Trauma and Forgiveness:
Comparing Experiences from Turkey and Guatemala
Ayşe Betül Çelik and Riva Kantowitz
Abstract:
Guatemala and Turkey are both examples of countries that have
experienced violent conflicts in the past two decades. Turkey’s ongoing
Kurdish Question, which took place primarily between the PKK (Partiya
Karkerên Kurdistan - Kurdistan Workers’ Party) combatants and the Turkish
military, occurred between 1984 and 1999, involved a short-lived period of
negative peace between 1999 and 2004, and has sparked again in recent
years. In Guatemala, a brutal ethnic conflict resulting in the death of 200,000
people was fought for 36 years between the military regime and the URNG
(Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca); it peaked between 1981
and 1984, yet persisted until the Peace Accords were signed in December of
1996. Although occurring in two different political and cultural settings, both
of these conflicts have had lasting consequences at the individual and
collective levels: people continue to suffer from memories of disappearances
and murders and communities experience ongoing collective trauma resulting
from effects of violence.
In this paper, we will comparatively study individual and communal
understandings of justice, acknowledgment of past mistakes, forgiveness, and
trauma. The data for the Guatemalan case come from Riva Kantowitz’s
fieldwork in Guatemala from 2003 to 2005, whereas the data for the Turkish
case come from A. Betul Celik’s fieldwork in the southeast Turkey during
this same period.
In the following sections, we will briefly present relevant literature
on trauma, forgiveness and reconciliation as well as background on the case
studies. We go on to discuss personal reflections from victims regarding their
readiness (or not) to forgive the perpetrators, as well as the way in which lack
of justice, apology, and forgiveness - integral components of reconciliation
and healing - affect communities and society. In the last section, we will
compare the cases of Southeastern Turkey and Guatemala, and use the
learning from juxtaposing these situations to make an argument for a
multiple-level conceptual framework for forgiveness. The paper focuses not
on the process of trauma but its outcome as it affects the victims’
understanding of justice and forgiveness.
Key Words: Trauma, Forgiveness, Turkey, Kurdish Question, Guatemala
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Trauma and Forgiveness
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1.
Theoretical Understandings of Trauma and Forgiveness
After traumatic events that overwhelm an individual’s coping
resources and effective functioning in the societyi important questions are
raised related to forgiveness: what is the relationship between trauma and
forgiveness and how can this be examined at multiple levels of analysis?
How does forgiveness affect both individuals and society? What are
individual and societal perspectives on who should be forgiven? Through
which mechanisms? Is forgiveness a policy-level issue and how do states
embrace and reflect this need in their actions? Addressing these questions
helps us comprehend whether and why forgiveness is important in societies
that have undergone violent conflicts and can help generate a conceptual
understanding of forgiveness that is potentially applicable across contexts.
The notion of forgiveness is usually discussed in the literature as a
necessary mechanism to overcome the outcomes of violence and trauma
experienced at different levels of society. ii Therefore, it is first essential to
define what is understood by trauma and discuss its effects at these different
levels, and later argue for the necessity of interventions to deal with its
consequences. Following the discussion on the effects of trauma on
individuals and societies, we will discuss why and how forgiveness becomes
a requisite for healing and societal transformation.
Trauma has been defined as a “real or perceived threat to the
survival of an individual, a support system, or a larger community or
culture”.iii At the collective level, trauma has been further specified as a
condition that is a product of both overt and structural violence and is
characterized by three primary dimensions: an environment of ongoing
dysfunction and chaos; collective social and communal narratives that are
deeply ingrained and relate to perceived lack of choice/control; and,
individuals’ “survival orientation”.iv Collective trauma results from the
experience of living in an environment rife with fear and institutional failure,
which can result in collective narratives that individuals and communities’
create based on their real and perceived access to resources and opportunities.
In such settings, people often continue to operate in a survival mode, making
decisions based on meeting basic human needs and continuing to maintain
attitudes and behave in ways that are a reaction to oppression, including lack
of trust and ongoing feelings of powerlessness, vulnerability and fear. These
dynamics have important impacts because ultimately, they potentially serve
to maintain the marginalization of indigenous or minority ethnic communities
by reinforcing their real and perceived lack of access to choices and power.
