American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 2014, Vol. 84, No. 5, 475– 486

© 2014 American Orthopsychiatric Association http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ort0000023

“I Need You to Listen to What Happened to Me”: Personal Narratives of Social Trauma in Research and Peace-Building Julia Chaitin

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Sapir College

This article explores the uses of personal narratives of massive social trauma in conflict, most specifically as they relate to the Palestinian–Israeli context. It is asserted that there are types of narratives, fixated on persecution, hatred, and fear, that can obstruct peace, and different types that encourage peace and reconciliation. The article discusses the impacts of sharing personal narratives on the victims and others in society, the connections between personal and master narratives, and ways in which dialogue that incorporates personal narratives can encourage peace. A theoretical categorization of 4 types of personal narratives of massive social trauma is proposed: narratives of vengeance, victimhood, confusion, and embracing the other. Examples from Israelis and Palestinians that reflect this conceptualization are discussed. It is concluded that a more nuanced understanding of types of personal narratives is needed when engaged in peace-building endeavors in an ongoing conflict.

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personal narratives of social-political traumas keep people rooted in their victimhood, thus impeding their ability to consider reconciliation with their enemy, or when can this sharing help victims move beyond feelings of despair? Furthermore, how does sharing of these narratives impact people in their societies who are exposed to them? Specifically, when might these narratives enable peace-building processes, and when might they support continued suffering and mistrust of the enemy? I have collected and analyzed personal narratives of the Holocaust and the Arab–Israeli/Israeli–Palestinian wars for 25 years, for research and peace-building purposes. Whereas I value deeply what one can learn from these accounts, I have come to realize that encouraging people to talk about their victimization can be counterproductive if we do not plan carefully how to use these narratives. This article, then, offers a theoretical categorization of personal narration connected to the massive social trauma of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict to understand what kinds of narratives can enhance peace-building endeavors and what kinds might obstruct them.

xtensive recording of personal narratives of war, genocide, and forced migration, for research and social-political purposes, has been gaining momentum since the 1940s (Plummer, 2001). For example, in the political realm, between 1974 to 2007, 32 truth commissions were established in 28 countries (Amnesty International, n.d.); for educational and research purposes, the University of South California Shoah Foundation Institute holds nearly 51,000 interviews from Holocaust survivors living in 56 countries concerning their experiences before, during, and after the genocide (USC Shoah Foundation Institute, n.d.); and Yad Vashem in Jerusalem has gathered over 100,000 Holocaust testimonies (Yad Vashem Archives, 2012). As personal stories of social-political persecution are collected from the victims, there is an ongoing debate concerning their “authenticity” (Browning, 2010, p. 7), because traumatic memory “does not operate like a videotape recorder” and “emotionality does not confirm veracity” (McNally, 2005, pp. 818 – 819). Given the huge numbers of collected personal narratives of collective trauma and debates surrounding their “verifiable truth,” it is important to understand why this has become such a worldwide phenomenon. Furthermore, since practitioners engaged in peace-building often use such narratives in their work, it is imperative that they understand the complexities of such narratives before they ask people to share their stories. This article focuses on the connections between personal narratives and peace-building or peace-obstruction in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. It asks: When does the sharing of

Definition of Terms Before delving into the topic, I will first define major concepts discussed below. Although the focus of this article is on the Israeli–Palestinian case, massive social trauma, in general, refers to severe psychological and/or physical damage and loss suffered by victims of social-political violence. This violence includes (separately or in combination): systematic discrimination and persecution against people based on their nationality, religion or ethnic belonging; genocide; war; terrorism (by state and nonstate actors); ethnic cleansing and forced migration. Moreover, the damage affects the personal, the familial, and the communal levels, often destroying

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important social frameworks and institutions. In the Israeli– Palestinian context, massive social trauma refers to the long-term negative psycho-social impacts of the Holocaust on the hostile relations between Jews and Palestinians; the Israeli–Arab and Israeli–Palestinian wars, military operations and intifadas, al Naqba (the catastrophe-1948) characterized by the forced migration of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes and the ensuing destruction of most of their villages and neighborhoods; the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and Palestinian terror attacks upon Israeli citizens (Bickerton & Klausner, 2009). In this article, peace-building refers to efforts made by “ordinary” individuals and civil society (grassroots organizations and NGOs), working to improve relations between Israelis and Palestinians, on interpersonal and intergroup levels, even during conflict (Chaitin, 2011). Peace-building endeavors include dialogue groups; joint educational, academic, social, activist, health and/or environmental activities, which work on lessening the animosity and fear of the “other” and create people-to-people mechanisms for the establishment of sustainable, good neighborly relations. Peace obstruction, on the other hand, refers to actions that fuel the conflict and preserve the notion that the peoples can only be enemies. Peace obstruction strengthens negative stereotypes and prejudice, de-individuates the “other” by making them into a homogeneous dangerous other (Waller, 2002) and supports actions that, at the least, ignore and delegitimize the other, and at the worst, cause the enemy great harm. The concept of reconciliation follows ideas put forth by Rouhana (2004) and is perceived as being one of the major outcomes of peace-building endeavors. As the author notes, this long-term process refers to active efforts by people and formal institutions from the enemy sides to establish a sustainable relationship founded on mutual recognition and legitimacy. “. . . reconciliation brings about a genuine end to the existential conflict between the parties and transforms the nature of the relationship between the societies through . . . psychological, social, and political changes” (p. 35). Furthermore, “for genuine reconciliation to take root, four key issues must be addressed: justice, truth, historical responsibility, and restructuring the social and political relationship between the parties” (p. 36). I now turn to a literature review that examines aspects of personal narratives of massive social trauma, and the roles they play concerning peace-building and peace obstruction in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

