYMAN: Well, that's a pretty full menu. (Laughter.) ZUMA: Yes. Well, firstly, the issue of two terms is an established set in South Africa. That's the constitution of South Africa, which we all follow, and we've 101 committed ourselves to it. So there will be no change. Two terms will certainly be what the constitution says. You said -- just remind me of the other. QUESTIONER: (Off mike.) LYMAN: Land -- ZUMA: Oh, changes in the constitution. No, we haven't talked about the changes in the constitution. And certainly, just to make the point, I haven't said that there is no change that we are foreseeing. If there needs, though, to be changes, we cannot rely on the individual. Generally, that would have to be discussed by the organization if there was. There isn't, so far, up to this point in time. It's going to be difficult for the ANC to have changes because people will agree that the ANC had a lot to do with the current constitution in terms of crafting it. So the constitution stands on what the ANC participated to make it what it is. Our duty, as a citizen, as a political party, is to defend the constitution. So that is very important. With regard to the land issue, we have a policy in South Africa, land restitution, which has been going on. The criticism has been that it has been too slow. Probably will be -- the act dealing with it is too complicated. I don't know. But there are issues that need to be looked at, even with what has happened. The land, for an example, that has been reclaimed and has been given back to the people. In some cases, there hasn't been a program to ensure that the land, for an example, that was protected continued to be productive, in the majority of cases left unattended to. And that we need to look into that. What can we do to improve on that situation? In some cases, people are asked to choose whether they get the land or they are given money. I don't think there has been an effective advice from people because generally, when to the people the money is mentioned in millions, they think these millions are coming to them. But when it's divided many ways, it comes back to few thousand. So I think it's a question of people understanding that the land is an important asset that they should not necessarily get rid of quickly. So those matters, I think, we could follow and deal with. There have been issues with question of the land that there is more work that we need to do. But some people have a perception, for an example, that maybe the farmers are resistant, et cetera. But I've met farmers who are actually looking forward to be in a position to be helpful. So it's a question of us exhausting what is there at the moment insofar as the question of the land. I don't think there will be any changes in terms of our relations with investors. We will still continue the same way. We are still asking the investors to come in so that kind of our forward-looking policy in terms of doing business is going to maintain and is going to be different. And I'm hopeful that on that one, all of us, including my friend there, we ask for investments to come -- (inaudible). Absolutely. (Laughs.) And with regard to the question of HIV and AIDS, I think our policy has been good. It's been good. I know there is a perception which I'm going to explain. We have a policy that is in fact acknowledged by the World AIDS Organization as one of the best. We have a comprehensive program to deal with it. What people at times have mistaken is what was said at one point by President Mbeki as his own personal opinion, not as a policy of the aims of government, with 102 regard to the HIV and AIDS. And people tended to believe that that was our policy. It was not. And we have been clarifying the issue. Equally, the answer that was given by the former minister on certain foods that you must eat as a support to -- (inaudible) -- good food, et cetera, people tended to think because it is said by the minister that is our policy. Not at all. Our policy is clear if you look at it. So we are not going to change our policy. We are going to maintain our policy as it is, a comprehensive one. You are aware, of course, that President Motlanthe had changed the minister of Health. There's a new minister. And I'm sure if you follow what the new minister is saying in terms of -- she's not saying anything new. She's just saying let us implement our policy as it is minus the emphasis on the food. (Laughter.) I think it's just important. LYMAN: We'll take some more questions. The gentleman there, and then I'll get Mel and then come back to Rosa. And then I'll go to the back. QUESTIONER: Peter Leone, partner -- (inaudible) -- Johannesburg, South Africa. Mr. Zuma, you've said constantly that there will be no change in economic policy under your watch. You don't make economic policy, the party makes it. So I just want to put something to you. There seems to have been a definite drift in government policy in terms of market friendliness. I give the example of the establishment of a state mining company, the announcement from the Tripartite Summit this weekend that the principal of willing buyer-willing seller could be abandoned in terms of land reform, and that the expropriation bill which I think Mr. Phosa would say responsible for having withdrawn from parliament is likely to