Creating a complex and realistic conceptual framework for
experiences and processes such as trauma (and forgiveness) is challenging
Ayşe Betül Çelik & Riva Kantowitz
3
because both traumatic experiences and reactions vary greatly, particularly in
the context of violent conflict. The trauma literature reflects this complexity
through the fact that there is not a standard language for describing the
ongoing trauma of violent conflict. Yoder (2006) states:
‘…[Ongoing trauma] has been called cumulative trauma;
continuous trauma; chronic trauma; sequential, multiple, or plural
traumas. Perhaps Martha Cabrera, who works on trauma recovery
programs in Nicaragua, describes it best when she refers to her
society as multiply wounded, multiply traumatized, and multiply
grieving after experiencing several decades of conflict. The
psychological, spiritual, social, economic, and political effects of
these ongoing difficult conditions can be profound, not only for
individuals but for entire societies’.v
Because trauma usually results from different individual and
communal experiences, victims’ understandings of the ways to deal with its
negative consequences as well their will (or absence of will) to forgive the
“source of violence” vary according to his/her experience. The argument this
paper makes is that like trauma, forgiveness should be considered to be a
broad and contextual term, defined at multiple levels: by the victim’s
traumatic experience, needs and his/her social and political environment and
collectively by the way in which a society chooses to reckon with its past.
From a psychological perspective, trauma healing, forgiveness and
reconciliation are intrinsically linked because these processes all involve a
change in attitude or “psychological orientation” towards the parties in
conflict. As a mechanism for addressing trauma and facilitating healing,
Staub, Pearlman, Gubin and Hagegimana (2005) suggest: “Forgiving
involves letting go of anger and the desire for revenge. It can help in
diminishing the pain that results from victimization and in moving away from
an identity as a victim.”vi These authors make a distinction between
forgiveness and reconciliation by acknowledging that forgiveness is an
individual process and can be one-sided, involving a change in feeling or
attitude on the part of the victim alone. In contrast, reconciliation by its
nature involves a change in feeling, attitude and hopefully behaviour in more
than one party. An apology on the part of the perpetrator may not be
essential but can be considered very likely to facilitate the process of
forgiveness and thus, reconciliation. However, remorse and sorrow on part of
the perpetrators may not be requisite for collective apologies. vii Speaking to
the collective level, Staub (2006) argues that particularly after mass killing in
a situation in which victims and perpetrators of crime continue to co-exist
together, mutuality in the process of forgiveness and reconciliation is
essential to building positive and peaceful relationships between groups.viii
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Trauma and Forgiveness
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At the collective level, other important factors seems to be justice
and trust. Elcherorth argues that an experience of generalized vulnerability
strengthens a shared perception of the need for formal justice, which cannot
be reduced to the sum of the psychological consequences of community
members’ individual experiences of war trauma. ix If a group perceives that
the trauma it experienced is related to its identity as a group, it may request a
form of a justice system to address these collective injustices, a societal form
of remembrance (e.g. in the form of museums) and a formal guarantee that
this would not be experienced again. Similarly, after a traumatic event,
building trust between communities, individuals and perpetrators as well as
citizens and institutions are essential. A United Nations Development
Programme study in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) shows that even though
BiH respondents feel happier, wealthier and less worried than in the past,
social trust between the communities and towards political parties and state
government is very low.x A survey conducted in the same place found out
that apologies do not rank high (12% listed apologies as a requisite) among
the necessary requisites for reconciliation. In response to the question “what
should happen to persons responsible for the things that happened to you
during the war?” the BiH residents listed restitution, confession, apologies,
monetary compensation, work for the community and prosecution in a
criminal court as necessary conditions, prosecution ranking the highest
(%23), followed by community work (%15). xi Such a finding shows that
along with apology/forgiveness, a sense of justice among the victims as well
as community cohesion and social trust are essential part of societal
transformations.
Forgiveness is an essential part of reconciliation for societal
transformation. The dominant argument in literature related to reconciliation
is that individuals’ and communities’ readiness and willingness to forgive
prepares them for a more enriching relationship within society. Assefa argues
the parties [at different levels] can only enter into this new and mutually
enriching relationship if the following steps are made: parties to the conflict
honestly acknowledge the harm and the injury they have inflicted on the
other [ACKNOWLEDGMENT], express sincere regrets and remorse for the
injury, apologize for their role in inflicting injury [APOLOGY], let go of the
anger and bitterness caused by the conflict and injury [FORGIVENESS], and
that compensation is given to the victims for past grievances and damages
made [REPARATION]xii. These are required not only to close the painful
past, but also to search for a long-term interdependent future.xiii It is also
important to note that although forgiveness is an essential component of
reconciliation, societal transformations without addressing other components
of reconciliation and without understanding the roots causes of conflict may
Ayşe Betül Çelik & Riva Kantowitz
5
not produce long-lasting peace. Moreover, the emphasis that societies put on
each of these elements is contextually-defined.