Literature Review Understandings Connected to Personal Narratives The telling of stories is inherently human with “. . . narratives [being] a version of reality” (Bruner, 1991, p. 5). Narratives contain the unfolding of events over time, characters, description, climax, denouement, and explanation of why things occurred as they did, offering insights into people’s personal lives, values and beliefs, and into the values, beliefs, and understandings of their societies (McAdams, 1993). As Flory and Iglesias (2010) and Hawkins and Saleem (2012) further tell us, narratives are reflective ways of looking at one’s life; by narrating our experiences, we

make sense of our lives. When discussing personal narratives that focus on relations with others, Winslade and Monk (2001) assert that people use personal stories to make sense of such relationships, especially when they are conflictual. According to the authors, these conflict narratives often become solidified as they are “rehearsed and elaborated over and over again by participants in a conflict” (p. 3). This article focuses on personal narratives of massive social trauma that are one kind of “conflict narrative”—representations of self and others that take place in conflict communication. Conflict narratives represent the ways in which people create context for communication and also the ways in which contextual factors shape communication between enemies (Kellet & Dalton, 2001). When discussing the use of personal narratives in the Israeli– Palestinian context (or in other contexts of massive social trauma), it is important to remember that these narratives do not take place in a vacuum. Hammack and Pilecki (2012) use the term narrative engagement to describe the process in which “. . . members of a society engage with collective stories of what it means to inhabit a particular political entity . . . ” (p. 77). People construct personal narratives that connect their own experiences to their group’s history, identity, and ideology. Personal story-making, therefore, in addition to being an individual act, is also a social practice that provides autobiographers with a way to express solidarity with their community, thus solidifying their place in their culture (Sarbin, 1986). The above notions highlight that personal narratives are not recitation of facts. They are subjective understandings and expressions of experiences rooted in society’s “master narratives” (Tint, 2010, p. 244): “. . . [which] support the driving political agendas of the time.” A master narrative is the “cultural script or a “dominant discourse” of a society (Hammack, 2009, p. 51). In the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, there are dichotomous master narratives against which people understand their own group, and their “enemy” (Adwan & Bar-On, 2006). Therefore, it is not surprising to find that Palestinian and Israeli victims of the conflict tie their personal stories of pain into the two master narratives concerning the conflict between the peoples (Armbruster & Emery, 2004). Because publicly sharing autobiographical memories of massive social trauma entails courage and stamina (Nets-Zehngut, 2011), it is important to understand why people engage in this behavior. At least three reasons can be identified. First, sharing traumatic experience helps people reflect on who they are, especially in terms of personal and collective identity (e.g., Chaitin, Awwad, & Andriani, 2009). Second, according to Bamberg (2004), one of the main purposes of personal narration is the development of people’s identities as they tell their stories. Identity development, during the sharing of personal narratives in contexts of conflict, is closely mediated by social experience. Therefore, life-story narratives that connect to collective historical narratives provide “windows into psychological development . . . as well as processes of social reproduction or resistance” (Hammack, 2010, p. 178). Victims of massive social trauma also talk about their experiences so that others can learn of their maltreatment (e.g., Young, 2004). This vocalization to people interested in listening and passing on the message (Laub, 1992a) can also help survivors

PERSONAL NARRATIVES IN RESEARCH AND PEACE-BUILDING

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regain the feeling that there is some degree of social justice in the world previously shattered by violation (Janoff-Bulman, 1992). In sum, victims of massive social trauma tell their stories to give meaning to their horrific experiences, to connect their identities and lives to their collectives, and to inform others what happened so that some level of justice can be restored. When victims of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict share their narratives, they connect their personal experiences to the social-political context, thus cementing their place as Israelis and Palestinians whose identity has been greatly impacted by the intractable conflict (Chaitin et al., 2009).

Connecting Autobiographical Memories to Collective Memories Personal narratives of social trauma also connect to collective memories—narrations and representations or constructions of the past adopted by society and its members (Kansteiner, 2002; Vinitzky-Seroussi & Teeger, 2010). Such memories are “social products” (Lomsky-Feder, 2004, p. 84), which contain stories about historical moments in a group’s existence (Halbwachs & Coser, 1992). Hammack and Pilecki (2012) also connect personal storytelling and collective memory to nation-building—an issue of major concern for the Palestinians, one of the foci of this article. Given that personal narratives and collective memory are often intertwined, it is important to ask: Is the sharing of personal narratives of social trauma good for the autobiographer and/or for their listeners, their societies? These issues are now explored.

Giving Voice to Personal Stories of Victimization—Is This Good or Bad for the Person? The question of whether sharing of such memories is helpful or harmful is difficult to answer. The answer not only depends on the people involved in the specific sharing-listening context, but also on the social-political-historical context in which the narrative is being given. For example, it can be assumed that a personal story of loss in one of the Israeli–Arab wars will be remembered and told somewhat differently by the narrator if s/he talks about experiences during a period of relative calm between Israelis and Palestinians or during a period marked by terror attacks. On the personal level, Albeck, Adwan, and Bar-On (2002) aver that giving trauma victims opportunities to talk about their experiences can help them “work through” their feelings of anger, helplessness and despair, a difficult and long-term process. As individuals confront (repressed) traumatic experiences through narration, they deal with unresolved psychological conflicts that have negatively impacted feelings, attitudes, and behavior (p. 304). Working through, therefore, helps people learn to live with the trauma and (partially) heal. When people talk about their experiences of victimization, this also helps them make sense of their traumatic past, and may even be crucial for survival (e.g., Agger & Jensen, 2003; Liem, 2007; Tamas, 2011; White & Epston, 1990). It has further been argued that people are better off after sharing their personal narratives of social-political victimhood than they were beforehand, since the sharing can bring “redemption” (McAdams & Bowman, 2001, p. 5), especially when events that begin bad have a good outcome.

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Dori Laub, a Holocaust child-survivor, notes that when survivors of this genocide are asked to speak about their suffering, this can help them feel less alone, especially concerning narratives not previously “articulated or . . . heard” (Laub, 1992a, p. 85). However, the psychoanalyst-researcher also notes the downside of narration: speaking: “. . . becomes severely traumatizing if the price of speaking is reliving ” (Laub, 1992b, p. 67), an idea echoed by Tamas (2011) as well. Similarly, Langer (1991), in his study of Holocaust survivors, discerned four categories of memories that have intense negative emotional impacts on the speaker: anguished memory, humiliated memory, tainted memory, and unheroic memory. In sum, the quandary remains concerning whether and when we should encourage people to speak about the harm they suffered at the hands of others, given that the vocalization can cause pain for the narrator. Furthermore, we must also remember that socialpolitical events can impact the direction that the narration takes. Additionally, the willingness of others to hear the stories can also influence the narrator’s experience. If the narrator feels that s/he is speaking with an empathetic listener (Chaitin, 2004b), talking about the harm can further healing. However, if the listener appears to be judgmental or distant, this can have a negative effect on the victim who has dared to share difficult memories.