resurface on the agenda next year. Doesn't that all seem to indicate that government is becoming more interventionist in terms of its economic policy and less market friendly? And what sort of environment does that create for investors? LYMAN: Okay. We'll take two more. Take Mel and then Rosa and then I'll go to the back. QUESTIONER: Mr. Zuma, welcome. We met some years ago in your home in Cape Town. LYMAN: And introduce yourself, Mel. QUESTIONER: My name is Melvin Foote. I'm with the Constituency for Africa here in Washington, D.C. My question, Mr. Zuma, is what changes do you envision in terms of South Africa's policy with respect to Zimbabwe? LYMAN: And then take one more -- Rosa. QUESTIONER: Welcome. We have many stakeholders here -- LYMAN: (Inaudible.) QUESTIONER: Oh, Rosa Whitaker, president of The Whitaker Group. You have many stakeholders here who would like to see you succeed and are supportive of your vision. Are there any insights that you can share with us about the ANC's economic summit? And what role do you see for the United States government and U.S. private sector in helping you to achieve those industrialization goals that you've outlined? LYMAN: Okay, we have strong questions on the economic front, are changes that people seem to be talking about. ZUMA: I have absolutely continued to say I will change no policies if I become the president. I have no capacity and authority to do so. That is in the hands of the ANC. And I would imagine, to some degree, you are talking about the ANC participants. And therefore, you are talking about a collective that debated the resolution from Polokwane. 103 How do we put those into programs, to implement, to go forward? And if those issues are discussed, it's not the first time. We have discussed those issues because the ANC continues to discuss policies and the implementation and also to evaluate whether they are working. The issue of the land has been the issue that has been discussed. Polokwane has taken a very serious decision with regard to agrarian policies precisely because we are faced with a problem not only on the size of the land but in the usage of the land to deal with the issue of poverty in South Africa and to deal with the issue of rural development in totality, which is part of the element of dealing with rural development. That's one of the very strong resolutions we took in Polokwane, how to develop the economy in the rural areas so that the people in the rural areas also benefit in the economy of the country. Now, if there are discussions and issues that people are looking at as they emerge -- I think when the press conference -- (inaudible) -- we have led the country - - as they emerge from the summit, it means these issues need to be debated and they are open for discussion to South Africans once they are out there, you are expected to contribute. In your view, what you think will be the best way? We have been always open to debate issues with whoever has views in one form or the other, including the land issue. We have said the land issue is a very serious matter in South Africa. But we wanted to handle it responsibly so that we are able to resolve it. But even before we say -- if we get people to talk about more land, as I was saying earlier answering another question, are we able to ensure that what we have done already, we have done it appropriately, effectively, could we improve on that. And if at all there are gaps, how would we close those gaps? I think it's, in my view, an indication of a democratic society that there are no issues that are taboo, that cannot be discussed. No matter how people could feel about certain views on specific issues, they must be in the open for discussion. And if changes have to come, certainly the ANC's appropriate structures will deal with those issues. You will know, if you come from Johannesburg, that if we go for our national policy conference, we actually publish our paper position for comment from everybody else. By the time we meet, we are able to take into account what people say and discuss those and formulate our policies. So it's not the question of one day we wake up, we must change the economy. Economy -- (inaudible) -- at all. There is a process. There's a process that everybody is aware of. We believe in being transparent, that people should be aware and should participate. And I'm sure, if I could take the last question as being part of what she was asking, we are going to maintain the policy of relations with the United States. Some of us believe that it wasn't done sufficient in terms of the investment from here or two ways. We need to do more on that. And our being here actually says something towards us saying, what else can we do continuing forth in terms of the relations? We believe that America, up to now, has not come very strongly to take advantage of the open economy that we have. And we wish to discuss and companies must discuss what else can we do to deepen that kind of relationship. We want to, we want to deepen that relationship. We feel it to be very important for South Africa as well as for the continent. LYMAN: Zimbabwe. ZUMA: Zimbabwe. (Laughs.) I would have been surprised if that question did not arise. (Laughter.) Well, Zimbabwe, I feel, has been a problem for quite a while. 