These arguments also make the point that after a violent conflict,
mutual forgiveness between individuals, communities, and in some cases
between the state and the individual is crucial to achieve lasting peace. The
most important step in forgiveness is the acknowledgment of wrongdoing and
confronting the painful past; however, neither of these acts means forgetting.
Mutual agreement on the process and trust-building between the parties
becomes an important element of confronting the past. Yet, in discussing
forgiveness it is important to remember that no single societal or individual
experience of trauma and violence is identical, although one can compare
experiences. At the individual level, there is a lot of potential variation in
forgiveness – as evidenced by the debates in the literature about whether
forgiveness is a necessary component of healing (i.e., abating trauma). It can
be argued that there needs to be space created for individuals to find a path to
healing and co-existence that works best for them in their decisions for
forgiveness or not, and in what format. However, at the macro level, if you
create policies such as truth commissions without taking into consideration
the individual and societal variations in forgiveness, it is likely that
reconciliation attempts will fail. In light of such discussions, this paper tries
to analyze the factors that individuals and communities consider essential for
forgiveness and beginning a new chapter in individual, communal and
individual-state relations.
2.
The case of Turkey
Turkey’s Kurdish Question has deep roots, dating back at least to the
late-Ottoman era and later to early years of the Turkish Republic, during
which there were eighteen Kurdish rebellions in the period between 1924 and
1938. The “current” Kurdish conflict could be said to have begun in 1984
with the emergence of the PKK as a separatist group within the Turkish state.
The PKK launched its first attack on the Turkish state in 1984. In 1987, the
government declared emergency rule in thirteen Kurdish populated
provinces. There are no exact statistics on the number of causalities that the
conflict has caused. However, most scholars and journalists estimate the
number to be around 30,000 to 40,000. Whereas the rural people in the
southeast have experienced the conflict, assuming the form of homicides,
human rights abuses, displacements, economic difficulties and psychological
terror, recently the bombings of the PKK in the western cities of Turkey
spread the conflict to the urban as well.
It can be argued that the period between 1984 and 1987 is an early
stage of conflict, leading up to a more violent and escalatory stage with the
declaration of emergency rule in 1987. The conflict peaked from 1991 to
1999, with highest number of deaths and human rights violations experienced
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Trauma and Forgiveness
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at this time. This period has been followed by a negative peace period, which
ended with the re-escalation of conflict in 2004. Since 2005, the conflict is in
the re-escalation stage.
The conflict has had long-lasting bitter consequences in the Turkish
society. The most visible consequence of the armed conflict is the damaged
infrastructure in the regions where the conflict took place xiv. There are also
conflicts over the land ownership between the villagers and village guards xv.
The national media have carried various stories in recent years about village
guards’ criminal activities such as the abduction of women, aggravated
assault and forming armed gangs.xvi In terms of human rights and democracy,
the most important negative consequence of the conflict is the legitimacy
problem in the conflict region following the Olağanüstü Hal regime (system
of emergency rule)xvii, internal displacement of Kurds mostly from the rural
parts of southeastern Anatolia to western cities peoplexviii and disturbed
human rights practices in the conflict region. At the psycho-social level, the
most bitter consequence has been the mistrust between the local state
administrators and the local inhabitants in the conflict region, According to a
recent study by an NGO called Ulaşılabilir Yaşam Derneği- UYD
(Accessible Life Association), the number priority for the internally displaced
Kurd for return to their home places is “guarantee” [that there will not be
another forced migration] (60.2% of the respondents listed this as number
one priority)xix. Such a request is a sign of mistrust that exist between the
Kurds in the southeast Anatolia and state officials. Also, among the requests
are reconstruction of their houses and re-gaining of their livestock;
reconstruction of their infrastructure, and establishment of “peace”. It is
important to mention that “peace” in this context does not simply mean the
end of violence. What many Kurds mean by peace is disarmament and
rehabilitation of the PKK members. Especially by Kurdish women also
request from the state a mechanism to reveal “truth” on and perpetrators of
the extra-judicial killings. This, they claim, is a need to re-establish the trust
between them and the state. They argue that if truth on the extrajudicial
killings would be revealed, there would be no need for public apology.