How Does the Sharing of Personal Narratives of Social Trauma Influence Others in Society? As in the above quandary, the sharing of personal narratives of social trauma can have both positive and negative effects on listeners. As Danieli (1998) noted, victims of massive social trauma often create a “legacy” of suffering by passing on their trauma to their descendants. This legacy is also transmitted through a shared belief system of the culture (Hammack & Pilecki, 2012; Stamm, Stamm IV, Hudnall, & Higson-Smith, 2004). What are the impacts of hearing personal narratives of suffering connected to massive social trauma? In his work on the psychosocial effects of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict on Israelis, Bar-Tal (2007) noted that narratives that focus on the theme of suffering can prolong intractable conflict. Margalit (2002) and O’Loughlin (2007), who write about collective narratives of events that occurred hundreds or even thousands of years ago, note that such narratives led to renewed surges in violent conflict. This tendency to remember past injustices can be so strong that people and collectives are at times locked into “memory-prisons” (Margalit, 2002, p. 4), which often legitimize violent revenge toward others. Margalit asks about the purpose of the “obligation to remember” (p. 18): to heal ourselves and societies, or to remember who harmed us? This connects to questions concerning the “moral right” (p. 47) of victims to impose their memories on their perpetrators, or their descendants, because this may make reconciliation impossible. The author suggests that by encouraging “moral witnessing” (p. 148), which reflects on both the evil and the suffering it produces, a moral community can be created that can help traumatized societies heal and become less violent. All of these ideas are highly relevant for the Israeli–Arab/Israeli–Palestinian conflicts which have, so far, negatively impacted the lives of three generations, members of which have often been exposed to personal narratives of trauma suffered by their elders.

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Margalit’s ideas echo understandings put forth by Laub (1992b) who notes that empathetic listeners may become “. . . co-owner[s] of the traumatic event . . . and guardian[s] of its process and of its momentum” (pp. 57–58). Although Laub was referring to the Holocaust, his understandings are also relevant for the Palestinian– Israeli context. For example, many Israelis see their conflict as an extension of the victimization their grand/parents suffered during the Holocaust, with some concluding that the Occupation is legitimate (Bar-On & Sarsar, 2004; Porat, 2004). In the Palestinian case, exposure to personal narratives of their grandparents and parents who suffered oppression and loss of a homeland has led young adults to ruminate on their own victimization and dispossession (e.g., Fronk, Huntington, & Chadwick, 1999; Lynd, Bahour, & Lynd, 1994). A second effect of exposure to narration of traumatic events connects to the shaping of identity of descendants of victims of oppression. For example, Bar-On, Ostrovsky, and Fromer (1998) found that when Israeli grandchildren interviewed their grandparents concerning their Holocaust experiences, the past gained personal and social-political relevance for them. Kidron (2003) found in her ethnographic study of adult Israeli children of Holocaust survivors who participated in a self-help group, that members who heard their parents’ stories came to see themselves as wounded, eventually constructing an identity rooted in persecution and death, even though they had not personally experienced genocide. Work by Volkan (2006) highlights another aspect connected to this point. He showed how sharing personal narratives of massive social trauma can fuel conflict for generations, especially when the traumas become “chosen,” “acute,” or “hot.” A chosen trauma is a large group’s mental representation of a historic event that resulted in collective feelings of helplessness, victimization, shame, and humiliation at the hands of “others,” and “involves drastic losses of people, land, prestige, and dignity” (p. 173). The “injured selves” of the victims are “deposited” into the next generation, which tries to complete the mourning process. Volkan asserts that if the next generation is unable to complete this process, because it lacks political, economic, and/or military power, this task is transmitted to following generations. The result is that the group continues to unconsciously “choose” the mental representation of the event as significant for their own group identity, and this becomes reactivated when the group senses danger from “others.” Group identity strengthens because people resist giving up the trauma that defines who they are. Furthermore, Volkan avers that the acute trauma remains “hot,” because it continues to keep group members emotionally invested in remembering and mourning the event. Volkan’s concept of chosen trauma is highly relevant for the Palestinian-Israeli context. For Israelis, the Holocaust remains the chosen trauma, and is often coopted by politicians who use Holocaust metaphors to present Israelis as eternal victims; in doing so, they justify the status quo of the Occupation and continued military presence in Palestinian areas (Zertal, 2005). For Palestinians, al Naqba is their chosen trauma, with the Occupation and the siege on Gaza seen as being ongoing extensions of the horrific events that occurred to their elders close to 70 years ago (Bar-Tal, 2013). Whereas chosen traumas often keep people trapped in victimhood, they can provide resources for empowerment and social change (Volkan, 2006). For example, research on Palestinians showed that teenagers, who heard many refugee stories, engaged

in activism against the Occupation, based on what they learned from these narratives (Witteborn, 2007). In their work, Staub and Vollhardt (2008) reported a number of cases in which victims of persecution found meaning in their horrific experiences by altruistically caring for others and eventually experienced posttraumatic growth. As we have seen, exposure to personal stories of massive social trauma has complex and long-term effects for individuals as well as for societies. As noted above, concerning the effect that telling one’s story has on the narrator, here it is also assumed that the effects of listening to such narratives will not be equal for all witnesses (e.g., children of victims vs. listeners who have no family connection to the trauma) or for all time periods (e.g., during times of relevant calm vs. a period of escalation in violence). Therefore, we need to consider who is listening and responding, what is happening in the “outside” world at the time, and take into consideration the emotional states of the speaker and the listener(s) at the time. I now turn to the role that dialogue can play in relation to using personal narratives of massive social trauma to encourage peacebuilding efforts.