104 And we are dealing with it, as you know. And I must say, South Africa, for a long time, was under pressure, under criticism as to why was South Africa adopting a particular stand on the Zimbabwe policy. We believe we are correct. But what is important as well is that South Africa, unlike many other countries, including in the region, South Africa, with regard to Zimbabwe, has had more impact on Zimbabwean problem. There have been two-and-three-plus million Zimbabweans in South Africa. And to us, it's not an ancillary question. It's a question that affects us directly, that strains our own social resources. And therefore, we adopted a particular stance from the beginning. But instead of criticizing Zimbabwe from a distance, we needed to engage the Zimbabweans, to be together with them and search for a solution. And in that context, we decided to engage both -- (inaudible) -- and MPC. And both knew that we were discussing. There were a lot of discussions that took place. President Mbeki was (looting?) that from the government point of view. There are many things that happened in that process over a period. From the infancy, we engaged the two parties to try to find a solution. We have done so all the time. And we believe that engagement by South Africa of Zimbabweans in order to further taking a decision to say Mbeki should in fact, on behalf of South Africa, be a mediator. We should finally -- (inaudible) -- the deal. And indeed, it has been difficult for the deal to be implemented. That's a challenge that faces all of us. We are encouraging Zimbabweans to do so because we believe the plight of the Zimbabwean people is more important in the country. And they're encouraging them. And you don't want them to waste a minute before that package on the table is implemented. We know that Mbeki, for an example, has been asked again by President -- (inaudible) -- to go and help the Zimbabweans to finalize the package and the package to be implemented. He has had difficulties for Zimbabweans does things -- they're not easy customers to deal with. (Laughter.) But all of them agreed that we should have a meeting of a troika the smaller body of SADC in Swaziland that's supposed to take place yesterday. I saw from the news that there was no progress made there because Morgan Tsvangirai did not have a passport. Now, you can't have that kind of a situation when you're dealing with such an important matter. One of the very chief figures can't attend because he doesn't have a passport. I think that sounds weird. (Laughter.) Absolutely! Why couldn't a citizen have a passport to go to an important meeting? I think SADC must actually put their foot down so that we can have a solution. That is our view. And to support a process that is going to achieve an agreement that will be implemented, that the Zimbabweans for the first time, and for a long time, could therefore be helped by everybody. People are waiting to help. The meeting that was held here, the government indicated they are ready to move, but they cannot move without a proper agreement. I also have a problem personally that if you have a package that has been agreed upon -- hailed by the world, why should we have a difficulty to implement? After all, this is not a permanent arrangement. We're talking about the interim arrangement. Why should it be so difficult? So once we have an opportunity, we'll continue to interact with the Zimbabweans so that we have a solution. LYMAN: I have time for about just a couple more from the back -- Stan and then the person there, three people right there, and then I'm afraid we'll have to bring it to a close. QUESTIONER: Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm Dan O'Flaherty with the National Foreign Trade Council and the Corporate Council on Africa. President 105 Zuma, you indicated a desire for closer commercial ties with the United States for more investment flowing your way and presumably some flowing our way. Two and a half years ago, the free trade negotiations with SACU were suspended. So my question to you is, would you favor a resumption of free trade negotiations between South Africa and its neighbors with the United States? LYMAN: Two more quick ones. Yes. QUESTIONER: Gabriel Pellathy, Department of Commerce. Building on that question, where do you see South Africa's energy sector and energy policies going, including nuclear? Thank you. LYMAN: And we had one more there. QUESTIONER: I'm Lawrence Freeman from Executive Intelligence Review. Mr. Zuma, given the -- one of the difficulties facing President Mbeki has been the failure of the economy to provide for the poorer people in society. And given the fact that we now have a full-scale financial meltdown, how, if you're the president, how are you going to be able to deal with the 40 percent that are still suffering from poor economic conditions that have not been dealt with up to this point under more difficult conditions because of the global economy. LYMAN: Okay. We have free trade, we have energy and helping the poor. ZUMA: (Chuckles.) Well, yes, the issue of the free trade, as I said, we are in favor of increasing the interaction between South Africa and the United States. There were negotiations that were taking place between South Africa and its neighbors and, of course, with the United States. And I think the issue was