A similar argument is made by a report prepared by academicians
following the visit of the UN Secretary-General’s Representative on the
Human Rights of the Internally Displaced People:
‘Establishing social rehabilitation in the wake of a traumatic
period of conflict and ensuing displacement cannot be limited to
issues concerning the payment of reparation, return and
reintegration, but should also include reconciliation. Although
achieving reconciliation may take a long time, the government
should take steps to initiate the process. The state’s public
Ayşe Betül Çelik & Riva Kantowitz
7
acknowledgement of responsibility for village evictions,
compensation for pain and suffering, and declaration of a will to
identify and prosecute – where possible – those who committed
human rights violations during displacement and return may be
among such measures. However, it is also important to bear in
mind that reconciliation would require the PKK to demonstrate a
similar will to assume its responsibility for the human rights
violations it has committed’.xx
Added to the trust problem between the Kurds and the state is
increasing Kurdish and Turkish nationalism and societal polarization that has
peaked in the last two years. The increasingly tense political environment due
to the ongoing conflict in Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia as well as its
relatively minor reflection in the Western cities have also recently made the
Turkish-Kurdish relations in some neighbourhoods in these Western cities
sour. This is another barrier for possible forgiveness methods to be adopted
for the Kurdish Question.
In summary, the essential components necessary to address the
traumatic events surrounding the Kurdish Question include: truth-seeking,
trust between Kurds and the state as well as Kurds and Turks, reparations and
official apology and forgiveness processes.
3.
The Case of Guatemala
The unspeakable violence in Guatemala in the 1980s was the
product of centuries of oppressive class systems that developed in such a way
that a particular race became victim of both structural injustices and
astounding bloodshed. From the time of independence in 1821, Spanish
colonialism left the polarizing legacy of a two-tiered economic and social
structure that privileged ladinos, marginalized Mayan indigenous groups, and
provided an uneven foundation for the formation of an independent state.xxi
Reforms under the presidencies of Juan Jose Arevalo and Jacobo Arbenz
during Guatemala’s 10-year period of democracy from 1944 – 54 began to
effect changes in important areas of wealth distribution, such as land holdings
and taxation regulations. Arbenz was, however, overthrown by a U.S. backed
military coup in 1954.xxii
In the ensuing decades, what had always been an oppressive and
racist structure—but one moving toward some democratic liberties—shifted
into a political, economic, and social system founded in large part on overt
terror. Politically, elections between 1954 and 1982 ranged from the openly
fraudulent to apparently legitimate, the latter rife with intimidation,
corruption, and coercion. The line between the military and the government
became nonexistent; most of the leaders “elected” in this period were military
officers or had strong military ties. Authoritarianism built on a foundation of
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Trauma and Forgiveness
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terror was matched by the growth of armed insurgent paramilitary
movements through the 1960s and 1970s. The 20-year period between 1960
and 1980 gave rise to several guerrilla insurgency movements, and
eventually, four different revolutionary factions joined together to form one
primary paramilitary organization, the URNG.
Socially, the consolidation of Marxist, radical nationalist, and
liberation theology ideologies led to the rise of a number of other important
actors and organizationsxxiii run and primarily, although not exclusively,
represented by indigenous populations. Threatened by this increasing level of
organization, the confrontation between the ruling and popular classes that
had been brewing for more than a century began to explode in the 1970s. The
conflict peaked in the early 1980s under the rule of Generals Lucas Garcia
and Rios Montt.xxiv These Generals orchestrated several phases of the
conflict, including the “scorched earth policy,” which resulted in hundreds of
massacres and burning of entire villages, and implementation of the Patrullas
de Auto-defensa Civil (Civilian Self-Defense Patrols, or PACs). All adult
males were required to participate in these patrols, supposedly designed to
“protect” villages against the guerrillas. In reality, they were a means for
turning villagers and villages against one another through army-mandated
massacres, torture, and kidnappings of fellow community members. xxv
Eventually, between 1984 and 1985, a hurting stalemate between the
military regime and the URNG was reached. The policies of the military had
resulted in Guatemala becoming an international pariah and an embargo on
all foreign assistance; a large part of the population was starving and neither
side had the resources to keep fighting. The decade-long road to peace and
the Oslo Peace Accords signed at last in December of 1996 between the State
of Guatemala and the URNG attempted to create guidelines that would
establish democratic norms and address social, political, and economic
legacies of violence.