Dialogue, Personal Narratives, and Peace-Building Efforts It is important to briefly consider the last “building block” of the theoretical conceptualization of personal narratives that follows below—that of dialogue. By using personal narratives when working with groups in conflict, in general, and between Palestinians and Israelis in specific, opportunities arise for the creation of more complex perspectives of self and other(s). These experiences can then lessen feelings of victimhood and aid reconciliation (Bar-On, 2006). Krauss and Morsella (2006, p. 153) note that dialogue is: “. . . a joint accomplishment of the participants”; when parties in conflict enter into dialogue out of a dual concern for oneself and the other (Pruitt & Kim, 2004), they focus on strengthening their relationship, as opposed to winning the battle. True dialogue encourages deep reflection on interpersonal and intergroup levels (Steinberg, 2004). Bohm, Factor, and Garret (1991) and Maise (2003) note that successful dialogue explores unvoiced/unconscious ideas, beliefs, and feelings that control communication and behaviors. It furthermore supplies an arena in which collective learning can take place; it supports harmony, fellowship and creativity, among people who desire to listen, learn, and develop new shared understandings (Public Conversation Project, 2003) concerning the conflict and their roles in it. The dialogue process is dynamic and often unpredictable. Participants grapple with understanding the others’ perceptions while reflecting on their own understandings. This is difficult and risky work; the process may lead participants to learn unpleasant things about their own attitudes and behaviors (Chaitin, 2011). One of the most important proponents of dialogue was Martin Buber, who worked for Arab–Jewish relations, before the State of Israel was established (Schmidt, n.d.). Because of his understandings of dialogue, and the groups discussed in this article, it is important to briefly review his main concepts. Buber (1958) averred that it is only through relation that we fully open ourselves to others, an idea which reflects his perspec-

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PERSONAL NARRATIVES IN RESEARCH AND PEACE-BUILDING

tive concerning the dialogical nature of existence. Buber’s concept of the “I–You” (1958) involves being part of a whole and being part of another. In other words, there is no “I” without relation to the “Thou.” This qualitatively differs from the pseudorelation of “I-It” that emphasizes differences and separation. When people engage fully with others, they ultimately meet with themselves. Therefore, human existence cannot be found in the individual or the collective, but in “Man with Man” (Buber, 1947). Hodes (1972, p. 72), a Buberian scholar, states that when people engage in I-Thou dialogue, they recognize new possibilities that appear in . . . “the sphere of the between.” Buber notes that genuine dialogue is rare, and differing radically from “technical dialogue,” which does not engage the soul. True dialogue also differs from “monologues”—speech which keeps people separated from the other, and which brings a false sense that they are engaged in relationship building (Buber, 1947), while they are really only talking at one another. As can be expected, individuals move back and forth between I-It and I-You relations. However, dialogue is more than interpersonal relational building; it is essential for the creation of meaningful communal life. Open intersubjective dialogue supports development of a common discourse, essential for holding a society together. Steinberg (2004) adopted Buber’s concepts for her research that explored the communication process that took place between Jewish and Palestinian participants in year-long group encounters aimed at improving relations between the two peoples. The author found that there were many instances of “communication” which were monologues disguised as dialogue. Steinberg described these monologues as ethnocentric talk, characterized by “. . . argumentation and [the participants] do not share their feelings. Each party seems to be talking to itself, not to the other. The two groups conduct two monologues that do not meet” (p. 475). Unfortunately, Steinberg uncovered very few “dialogical moments” over the years. This category of communication, defined as “a kind of empathy to the other that seems to exemplify . . . cognitive and affective understanding, [a] “real meeting . . . of participating in the other’s experience without losing the self” (p. 475), rarely emerged. In sum, based on Buber’s and Steinberg’s conceptualizations of communication, when people/groups in conflict talk at one another— using monologues or technical dialogue—it is detrimental to peace-building efforts. However, when people succeed in engaging in genuine dialogue, they cocreate a meaningful relationship and make headway toward reconciliation.

Personal Narratives and Peace-Building or Peace-Obstruction—The PalestinianIsraeli Case In the Israeli–Palestinian context, there have been many autobiographies and memoirs (e.g., Amiry, 2004; Bar-On, 2006; Habib, 2007; Kaniuk, 2010; Nusseibeh, 2009; Shehadeh, 2007), research studies (e.g., Armbruster & Emery, 2004; Bar-On & Kassem, 2004; Bucaille, 2004; Chaitin et al., 2009; Gorkin & Othman, 1996; Hammack, 2009; Kassem, 2011; Lieblich, 1994; Lomsky-Feder, 2004; Nets-Zehngut, 2011; Sa’di, 2002) and peace-building initiatives (e.g., Chaitin, 2011; Gordon, Gordon, & Shriteh, 2003; Kaufman-Lacusta, 2010; Kidron, 2004; Salomon, 2004) that have collected, reflected on, and analyzed personal

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narratives connected to the conflict. Unfortunately, many of the testimonies are characterized by suffering and victimization (e.g., Vollhardt, 2009), and at times, nonacceptance of the “other,” which do little to defuse the conflict. This underscores the importance of better understanding the complex ways in which personal narratives of massive social trauma, master narratives, and monologues and dialogues interact with one another in the conflict/ peace-building arenas. In spite of the gloomy picture painted above, research on the use of personal narratives connected to the Palestinian–Israeli conflict has also shown that the narratives can be integral to reconciliation processes (Auerbach, 2009; Bekerman, 2002). Developing empathy is key in such processes; people need to reframe their negative perceptions of the “enemy,” as they try to understand how the other sees the world, and as they go beyond seeing themselves solely as victims of the other (Bar-Tal, Chernyak-Hai, Schori, & Gundar, 2009). Chaitin (2004a, 2011); Bar-On, Litvak-Hirsh, and Othman (2007), and Steinberg and Bar-On (2009) documented instances where the sharing of personal narratives in Israeli–Palestinian group settings opened up communication and new ways of thinking. The opposing narratives were discussed in safe spaces that encouraged dialogue and reflective thinking for autobiographers and listeners (Chaitin, 2004b), and broke down simplistic definitions of “aggressor” and “victim” (Bar-On et al., 2007). In spite of this research, to the best of my knowledge, there has not yet emerged a categorization of personal narratives of massive social trauma, in general, and in the Israeli–Palestinian context, in specific. Furthermore, no conceptualization has been set forth that theorizes under what circumstances narratives can help peacebuilding, or when they can obstruct peace-building efforts. Therefore, I now present such a categorization that connects to the issues discussed previously.