should that be negotiated as a bloc with the United States or individually? And I think that's a matter that the region, I think, the SACU countries are discussing. And I don't think I can have a final point on this one, for the matter, I think, is under discussion. And I think once we have concluded those discussions, we will come back to that. It's an issue that cannot be left unattended to. It does need to be attended to for, in a sense, it speaks to question of how do you deal with the region or some countries in the region as the United States or also opening up the individual kind of interaction? It's an important issue, and I'm sure SACU will take that matter further at some point. LYMAN: Energy policy. ZUMA: Energy policy -- our energy policy, I think, is clear. With regard to -- I know that you might have problems with the fact that you have had energy difficulties, which we appreciated that there were some mistakes made, and we are dealing with that our energy policies currently. With regard to the departure of the -- LYMAN: Nuclear? ZUMA: Nuclear -- our policy is very clear that nuclear, insofar as it is the nuclear that is beneficial, that is not the kind of the nuclear that will produce bombs and other things, the nuclear that is going to help people, to develop and meet the demand of the people, we are for that. And I think we've been arguing about -- the global argument about countries in terms of this issue that there must be an understanding that we needed to deal with that because it is one of the safer kinds of energies that we could have. So our policy moves along those lines. And we'll continue to argue for that -- that let us use nuclear for the beneficiation of the people rather than for destructive objectives. The last question was -- ? LYMAN: Helping the poor -- 106 ZUMA: Helping the poor. LYMAN: -- in the midst of global financial crisis. ZUMA: Well, your financial crisis certainly is going to make an impact. Because what it's going to do, it's going to slow down the economic growth given the fact that this is very huge. And therefore, it's going to impact to the poor. What is a challenge to us is the very point you are making. We have been having a growing economy in South Africa, which everybody is aware of. But the research and statistics indicate that because of the growing between the poor and the rich -- and that's a challenge that face the administration right now and the administration that is going to come. Some of the policy provisions that we are taking, that have been taken as -- (inaudible) -- have that in mind. How do you deal with the issue of the poor? That is why we have very much talked about the need for job creation -- quality job creation and that other economic policies that we have, not -- (inaudible) -- so that we do not have the huge army of the unemployed. One of the points, for an example, that we are prioritizing, the rural development, deals directly with the question of poverty, where the -- (inaudible) -- poverty is. What is it we're going to do? We are elaborating details as to what we are going to do. We are very much mindful of this, and our policies that we have taken are, in fact, in a sense, bearing this in mind. How do we deal with this? We have in South Africa a situation of what we are calling the two economies -- the first economy and second economy. And the issue is how to close the gap between the two. It's a tough issue because, in a sense, the first economy which is regulated -- the regulation of the first economy does not take into consideration the second economy. And therefore, that is why there's been the opening of the gap rather than the closing of the gap. How do we mete out the kind of policies that, in a sense, bring these two so that the first economy helps the second economy to grow and, therefore, pick up the poor, so to speak, to a particular level. Those other matters we would have to deal with because at times, the regulation of the first economy in fact suffocates the second economy. How do we open up that situation is a challenge which I think we are going to be dealing with. LYMAN: Well, Mr. Zuma, thank you so much. We'll have to have you back when you have all those answers in place. (Laughter.) But you've been very kind. (Applause.) ZUMA: Thank you very much. LYMAN: And thank you, everybody, for being with us today. Thank you, again, Mr. Zuma, for a wonderful conversation. 107 Appendix B (Retrieved from: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/7243095.stm; last retrieved Dec. 05, 2009) Transcript - No More Mandelas [This transcript was typed from listening to an excerpt of the recorded video footage of the actual interview. It is not copied from an original script]. PANORAMA - NO MORE MANDELAS Reporter: Fergal Keane TRANSCRIBED FROM RECORDED VIDEO FOOTAGE OF THE INTERVIEW HELD ON FEBRUARY 11, 2008 JEREMY VINE: Hello, I?m Jeremy Vine and this is Panorama. It was Africa?s dream, a renaissance triggered by the end of white rule on the continent. But what happened to Mandela?s legacy? [Large section of material edited out] KEANE: When Nelson Mandela made his first speech as President, the ANC was united. Africa?s oldest liberation movement offering hope to the entire continent. 