A critical part of these accords was the mandated truth commission
process. The UN mandated commission collected testimony from victims of
violence and massacre survivors over the course of 6 months and published
its findings in 1997. A second truth commission was conducted under the
auspices of the Catholic Church. Called the Recovery of Historical Memory
project (REMHI), this process lasted more than two years and involved an
extensive research process that included hundreds of testimonies and
culminated in a four-volume published report in 1998. Each of these reports
and the dialogue they stimulated speaks to the necessity of the psychosocial
recuperation of Guatemalan individuals, communities, and society. Their
efforts at publicly acknowledging the truth of the genocide and the context
that created it have opened important paths to healing. On April 24, 1998, the
Ayşe Betül Çelik & Riva Kantowitz
9
day before his tragic assassination, Monsignor Juan Gerardi dedicated the
REMHI report:
‘Years of terror and death have displaced and reduced the majority
of Guatemalans to fear and silence…[REMHI’s work] has been an
open door for people to breathe and speak in freedom and for the
creation of communities with hope. Peace is possible—a peace that
is born from the truth, full of memories of the country’s deep and
bloody wounds. It is a liberating and humanizing truth that makes it
possible for all men and women to come to terms with themselves
and their life stories. It is a truth that challenges each one of us to
recognize our individual and collective responsibility and to commit
ourselves to action so that these abominable acts never happen
again’ (Archdiocese of Guatemala/REMHI, 1999).
Several other efforts have been made over the last 10 years to achieve healing
and reconciliation. For example, organizations such as Grupo de Apoyo
Mutuo (the Guatemalan organization for widows of the disappeared, GAM)
and the Fundación de Antropología Forense (FAFG) have undertaken a
massive process of inhuming and exhuming mass graves that continues
today. Despite these significant efforts, challenging issues of community
reconciliation, corruption, institutional failure, social inequality, and a
climate of fear persist. These issues speak to the deep and lasting effects of
war, and the requisite commitment required to address them. What is
required to achieve collective and individual forgiveness and reconciliation?
What are benchmarks along this path? How is it possible to create policies
and nurture processes in which collective and individual fear dissipates and
justice, tolerance and a sense of respect for human rights grows? We address
this question through an examination of literature on reconciliation and
forgiveness, and a comparison to a conflict in a different stage, the Kurdish
Question in Turkey.
4.
Multi-level Conceptual Framework for Forgiveness
Although experienced in different contexts, both the Guatemalan
and Turkish cases can provide insights into the factors that affect individuals’
and society’s willingness to forgive (See Table 1). Because individual and
collective experiences might differ in a given context, we suggest that various
combinations of these factors result in individuals’ and communities’
directing their need for forgiveness or acknowledgment to different levels of
analysis, such as individual perpetrators, other communities, or the state.
This, in turn, can indicate which level and what kinds of interventions are
appropriate.
Table 1: Understanding Forgiveness and Intervention Mechanisms
Trauma and Forgiveness
10
_____________________________________________
Variable
Affecting
Individuals’ Willingness to
Forgive



Personal
Experiences
Reactions
to
trauma/needs
Source
of
violence/attribution
of blame
Who to Address
Forgiveness Between
Intervention
Mechanism
Individual
Perpetrator and
Victim
Individuals/community
members/families
--------------------
--------------------------Between PAC/Village
Guards and
communities
Dialogue
Processes
between victims
and perpetrators
-----------------TRCs
Community
Between different
communities engaged
in conflict
---------------------- Responsibilitytaking
 Perception
choice
perpetrator
 Perception
legitimacy
actors
of
of
----------------------State/Military/Policy
Government
Institutions
--------------------Communities and the
state
of
of
This table indicates different factors involved in the experience of trauma,
including individuals’ and communities’ own personal experiences and their
perceptions of the source of violence. The overall argument we make is that
since these differ, there is a need for corresponding multiple-level
interventions and forgiveness processes which must take place between
different entities. However, we also underline the fact that even in such a
multiple-level perspective, certain factors might affect the structure, nature
and process of such interventions. Below, this framework is used to suggest
several important points of comparison between the Guatemalan and Turkish
cases to address these factors.