Theoretical Categorization of Personal Narratives of Massive Social Trauma The conceptualization presented here relates to the roles of different kinds of personal narratives during an intractable and bloody conflict (Coleman, 2006). Therefore, although this conceptualization may be relevant for postconflict stages, it cannot yet be assumed that this is the case. It is possible to perceive personal narratives of massive social trauma as representing four points along a continuum (see Figure 1). On one extreme, there are narratives that call for vengeance, followed by narratives of victimhood. The third kind is termed confusion—in which a person moves between being open to the “enemy’s” perspective, while remaining somewhat trapped in feelings of victimhood. The final type is embracing the other, while not relinquishing one’s pain. Whereas people can move from narratives that reflect fear and hatred to narratives of embracing, individuals can also remain situated in one of the stages. It is not theorized that all/most individuals will necessarily begin from the stage of a call for vengeance, or move in a linear fashion from one stage to the next. For example, a person may “start” from a narrative of victimhood and then slowly move to confusion, or alternatively, feel confusion, regress to victimhood, especially if violence erupts again, and from there move to embracing the other

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Call for vengeance

Vicmhood

Obstructs peace-building, especially in monologues, I-It dialogue

Confusion

Embracing the other, while in pain

Encourages peace-building, especially in I-Thou, dialogue groups If: Ongoing process Reflecve process

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Safe space for communicaon Willingness to listen, learn & develop shared understandings

Escalaon in violence

Lull in violence, first negoaon stage

More dichotomous/rigid master narraves

Less dichotomous/rigid master narraves

Chosen trauma “hot”

Chosen trauma present, but not “hot”

Figure 1. A proposed continuum of personal narratives of massive social trauma and their relation to peace-building/peace-obstruction.

after exposure to an “enemy’s” suffering. In short, different possibilities of stability or movement are possible, depending on conditions detailed later. The model conceptualizes that narratives of vengeance and victimhood tend to obstruct peace endeavors— especially in societies in which the conflict appears intractable, and master narratives are dichotomous and rigid, and reiterated often via cultural and educational mechanisms. Narratives of confusion and embracing the other, on the other hand, have good potential to support peace-building efforts, for they hold the seeds of complexity and openness. The potential is enhanced when rigid master narratives begin to break down, there is a lull in the violence, the parties begin to show signs of willingness to negotiate, and/or come to feel that a solution must be found, now seeing the human and physical costs of the conflict as unbearable (Pruitt & Kim, 2004). Furthermore, when narratives of vengeance and victimhood take place in a context characterized by little interpersonal interaction—for example, when an individual is interviewed by a researcher documenting victims’ experiences in war, or when the group does not appear open to hearing stories from the “enemy,”—then the narratives often represent monologues that do not engage the other. When the narratives of victimhood, confusion, and embracing do involve a dialogical group setting, they have the potential to become peace-building endeavors. Not all narratives automatically open up such moments in group encounters. For this to happen, there are additional necessary conditions: a) the group must provide safe spaces for open and direct communication. The participants must refrain from making judgmental or negative comments, or acting in nonverbal ways that signal to the narrator that his or her story is being dismissed; b) it must include a reflective process; c) the encounter needs to be more than a one-time endeavor; and d) participants must be willing

to listen, learn, and be receptive to achieving new (shared) understandings.

Examples From the Palestinian–Israeli Context Below follow exemplars of personal narratives of massive social trauma that reflect each of the categories discussed above. These cases can be seen as ideal types of the ways in which people narrate personal experiences of massive social trauma in the Israeli–Palestinian context. All but the first example come from group encounters with Israelis and Palestinians. (In two of the cases, the groups also included German participants who belonged to a peace organization). The first quote, that exemplifies a call for vengeance, comes from Aaron,1 an Israeli from Hungary who survived Auschwitz as a teenager. Aaron was interviewed in 2003 for a joint Palestinian– Israeli study, which documented life stories of Palestinian refugees from 1948 and Israelis who had been refugees from either the Holocaust or Arab countries, and who immigrated to Israel around 1948. One of the purposes of this project was to bring together the Israeli and Palestinian interviewees for group encounters, though this only happened on a small scale. Aaron, who was asked if he wished to participate, stated that he did not have an interest to meet Palestinians and engage in discussion with them. Aaron focused on the dissolution of his personal and family life after the Nazis invaded Budapest in 1944 and the degradations and violence that he and his loved ones suffered. After Aaron finished his narrative, I asked him to share his views on the Palestinian– 1

All the names are pseudonyms.

PERSONAL NARRATIVES IN RESEARCH AND PEACE-BUILDING

Israeli conflict, including possible solutions to the violence. Aaron said:

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. . . I would put all of the Palestinians on transports and send them to the gas chambers just like they (the Nazis) did with us. And I know Palestinians, I have worked with them and I have had Palestinian friends, but this is what I think . . .

