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Displacement, Identity and Violence
Ali Erol, ICAR Certificate Student
Posted: 09/17/07

As Iraq grows more and more violent, there is less and less attention to daily lives of people and how the ongoing and increasing violence affects how people live, eat, sleep and even breathe. There are more discussions about allocating the resources, remapping, re-drawing the borders, making new borders between sectarian groups, displacing people, putting more troops here and training Iraqis there, giving more money to these groups and cutting money form those and so on. These tactics are being employed since the beginning of the war and it should be quite apparent now that they are not so successful. In fact, there are alternative ways to soften the conflict in Iraq without perpetuating the sectarian violence.

In today’s New York Times [September 17, 2007], an article by Sabrina Tavernise covers the rather untouched fields of the Iraq conflict. From her article one can conclude that dividing an entire country neighborhood by neighborhood does not only causes trauma in the population, it also makes people stick to their sectarian/ethnic identity that they did not care much about before. Ripping Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds from their homes and giving them new neighborhoods to live will only further the lack of communication between groups and thus augment a more radical in-group bonding and a way more radical out-group hatred—especially in the collectivist culture of the Middle East. This will only result in unfortunate but predictable increase of violence.

A perfect example of what might be magnitude of violence by separating and displacing people and flaming the hatred for each other is lived—not so long ago—in Rwanda. Just to understand how similar the conditions in Iraq are to Rwanda, one only needs to read Sabrina Tavernise’s article that has stories about how people are being killed by their neighbors and the hatred that such events are generating. The violence in Iraq already cost tens of thousands of lives while affecting, both physically and psychologically, many more in Iraq and in the US. With this cumulating anger, hatred and will to kill in these displaced communities, the magnitude of the violence may grow bigger as time passes.

What, then, can be done, in order to sooth this trauma that people are going through and slow down, perhaps reverse, this process of increasing violence? More often than not, people need to be reminded that they are facing or opposing who used to be their neighbors, friends, classmates and teammates and so on. The worst way to do this kind of a reminder would be to bring people together without any catalyst and expect them to communicate verbally with people they want to kill. Perhaps, starting on the grassroots level, connecting people through schools, sports and through other means of social exchange can offer a healing process down the road.

In his famous book Bloodlines, Vamik Volkan, gives an account on how an Egyptian and an Israeli confronted each other during a meeting. When an Israeli child psychiatrist mentioned to an Egyptian historian that she was scared, Egyptian historian did not believe that Israelis could harbor the same emotions that he has, or “could not tolerate sharing a sense of victimhood” (Volkan, 1997) in Vamik Volkan’s words.

This, of course, surfaces the known paradigm of dehumanizing and humanizing the other; but other than being a cliché answer to severe hatred and violence amongst groups, this paradigm also tells us how important it is to know that one is—or can—share certain feelings with an out-group, such as “victimhood”, fear, glory, accomplishment and many others.

Social activities which can serve as “the catalyst” and which can help to improve sharing of these kinds of feelings amongst groups can perhaps try restore deep scars that are opened between sectarian/ethnic groups in Iraq and hopefully reduce the ongoing and possible future violence.

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ICAR News Network Displacement, Identity and Violence Ali Erol, ICAR Certificate Student Posted: 09/17/07 As Iraq grows more and more violent, there is less and less attention to daily lives of people and how the ongoing and increasing violence affects how people live, eat, sleep and even breathe. There are more discussions about allocating the resources, remapping, re-drawing the borders, making new borders between sectarian groups, displacing people, putting more troops here and training Iraqis there, giving more money to these groups and cutting money form those and so on. These tactics are being employed since the beginning of the war and it should be quite apparent now that they are not so successful. In fact, there are alternative ways to soften the conflict in Iraq without perpetuating the sectarian violence. In today’s New York Times [September 17, 2007], an article by Sabrina Tavernise covers the rather untouched fields of the Iraq conflict. From her article one can conclude that dividing an entire country neighborhood by neighborhood does not only causes trauma in the population, it also makes people stick to their sectarian/ethnic identity that they did not care much about before. Ripping Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds from their homes and giving them new neighborhoods to live will only further the lack of communication between groups and thus augment a more radical in-group bonding and a way more radical out-group hatred—especially in the collectivist culture of the Middle East. This will only result in unfortunate but predictable increase of violence. A perfect example of what might be magnitude of violence by separating and displacing people and flaming the hatred for each other is lived—not so long ago—in Rwanda. Just to understand how similar the conditions in Iraq are to Rwanda, one only needs to read Sabrina Tavernise’s article that has stories about how people are being killed by their neighbors and the hatred that such events are generating. The violence in Iraq already cost tens of thousands of lives while affecting, both physically and psychologically, many more in Iraq and in the US. With this cumulating anger, hatred and will to kill in these displaced communities, the magnitude of the violence may grow bigger as time passes. What, then, can be done, in order to sooth this trauma that people are going through and slow down, perhaps reverse, this process of increasing violence? More often than not, people need to be reminded that they are facing or opposing who used to be their neighbors, friends, classmates and teammates and so on. The worst way to do this kind of a reminder would be to bring people together without any catalyst and expect them to communicate verbally with people they want to kill. Perhaps, starting on the grassroots level, connecting people through schools, sports and through other means of social exchange can offer a healing process down the road. In his famous book Bloodlines, Vamik Volkan, gives an account on how an Egyptian and an Israeli confronted each other during a meeting. When an Israeli child psychiatrist mentioned to an Egyptian historian that she was scared, Egyptian historian did not believe that Israelis could harbor the same emotions that he has, or “could not tolerate sharing a sense of victimhood” (Volkan, 1997) in Vamik Volkan’s words. This, of course, surfaces the known paradigm of dehumanizing and humanizing the other; but other than being a cliché answer to severe hatred and violence amongst groups, this paradigm also tells us how important it is to know that one is—or can—share certain feelings with an out-group, such as “victimhood”, fear, glory, accomplishment and many others. Social activities which can serve as “the catalyst” and which can help to improve sharing of these kinds of feelings amongst groups can perhaps try restore deep scars that are opened between sectarian/ethnic groups in Iraq and hopefully reduce the ongoing and possible future violence. News Network Homepage / Armenia / 2008 Elections / Afghanistan / Diplomacy/ Egypt / Environment / Global Peace Index / Health / Immigration / Iraq / Iran / Islam / Kosovo / Nuclear Proliferation / Pakistan / Palestine-Israel / Russia / Somalia / South America / Turkey /		About ICAR Student Information Prospective Students Faculty and Staff Alumni Career Services Academic Programs Library ICAR In The News Events Technology Resources ICAR Publications Point Of View Center Center for World Religions, Diplomacy & Conflict Resolution