Coping with Collective Trauma: Remembrance or Oblivion?

Coping with Collective Trauma: Remembrance or Oblivion? Judith Pollmann Studium Generale Wageningen, 25 March 2014

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzfngEzmiSs

September 1946. Winston Churchill addresses students in Zurich: The guilty must be punished. Germany must be deprived of the power to rearm and make another aggressive war. But when all this has been done, as it will be done, as it is being done, there must be an end to retribution. There must be what Mr Gladstone many years ago called 'a blessed act of oblivion'. We must all turn our backs upon the horrors of the past. We must look to the future. We cannot afford to drag forward across the years that are to come the hatreds and revenges which have sprung from the injuries of the past. If Europe is to be saved from infinite misery, and indeed from final doom, there must be an act of faith in the European family and an act of oblivion against all the crimes and follies of the past

What needs to be done after a war? Churchill wanted: Instead: To turn our backs on horrors of the past Act of faith Act of oblivion Forgetting is impossible And is therefore harmful. We must remember

Oblivion As an act of vengeance As a peacekeeping measure Popular policy instrument in Europe 1400-1850 Amnesty Settlement of property relations Agreement to forget events ‘as if they had not occurred’

Is this possible? We are wiredtoforget most of what we do What we do remember changes over time Under the influence of thosearoundus. And remembering is often also done collectively

But real meaning is another one: Ross Poole, ‘Enacting oblivion’, International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society 22 (2009) pp. 149-157 ‘They do not mean that no one knows about the acts; it is rather that this knowledge is now, not merely of but also in the past; it does not bear on the present. It is history, we might say, not memory’ I.e. we do not act upon our memories.

Remembrance Holocaust memorial Berlin Anne Frank (1929-1945)

Collective commemoration By storytelling By creating monuments Through ceremonies and rituals Through teaching and schoolbooks Through songs, films, novels, plays etc

Development in the 20thcenturyFrom victors to victims Kiev, Museum of the Great Patriotic War, 1981 Prague, Monument for the victims of communism, 2002 From victors: To victims:

And acknowledging guilt:Memorial for victims of transatlantic slave trade(2012)Nantes, France

Interest in trauma Long term impact of Holocaust experiences Willingnesstoengagewiththispainamong new generations Explanationforcertain types of (collective) behaviour

Rememberingpain: trauma A form of physicalinjury Since Sigmund Freud also: ‘long- term feeling causedby intense events, towhichonefeelsincapable of responding’. Causedbyexperiences of personal loss, violence, pain – either man-made or natural Sigmund Freud (1836-1959)

Was there trauma before Freud?

Early modern evidence: Reasons for silence Reasons to speak No one to talk to Shame Sense of responsibility and guilt Too painful New meanings to experiences Some form of gain, spiritual or material

Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) Term inventedabout 1980 Usedtodescribe stress causedbytraumaticexperiences Loss of sense of identityand control Experiencedbyabout 9% of victims

Coping with trauma Sharing your stories with others Drawing a line between past and present. Alone or collectively

Resilience Giving it some sort of meaning E.g. seeing it as an occasion for spiritual growth Or turn it into an agenda for action

An altar stone deployed to commemorate hunger during the siege of Leiden

People in the West today Focus identity on the self more than on their group Do not expect trauma Are less religious

From individual to collective remembrance Individual memories Restoration of ‘normality’ forces oblivion Rediscovery and thematization of the past From memory to history

Can trauma be collective? Events are not ‘inherently’ traumatic for a group But they can be remembered as such Be perceived as an important part of their identity Andtransmittedtosubsequentgenerations. Very much open to manipulation

Anti-Spanish propaganda in the Netherlands

What Churchill feared A repeat of what happened after WWI Humilitation and reparation demanded from the German losers Who came to believe they had been ‘stabbed in the back’ bytheirgenerals in 1918 And were so willing to follow Hitler in 1933

Examples of nationaltraumas(accordingto Wikipedia) Argentina: Dirty War Cambodia: Cambodian Genocide France: Loss of Alsace-Lorraine Germany: Treaty of Versailles, defeat in World War II, Berlin Wall Iraq: 2003 Invasion of Iraq Ireland: Great Famine Israel: Holocaust, Assassination of YitzhakRabin Japan: Black Ships, Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Netherlands: The loss of the 1974 FIFA World Cup finalagainst Germany, Norway :2011 Norway attacks Russia Russo-Japanese War, World War I, Russian Civil War. Spain: Spanish-American War Sweden: Treaty of Fredrikshamn, Assassination of OlofPalme, M/S Estonia shipwreck, Gothenburgriots, Gothenburgdiscothèquefire, 2004 Indian Ocean earthquakeand tsunami United Kingdom: Battle of the Somme, Death of Diana, Princess of Wales United States: American Civil War, Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Assassination of John F. Kennedy, Vietnam War, September 11, 2001 attacks

Negotiating collective trauma:Advertising Truth and Reconciliation in Liberia, 2009

Coping with Collective Trauma: Remembrance or Oblivion?