This extremely difficult statement shows that one of the main lessons that Aaron learned from the Holocaust was that genocide is permissible when dealing with an enemy. While Aaron talked about his inability to understand the cruelty of the Nazis and their collaborators toward the Jews, he did not say that they should have been gassed; this suggestion was made only for the Palestinians. His interview showed that talking about his suffering did not reflect working through or a sense of relief. Aaron’s narrative can also be seen as closely reflecting the Israeli master narrative that stresses centuries of Jewish victimization at the hands of others (notably European Christians and Arabs) and demonstrates how the “hotness” of the Holocaust is kept alive, even though the genocide ended years ago and the Jews are no longer stateless. Perhaps Aaron expressed a fantasy that he knows will never materialize; perhaps he just needed to voice his deep frustration and anger toward Palestinians. When I offered him a platform to talk about how the Nazi regime had severely violated his family, and to discuss his experiences with Palestinians, he responded with an ethnocentric monologue that promoted killing of another people, even those he counts as his “friends.” Furthermore, he declined the invitation to attend a Palestinian–Israeli encounter. Although he did not go into detail concerning his decision, his answer showed that had no interest in telling his story to “the enemy” or hearing about their lives. The example of victimhood comes from a narrative presented by a man from Gaza in his twenties who participated in a two-part peace seminar for Israelis, Palestinians, and Germans. The organization that ran this seminar in 2013–2014 focuses mainly on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and aims at helping participants undergo personal transformation to become peace builders in their societies. The seminars aim to support people as they engage in deep reflection concerning one’s place in the Palestinian–Israeli conflict, while trying to understand the conflict from the “enemy’s” point of view. The NGO also stresses nonviolence, the crippling effects of trauma, and the need for developing empathy. Furthermore, it sees the Holocaust past as one of the factors that led to the creation of the Jewish State (and hence ties Germans into the conflict). Participants’ ages ranged from 24 –70, with an equal number of men and women and group members from each society. Ahmed had only once participated in a joint Israeli–Palestinian encounter beforehand, when he attended a peace conference. He was well versed in human rights principles, and had traveled abroad a few times for work (he was employed by an international humanitarian organization); however, he had never found himself, as the only Gazan in the room, face to face with Israelis for a very intensive seminar. During the first 3 days he rarely spoke (although he was fluent in English) and seemed uncomfortable. He often looked down, shook his legs, and looked away whenever the facilitator tried to catch his eye. On the fourth day, the facilitator directly asked him if he would be interested in sharing his personal story of life in Gaza, saying

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that the group was very interested in hearing about his life. Ahmed said yes. He briefly talked about the refugee story of his grandparents, and then delved into the Gaza War (2008 –2009). Here is part of what he said: During the war I was a translator for many of the foreign journalists who came to Gaza. I was only 22 and had never had such a job before. I had to meet with them in all of the places that were being bombed, and there were so many! There were air raids all the time, and everywhere. My house shook constantly from the bombs and windows kept shattering. I also had to accompany them to the hospital where the wounded were taken (At this point he began quietly crying and was silent for about 15 seconds. He wiped away tears and continued in a somewhat broken voice). I saw terrible things. Body pieces, people without limbs, so much blood . . . I had never seen anything like that before. I had to remain professional and interview the wounded and their parents and the doctors because the journalists were counting on me to explain what was going on. I felt sick, but had to go on. I had to help them so that they could let the world know what was happening in Gaza. I couldn’t say no. I still see those sights. I can’t get them out of my head. There was so much blood. The Israelis tried to destroy us, and there was nowhere to run or hide. I was only 22 and had never been prepared for such sights . . .

Ahmed’s narrative contains extreme pain and helplessness and having to bear witness to horrendous sights with “nowhere to run or hide.” He provided graphic images of the death and destruction and the utter fear that he felt during the war, telling us that nothing had prepared him for such an experience, and that he feared that these sights would always haunt him. His entire narrative was about suffering and victimhood at the hands of the Israelis, beginning in 1949 when his grandparents were forced to leave their home in Jaffa, continuing with his description of the ongoing blockade on the Gaza Strip, and ending with his heartbreaking story of the Gaza War. Although Ahmed mostly looked down when telling his story, every person in the room was fixated on him. The room was also very quiet; only Ahmed’s voice broke the silence. During his 25-min narration, he did not have one conciliatory remark to make about Israelis. He painted us (Israelis) as cruel people who have no sense of compassion and justice. Even though he and I had met before, had been in e-mail contact, and had always gotten along, Ahmed avoided looking at me or giving me a sign that he knew that not all Israelis were murderers bent on destroying his people. Ahmed’s narrative was a monologue. Even though he told his story to a group of 21 people who were intensely interested in hearing what he had lived through, no one else spoke. During his talk, he gave us no opportunity to verbally or nonverbally express how engaged we were in his narration since he could not bring himself to look at us. After Ahmed finished, the facilitator asked for comments from the group, asking us to only offer remarks that would express our support. The outpouring of sympathy and empathy from the Israelis was total; all who spoke provided additional safe space so that Ahmed could hear how his narrative had profoundly moved, and perhaps more importantly, disturbed, us all. While Ahmed did not talk at this point, an I-You dialogue developed, as all of the comments were aimed at letting Ahmed know that we had listened deeply and his words also made us look deeper into ourselves. In this case, Ahmed’s personal narrative of victimhood helped the peace-building seminar. Perhaps it was successful because the