10TH May 1994 NELSON MANDELA: [Addressing the nation] Let there be justice for all. Let there be peace for all. Let freedom reign. God bless Africa. I thank you. [Cheers and applause] KEANE: But 13 years on there?s growing disillusionment. Mandela?s successor is now an isolated figure waiting for his term to end. And the true core of South Africa?s crisis, the huge inequality between rich and poor is as Mbeki himself once put it: ?The stuff of nightmares.? Enter the man who would rescue the nation. He?s certainly got a different style. Zuma was Mbeki?s former deputy but they fell out bitterly. Last December Zuma beat Mbeki in party leadership elections putting him in line for president when Mbeki retires next year. Zuma has promised action on Zimbabwe and AIDS but it?s his pledge to tackle inequality that?s made him popular with the poor. But is Jacob Zuma the man to lead South Africa? In 2006 he was acquitted of raping a family friend, but admitted having unprotected sex with her, despite knowing she was HIV positive, and he said he?d tried to minimise his risk of infection by showering afterwards, this when he was leading the country?s AIDS campaign. 8th May 2006 JUDGE: It is totally unacceptable that a man should have unprotected sex with a person other than his regular partner and definitely not with a person who to his knowledge is HIV positive. I do not even want to comment on the effect of a shower. KEANE: Yet when I met Zuma in Johannesburg he?d just promised a new anti AIDS campaign. Is it not extraordinary hypocrisy for Jacob Zuma to lecture anybody about HIV and AIDS when you?re the man who stood up in a courtroom and acknowledged having unprotected sex with somebody you knew was HIV positive, and then you come out and say: ?Well I took a shower and therefore thought I?d be okay.? ZUMA: The story of the shower makes big news. KEANE: Did you really think that would get rid of HIV, having a shower? JACOB ZUMA President of ANC No. Did I think so? No. It?s your guys, the media who says so, who say I believed it will take out AIDS. How could I believe that? 108 KEANE: But do you not think that whole episode casts grave doubt on your fitness for any kind of office, let alone the presidency of South Africa? ZUMA: No, it can?t be.. it can?t be. What happened, that case, was what happen to people. People make mistakes in their lives, and for that mistake I apologised to the people of South Africa. KEANE: Ethically and morally are you fit to lead this country? ZUMA: Absolutely fit. Absolutely fit. I have been fit to fight for the freedom of this country. I have been fit to be in the ANC leadership as that thing happened when I?m already in the ANC leadership and I?m still fit, and I?ve got a better lesson to tell people, don?t commit the same mistake. KEANE: But this is still a country where the powerful can be held to account. In 2005 Zuma?s financial advisor went to jail for his role in a corrupt arms deal with a foreign company. Now Zuma has been charged with corruption. A lot of people think you?re a crook. ZUMA: Is that so? (laugh) Ah huh, I want to see those people and government tell me why they think I?m a crook. KEANE: Well there?s a whole army of prosecutors clearly think it. ZUMA: Ah huh, is that so? Oh! Serious. KEANE: Are you a crook? ZUMA: Me?! What? I don?t know, unless I must go to the dictionary and learn what a crook is. I?ve never been a crook. KEANE: Somebody who takes money from other people for corrupt purposes. ZUMA: Have I ever done so? KEANE: I?m asking you. ZUMA: No. I think that?s a mistake you guys make, and I?ve said I currently have two trials, a trial by the media and then trial by court. I?m saying I?m not a crook, I have never been a crook. I will never be a crook. Archbishop DESMOND TUTU I have said.. I mean I have to say that at the present time I am feeling sad for our country and I have said please bear in mind that they are also electing someone who is potentially head of state for our country and they should please not choose someone of whom most of us would be ashamed. I mean our country deserves better. KEANE: What is your vision? ZUMA: I want people in the ANC who believe in democracy, will uphold democracy, will defend democracy, and I?m part of that army in the ANC, and that?s my vision. KEANE: To those in the international community who look at the situation now and the possibility of you?re becoming President and say to themselves: ?How on earth did we come from a situation of having Nelson Mandela to Jacob Zuma?? what would you say to them? ZUMA: It?s actually a wrong question because you can?t have hundred Mandelas, impossible. It?s not possible because you can?t try to judge a country by each leader, unless you?re saying South Africa must just give birth to Mandelas only, nobody else. It can?t be. KEANE: So no more Mandelas. The euphoria of liberation is long gone, and given the problem South Africa faced, that is inevitable. But my fear at the end of this South African journey is that Nelson Mandela?s greatest legacy is being squandered. The gift of hope to a people who suffered so much. 109 JEREMY VINE: Fergal Keane reporting, and like Fergal I was the BBC?s correspondent in Johannesburg for a while, just like him I?ll be watching to see what happens when Jacob Zuma arrives in that courtroom. 