Trust-Building
workshops in
communities
Community
members
engaging in
super-ordinate
goals together
--------------------TRCs
Official
Acknowledgment
Democratic
Structures
Ayşe Betül Çelik & Riva Kantowitz
11
Significant Points of Comparison: Guatemala and Turkey
 The issue of “choice.” In both Turkey and Guatemala, issues related to
who supported or is perceived as supporting the URNG/PKK or the
military continue to divide communities. People’s need for forgiveness is
partially related to whether or not they felt either perpetrators of violence
or merely supporters of various factions had a “choice;” however, this
idea of choice is complex in the context of war – i.e., situations in which
armed soldiers knock on one’s door demanding food and other resources
and compulsory institutions like the PAC/PKK. Such an understanding
of choice is crucial for state officers as well as communities. Although in
any case of crime and trauma, forgiveness processes require truthseeking and apology, societal processes need acknowledgment that in
intractable conflicts people are forced to take sides. This in no way
suggests that in forced criminal engagement, forgiveness is not crucial.
However, taking sides or merely helping the perpetrators may not be an
individual (or even communal) choice.
 Asymmetry of power. In the Guatemalan case, by the end of the conflict,
the military, government and the URNG had arrived at a hurting
stalemate, meaning that no party wielded more power than any other.
Guatemala was dependent on the international community for aid and
thus, through such mechanisms as the United Nations Mission in
Guatemala (MINUGUA) and the truth commission processes, the state
was held accountable and abuses were acknowledged. In comparison, the
Turkish government is still in a higher power position than the citizens
and organizations demanding acknowledgment of its policies towards
Kurds and the PKK, and thus has the capacity to ignore pleas for an
official apology. This raises the question of how forgiveness can be
approached in situations in which the party capable of providing what
citizens require to forgive (acknowledgment/apology) has the power to
withhold it.
 Legitimacy of the mechanisms of governance. Comparing these cases
shows that there is a potentially important relationship between political
legitimacy and forgiveness. It can be argued that the Guatemalan
government has lost all legitimacy over the course of years of repression
and even after the Peace Accords were signed due to rampant corruption
and inefficiency that continues today. While two truth commission
processes were undertaken in Guatemala, officially and in great detail
acknowledging “what happened,” there are still deep seated issues of
social mistrust preventing Guatemala from building a functional
democracy. These issues can be attributed to the fact that the level of
democratization in Guatemala does not provide a sufficient foundation –
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Trauma and Forgiveness
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

i.e., there is still no guarantee of human security, equality, and human
rights -- from which to build an environment in which acknowledgment
of past atrocities has a meaningful impact on society. In Turkey, Kurds
attribute legitimacy to the State but feel that the level of sincerity with
which the state engages with issues related to the Kurdish Question and
minority rights is minimal – meaning the Turkish government is full of
bluster when it suits goals such as the EU accession process and picks
superficial situations to exemplify its commitment to equality, but in
practice does not uphold or pursue policies demonstrating a sincere
commitment to a multi-cultural state.
Mechanisms of violence -- Village Guards and PACs: In both cases,
militarized institutions have been used to perpetrate violence. These
institutions have left lasting divisions within communities. While
national-level mechanisms of transitional justice are important, it is
critical not to overlook the need for acknowledgement, trust-building and
reconciliation at the community level. Only in this way will communitymembers be able to reconcile the past and thus more effectively work
together in the future.
The issue of representation: Particularly in cases of public forgiveness,
Montiel raises the question of who can speak in the name of the
wounded group and who can engage in sociopolitical forgiveness. xxvi.
This is a critical issue in conflicts such as the Kurdish Question, where
group identity is neglected and group representation in politics is
prevented.xxvii, In such situations, it is important that democratic norms
be improved to encourage representation of minority groups and thus
facilitate sociopolitical forgiveness. Such macro processes would support
individual level forgiveness as well as foster trust between communities
and the state and communities.