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Israeli participants were committed to reaching out to Palestinians and were proponents of a nonviolent end to the conflict. Perhaps it was also successful because of the gentle facilitation techniques. Perhaps the composition of the group also helped; the Germans in the room helped serve as a “buffer” against the Israeli presence. And perhaps its success was because of the fact that Ahmed had witnessed 3 days of empathy and reflection, and so he felt ready to risk sharing his pain with his “enemies” (the Israelis). Although it is impossible to know, if Ahmed had told his story in a setting that differed drastically from the conditions of this one, perhaps the victimhood narrative would have led to ethnocentric talk, marked by defensiveness and disparaging remarks. It can also be hypothesized that such responses would result in peace obstruction, rather than peace building. Perhaps it would have inhibited Ahmed from attending/speaking in another seminar, reconvincing him that Israelis were heartless and cruel while also convincing Israeli participants that Palestinians only wanted to blame Israelis for their troubles. Ahmed attended the second part of the seminar held a few months later. This time he spoke more, and also made what I saw as a dramatic step when he told me during one of the breaks: “You and I understand one another better than anyone, since we both live in the Sderot-Gaza region.” He also said that he would gladly attend another seminar. However, it is also important to note that whenever he spoke in the group, Ahmed had no kind words for Israelis at all, and the victimhood narrative remained salient. The third quote represents confusion, and comes from Imad’s narrative, which he shared at a peace seminar run by the organization described above in 2010. Imad, a Palestinian teacher in his forties from east Jerusalem (occupied by Israel in the 1967 war), described the many difficulties of being a Palestinian from Jerusalem. He defined himself as being “neither here, nor there”— referring to the fact that, on the one hand, he can move freely, unlike Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, but on the other hand, he remains stateless since there is no Palestinian State. He lives in the capital of Israel but is not an Israeli citizen, and therefore, lacks important civil rights (for details of the legal status of Jerusalem Palestinians see http://www.btselem.org/jerusalem/ legal_status). Although Imad had been involved in the organization for a number of years prior to the 10-day seminar, he had often threatened to permanently leave the group (pulling out and coming back a few times) because he felt that the Israelis did not come out strongly enough against the Occupation or disagreed with him on political issues. While the Israelis preferred to focus efforts on civil society work and did not want to discuss political solutions, Imad repeatedly demanded that the organization formulate stands concerning issues such as national boundaries and the Palestinian refugee issue. The group consisted of 15 Israelis, Palestinians, and Germans, between the ages of 35–70. Imad’s personal narrative was very emotional; his voice cracked a number of times and tears welled up in his eyes. At one point, he actually threw his papers on the floor and stormed out, returning a few minutes later, apologizing for his outburst. Imad spoke mainly about the injustices that had been done to him and his students by Israeli soldiers and policemen who often came into his neighborhood “to harass innocent people.” Here are some of Imad’s words:

I was near the window, and I saw my neighbor, and they shot him. Why did they shoot him? What did he do? He didn’t do anything; he was just a regular guy like me. He had a wife and kids and lived next door. He wasn’t a terrorist, he was a business man. He just tried to live his life. They (the Israeli soldiers) said that they yelled at him to stop walking and that he reached for something in his pocket, but it turned out that he was trying to get his handkerchief to wave. They thought it might be a gun. He died in the street and they wouldn’t let us go get him or send for an ambulance. They killed him for no reason because they were scared and saw every one of us as the enemy. They also killed one of my students. He was an honors student, planning to go to college. They shot him because he was throwing stones. Okay, I know that they shouldn’t throw stones and I’ve told them that it’s wrong and they shouldn’t do this, but what can you do? They see the army day and night and they see the settlers moving into our neighborhood and claiming it for themselves, and they are just kids. They shot him in the head! Why didn’t they aim for his leg? They just want to kill.

Later on, Imad continued But I know that there are other Israelis, like you here. I feel that Yitzhak is my brother! (Here he put his hand on Yitzhak’s shoulder who was sitting next to him). I know that he loves me and would do anything to protect me if he saw that I was in danger. (Yitzhak was crying.) I know that there are good Israelis who hate the Occupation and stand with us, but there aren’t enough. I want to believe that there are more, but it’s hard when every day all you see is army and settlers and the cruel face of the Occupation! Damn the Occupation!

Imad’s narrative, like Aaron’s, is also firmly connected to his master narrative—the Palestinian one. His story emphasizes Israeli cruelty and Palestinian innocence (noting that throwing stones isn’t “right,” but immediately excusing the teens for their actions because of their age). However, unlike Aaron’s story, here we have a fissure between the personal and master narrative. There is a tension between his belief that Palestinians and Israelis can be partners in peace, and the difficulty of moving past his perception of most Israelis as blood-thirsty soldiers, who only “want to kill” or usurping settlers who only want to grab land. The master narrative is repeated in his personal story and is expressed in his occasional pulling-out of the peace organization of which he is a member. Furthermore, his narrative moves between ethnocentric monologue and I–You dialogue; at times he focuses solely on Palestinian understandings, and at others, reaches out warmly to an Israeli other. The final quote comes from the personal narrative of an Israeli woman in her thirties who, at the time, was living in a kibbutz located 15 km from the Gaza border. This narrative exemplifies the role of embracing the other, while enmeshed in pain. In 2010, Hadar attended two 3-day seminars that brought together 10 young adults— half from Gaza and half from the Negev region that is under rocket attack. Hadar, an educator, was very interested in joining this group and getting to know Palestinians who lived close to her home. Originally she had been from Sderot (located one kilometer from the border), but she and her boyfriend decided to move farther away since the constant rocket attacks had, in her words, “made me crazy.” When Hadar was asked to tell her story, this is part of what she shared: The day that broke me happened in early 2008 when there were days on end with 50, 60, and 70 rockets fired from Gaza onto Sderot. I remember it like it was yesterday. The tzeva adom (red alert siren)

PERSONAL NARRATIVES IN RESEARCH AND PEACE-BUILDING went off time after time after time. I was at home because I was terrified to leave the house and go to work. I made my boyfriend stay home as well. I didn’t want to be caught outside when the rockets fell. I remember that I didn’t know where to hide; our apartment had no safe room. At one point I crawled into the kitchen and laid down on the floor. All I could do was lay there in a fetal position, next to the refrigerator, like a baby in his mother’s womb. I was shaking and crying and afraid to stand up. I said to my boyfriend: “I can’t take this anymore. We have to get out of here and move somewhere safe. I just want it to stop.” About 2 weeks later we moved to a kibbutz, which is in the Negev, but out of rocket range. I began to breathe again.

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When one of the Palestinians asked her why she came to the seminar, Hadar answered: I come because I believe in peace and believe that most Gazans do as well. It is the extremists on both sides that terrorize us, not the ordinary people. Even as I was lying on that floor and sobbing, I knew that there were people on your side doing the same. I think this is insane and inhumane for all of us. I can’t live like this and I know that you can’t either. Also, my boyfriend was traumatized from his army service, and I know that we need peace so that we can heal. We are all humans and deserve the same rights. You should be able to live without fear and walls and restrictions and I should be able to live in peace in Sderot. I want to go back to Sderot and I want you to be free.