110 Appendix C This is a small section of the original transcript of Jacob Zuma addressing Jewish Community at Investec on the future of South Africa, March 4, 2008 Chief Rabbi Warren Goldstein: At this point er -we will have the opportunity to hear questions - a number of questions have been submitted in writing ? emm - Peta Krost will take some of the questions out - of many questions - I see that the papers is bulging out of Peta?s hands there. I am quite certain that not every question will be able to be answered since we only have got until midnight tonight and but we have allocated twenty to twenty-five minutes for questions so we look forward to Peta Krost: I am going to start with one of the topics that - really - I think - is on everybody?s mind- umm - and actually ? sorry ?chief rabbi - but most of these questions are for Mr Zuma ? I don?t know why - as president what will you actively do to reduce the crime in this country? JZ: (even and measured, in a low voice, cultural sense of not overstepping his space in a place where he is not familiar ? not trying to fill the room) Well thank you very much - ehhh - for the question ? ermm ? umm - as I said in my remarks - I believe that - err - one of the challenges that face --- our country ? a lot of us - is the question of crime. And I believe that - as I said - we could do more. My view. Not because we don?t have policies and programmes to deal with the crime ? and I think they are there - but I think we need to do something more - because the crime is still there - even if we have those programmes. There are a number of things I believe we might want to do - firstly - I think we need to deal with the police - in a number of ... respects ? (pause) we ... have - the police force ? that is not visible ? sufficiently ? to match the challenge. I think that if you walked from one side of Johannesburg - whether east or west, or south or north ? until the other side - you?d be lucky to meet a police man patrolling. And yet you say crime is so high. That is a challenge I believe we need to deal with ... because it means if you spot a crime where do you report it? - to the next person? I think it is something we need to look at (Pause )- I am sure even in Johannesburg many people might not even know ... where are the police stations and how many are there unless they do some research, even to run to - if you saw somebody committing a crime. I think we could do something in that direction and we do need to do something. I also believe that if the crime is so high - because it is about our security as the citizens of this country - we have got to incentivize the police ... with regard to --- their remuneration - I think is an issue we needed to look at ? I don?t think it will be a waste of resources to do so, so that the police - are indeed - encouraged to their work. You might do more things about it but I also think - all of us - as citizens ? we?ve got to stand up because ... it is a crisis ? and if it is a crisis - it cannot be business as usual. We need to do something. Thus we have made a call on the formation of the street committees to deal with the issues so that all citizens can participate in fighting crime. That would be additional things to what ? perhaps - we are doing today. 111 One of my difficulties has been - in the debate - when we talk about crime in this country - is to talk about the statistics - rather than - the crime - and debate it for a long, long time. To a person who lives at [unclear] does not even know - what statistics are about - he wonders what is happening. So I think we can do - something more. And it means therefore we should put more resources, in every respect, to deal with crime because - it is there. It is a challenge to our economic development and growth. It is a challenge to the security of our people. There are - some of the crimes that are committed that become very high profile but some are not high profile but they happen - all the time - We need to do something - I think - all of us for - I think it is the responsibility of all of us. One time I was saying to myself even our language is too soft on crime - we talk about this wonderful democracy, safety and security, not law and order. I think we need to - (clapping) -and also - if we, we are in a country like ours - where the constitutional court has said we should abolish the death sentence, to match that situation -we?ve got to have laws that are much stronger, much radical, to deal with crime - (emphatic clapping). I have argued this point, and I argue ?till somebody convinces me otherwise, because if we are a country that believes in human rights and one of the important rights is the right to live - and we have criminals killing people - not just undermining the life but really stopping a person exercising right to live - and when they are arrested then we do everything to ensure that we begin to emphasize the right of the criminal and not the right of the victim (clapping) - to say this South African has no right to be in prison, the constitution says he should be out on bail. I think it is something we need to debate why do we talk and defend the right of the criminal and not the rights of the victim. - So I am raising these issues because I believe there is a lot we need to do - to address the question of crime - our laws must buy it - if we are to deal with crime. 112