5. Conclusion
This paper aims to create a comparative framework for multiplelevel forgiveness processes and discuss the factors that affect these processes
in different political contexts. Using Guatemala and Turkey as case studies,
we argue that in violent and long-lasting conflicts, individuals and
communities experience multiple traumas which affect their coping
mechanisms and perceptions of other individuals, communities and political
systems in which they live. In order to overcome the legacies of these violent
pasts in post-conflict societies and initiate reconciliation processes in ongoing conflicts, different forms of forgiveness processes are crucial. Equally
essential are other forms of societal transformations such as truth-seeking,
trust-building, community-building and reparations.
Ayşe Betül Çelik & Riva Kantowitz
13
Another important point in the framework provided here is that even
though forgiveness could be considered a universally necessary phenomenon
in violent conflicts (and their aftermath), the design and nature of the
forgiveness processes should be contextual. Such processes should take into
consideration issues of “choice” in perpetrating violence or aiding
conflicting parties; how to address power asymmetry; and, the most effective
way to design legitimate governance mechanisms which support individual
level forgiveness processes, re-integrate perpetrators back into society and
provide a means of deciding who should represent communities and how.
H van de Merwe, T Viennings, ‘Coping with Trauma’ in L. Reychler, and T
Paffenholz (eds.), Peacebuilding: A field guide, Lynne Riener, Boulder and
London, 2001, p. 343-350.
ii
For example, E Staub, L Pearlman, A Gubin, and A Hagengimana,
Healing, reconciliation, forgiving and the prevention of violence after
genocide or mass killing: An intervention and its experimental evaluation in
Rwanda. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 24 (3), 2005, pp. 297334.
iii
J Ford, ‘An Expert's Definition of Trauma’. Trauma matters website. http://
www.traumamatters.org, 2007, accessed on 14 August 2008.
iv
R Kantowitz, Healing systems: A multi-level model of trauma in
Guatemala. Unpublished Dissertation: Columbia University, 2006.
v
C Yoder, H Zehr, The little book of trauma healing: When violence strikes
and community is threatened. Intercourse, PA: Good Books, 2006, p. 8.
vi
Staub et al., p.300.
vii
N Tavuchis, A sociology of apology and reconciliation. Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1991.
viii
E Staub, Reconciliation after genocide, mass killing, or intractable
conflict: Understanding the roots of violence, psychological recovery, and
steps toward a general theory. Political Psychology, 27, pp. 867 – 894.
ix
G Elcherorth, Individual-level and community-level effects of war trauma
on social representations related to humanitarian law. European Journal of
Social Psychology, 36, 2006, pp. 907-930.
x
UNDP,
Silent
Majority
Speaks,
6
July
2007,
http://www.undp.ba/index.aspx?PID=3&RID=43, accessed on 11 August
2008.
xi
M Valinas, ‘Justice and peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina: but what type of
justice?’ paper presented IPRA Annual Conference, Leuven, 16 July 2008.
xii
H Assefa, Reconciliation in Reychler, L. and Paffenholz, T. (eds.),
Peacebuilding: A Field Guide. Lynne Rienner, Boulder and London, 2001,
pp. 336-342.
xiii
J P Lederach, Building peace: Sustainable reconciliation in divided
societies. Washington D.C., United States Institute of Peace, 1998, pp.30-31.
i
14
Trauma and Forgiveness
_____________________________________________
xiv
The armed conflict mostly took part in the rural parts of the eastern and
southeastern Anatolia. Even though, the conflict also was actualized as
bombings in the western parts of the country, eastern and southeastern
Anatolia are the most conflict-affected parts of the country. Especially the
villages at the mountainous areas of these regions lack water, schools and the
necessary sewer system, and the money devoted to the projects within the
state development projects is very limited.
xv
Village Guards are locally-recruited civilians armed and paid by the state
to oppose the PKK. According to Abdülkadir Aksu, Minister of the Interior,
there were 12,279 voluntary village guards in the region as of November
2003. Again according to him, 5,139 provisional village guards “committed
crimes” between 1985 and mid-2006.
xvi
D Kurban, A B Çelik, and D Yükseker, Overcoming a legacy of mistrust:
Towards reconciliation between the state and the displaced. Istanbul, TESEV
and IDMC Report, June 2006. Available at http://www.internaldisplacement.org, 2006, accessed on 14 February 2008.
xvii
The OHAL regime has been put into effect in several cities of eastern and
southeastern Anatolia in 1987. The governors of the cities under OHAL
regime gained the right to pass regulations functioning like laws. Among
several rights the governors enjoyed, one can list the right to expel citizens
from the region, restrict ownership and freedom rights and liberties, freedom
to press and expression. Even the regime has been lifted gradually from the
region by the end of 2002, not only its legacy and tradition but also the
mistrust it created between the locals and the public officers remain to a
certain extent in the region.