In this example, we see how Hadar moved from her narrative of personal suffering to words of human rights, common suffering, and humanity. Hadar did not devaluate her own pain, but used her story to emphasize to the other participants, and especially the Palestinians, that she believed that her pain and their pain were interconnected and unbearable: Neither would have freedom and security if the other side was left wanting. Hadar’s outlook on the world differs significantly from the others presented previously. Whereas both Hadar and Aaron recounted morbid details of life under existential threat, Hadar expressed a wish to co-create peace with Palestinians from Gaza, and not kill her “enemy.” Ahmed’s narrative focused on continual victimhood rooted in Israeli transgressions, while Hadar’s narrative broke out of victimhood to look for connection. Imad’s uncertainty concerning Israelis’ commitment to peace keeps him vacillating about whether to remain or leave the peace NGO, whereas Hadar believes that Israelis and Gazans must work together to overcome the brutality of their lives, even though her ideas make her vulnerable to hatred of other Israelis who do not agree with her. Hadar has known much pain in life along the border, but she speaks about Israelis and Palestinians whose rights are being trampled by extremists. She is empathetic toward Palestinian pain, and embraces building I–You relationships with Palestinians without diminishing the fear and pain that at times overwhelm her. In Hadar’s story, the Israeli master narrative that focuses on Israeli victimhood and Palestinian terrorists rarely appeared. Her story highlighted her belief in the need for ordinary people from the two sides to work together to achieve normality and peace. Perhaps Hadar was able to tell a narrative of embracing even as she remains in pain because of her openness to cultivating and deepening friendship with Palestinians. Perhaps her prior connections with Palestinians from the West Bank, who she knew from human rights work, and her exposure to her boyfriend’s trauma from his army service, made it possible for Hadar to question and ultimately

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call for a resistance to the two master narratives that proclaim Israelis and Palestinians are doomed to be enemies. Hadar’s narrative was met with great support from the Palestinians. During the break, they came up to her and shook her hand warmly, telling her that they understood what she had been living through. They said that her words gave them hope, because they saw partners for peace in the same room.

Conclusions and Thoughts for Future Study Wheras this article presented examples of personal narratives of massive social trauma connected to the Israeli–Palestinian context, it is hoped that the proposed categorization will have relevance for other peoples engaged in intractable conflicts, because the use of personal narratives in peace-building/reconciliation efforts is far from a unique Middle Eastern phenomenon. For example, Amstutz (2006) in Rwanda, Corntassel and T’lakwadzi (2009) in Canada, Ferguson, Burgess, and Hollywood (2010) in Northern Ireland, Kelsall (2005) in Sierra Leone, and Nannelli (2009) in TimorLeste report findings of such work. It is clear that much more research needs to be undertaken on the ways in which different kinds of personal narratives of massive social trauma can aid processes of reconciliation, or at the very least, help de-escalate the violence. What we can learn from the conceptualization and examples offered here, is that under group conditions that encourage sharing personal narratives (Chaitin, 2004a), offer a safe space for people to be vulnerable (Chaitin, 2004b), and engage in dialogical communication (Buber, 1958; Steinberg, 2004) that includes inner reflection as well as opportunities to critically reconsider master narratives, stories of suffering can become vehicles for peace-building on the microlevel. However, what we have yet to understand more fully is how to turn these small peace efforts into a wider social movement that will move a society from war to peace. It is easy to see how narratives of victimhood, confusion, and embracing the other can support peace-building efforts more readily than narratives of vengeance, if for no other reason than that people who express a wish to harm their enemy will rarely, if ever, agree to meet with them for dialogue. Therefore, one major question that arises concerning the ability to turn vengeance narratives into narratives that can aid peace-building endeavors is what can peace builders do to convince people who feel this way to agree to come into the room? Whereas classical psychosocial research has shown ways to bring together people who hold prejudices for one-on-one meetings (e.g., Allport, 1954), much more work is needed on learning how to bring together victims of massive social trauma, who are locked into narratives of vengeance, to begin a peace-building dialogue process. Whereas this article proposes that it is inadvisable to introduce vengeance and victimhood narratives into peace-building efforts without first making sure that facilitators have sufficiently prepared a group setting that will be conducive for sharing and reflection, systematic research in different group contexts is necessary. We also need to closely examine different communication settings to be able to better match personal narrative types with specific peace-building activities. For example, for groups that have experience in sharing personal stories and listening to the story of the “enemy,” narratives of victimhood should be less threatening and invoke less defense mechanisms than for groups

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that are hearing difficult stories for the first time. Additionally, we should look at impacts that personal narratives of embracing the other have on a large audience that comes to hear a victim speak publicly about his or her experiences. There are at least five issues that should be further explored that deal with the use of narratives in peace-building work: a) If this conceptualization is relevant for the Israeli–Palestinian case and other ongoing intractable conflicts, what needs to be done to multiply the effect of peace-building narratives on a wider societal level; b) Is the categorization useful for societies in a negotiation or postconflict stage or are there additional factors that need to be taken into consideration when using personal narratives in reconciliation processes among “enemies” who have committed to deescalating the conflict? c) Is there a difference between using oral narratives and written ones of massive social trauma? Can both be used interchangeably or is one type preferable over another in certain group settings or for impacting wider societal discourse? d) How does the social-political context impact the narrator, and the way s/he tells his story, and the listener, concerning what s/he takes away from it? e) How does the particular narrator–listener interaction influence what is told, how it is told, and whether or not the autobiographer comes away feeling that s/he was listened to, or that s/he was dismissed or misunderstood? I propose that if we can encourage people to move from only narrating about the harm they have suffered, and instead use the opportunity to reflect more about how the trauma has impacted personal and societal perceptions of the conflict, there is a chance to break out of our memory prisons that keep us incarcerated in pain, fear, and hate, and form a moral community (Margalit, 2002) that can help us move to a path of reconciliation. It is my hope that by further exploring the complexities of personal narratives of massive social trauma, we will accomplish three goals: We will extend our theoretical understandings; we will gain insights into how to encourage and sustain personal working through processes; and we will be better prepared to help our societies create mechanisms that encourage and sustain peacebuilding, minimize peace obstruction, and prepare the way for genuine reconciliation. Keywords: Israeli-Palestinian dialogue; peace-building

conflict;

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narratives;

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