xviii
The conflict-induced internal displacement of the Kurds in the 1990s was
the result of a) the evacuation of villages by the military, allowed by the 1987
emergency rulexviii; b) the PKK’s (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan - Kurdistan
Workers’ Party) pressure against the villagers who do not support the PKK to
abandon their villages; and c) insecurity resulting from being caught between
the PKK and Turkish security forces .The recent report of the Türkiye Göç ve
Yerinden Olmuş Nüfus Araştırması (TGYONA) results argues that the size of
the migrant population originating from the 14 provinces due to security
related reasons may be between 953.680 and 1.201.200. See HÜNEE,
Türkiye göç ve yerinden olmuş nüfus araştırması. Ankara, Hacettepe
Üniversitesi,
2006.
Available
online
at
http://www.hips.hacettepe.edu.tr/tgyona/TGYONA_rapor.pdf,
2006,
accessed on 14 March 2008.
xix
UYD, Ovacık ve Hozat ilçelerinde geriye göç sürecine ilişkin araştırma.
Istanbul, UYD, 2008, pp. 26-28.
xx
Kurban et al. p. 44
Ayşe Betül Çelik & Riva Kantowitz
15
xxi
The use of ethnic or racial terms is the subject of a vast literature, too
broad in scope to cover here. For the sake of clarity, this paper uses “ladino”
to generally refer to descendants of European heritage. “Indigenous” refers to
members of Mayan ethnic communities in Guatemala. For further discussion,
see G Grandin, The blood of Guatemala: A history of race and nation. Duke
University Press, Durham, NC, 2000; Nelson, D., A finger in the wound.
Berkeley, University of California Press, 1999.
xxiii
The most significant was in the rise of the worker movement included
the CUC (Comité de Unidad Campesina), the Church of the Poor, and Acción
Catolica. The Catholic Church, once an extremely conservative organization
aligned with the military and ruling oligarchy, began to play a significant role
in mobilizing the masses through literacy and concientizacion, or consciousraising campaigns, and the development of a participatory style of organizing
impoverished communities in which priests, catechists, and missionaries
worked. This population, also social and political leaders, became a
significant target of repression as well. Priests and catechists (local church
leaders) were among the thousands murdered in the late 1970s and early 80s.
This sent a significant message that persists in certain forms today, that civil
rights and leaders who spoke out would not be tolerated. Perhaps the most
well-known case involved then-Bishop Gerardi, who ministered in the
Quiche region and was forced into exile in the early 1980s. He later returned
to Guatemala and became archbishop, using his position to conduct an
extensive truth commission process (in addition to that mandated by the Oslo
Peace Accords). Gerardi was assassinated in 1998, the day after the report,
Guatemala Nunca Mas (Guatemala Never Again), was published.
xxiv
As part of the military dictatorship’s “scorched earth” campaign, between
1980 and 1983 it is estimated that more than 100,000 were murdered or
disappeared and 660 Guatemalan villages virtually erased, their inhabitants
slaughtered in massacres. According to various reports, more than 1 million
people became internally displaced and approximately 200,000 refugees fled
to Mexico (Archdiocese of Guatemala/REMHI, 1999).
xxv
It is estimated that at one point, PACs involved 1 million peasants,
approximately one-fourth of the adult population (See S Jonas, The battle for
Guatemala. Boulder, CO, Westivew Press, 1991.).
xxvi
Montiel, C. J., Sociopolitical Forgiveness. Peace Review, 14(3), 2002,
p.272.
xxvii
According to the Articles 12 and 83 of the Law on Political Parties, put in
effect in 2005, forming a political party based on ethnic, racial and religious
lines is unconstitutional (See Siyasi Partiler Kanunu, available online at
16
Trauma and Forgiveness
_____________________________________________
http://www.tbmm.gov.tr/genser/kanun3.html, 2005, accessed on 14 August
2008.)
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Ayşe Betül Çelik is an assistant professor at Sabancı University where she
teaches political science and conflict resolution.
Riva Kantowitz is an assistant professor at Sabanci University where she
teaches courses related to post-conflict reconstruction and community
development processes.