| |
April 5, 2004
Report of an 10/23/03 "Beyond History and Memory" seminar, a series
cosponsored by the Council's History and the Politics of Reconciliation Program and Columbia
University.
Kai Erikson’s project here is exploring what causes violence to break out
between people who have lived peacefully as neighbors for the majority of their
history. How do people with similar customs and life-styles, living and working
side by side, often even intermarrying, begin to see themselves as belonging to
ethnically distinct and hostile groups, and how does this breakdown into
polarized identities lead to extreme acts of violence? Can the process be
foreseen? What can the memories of people who lived through this process
themselves tell us about how it started and spiraled out of control? In
addressing these questions, distinguished sociologist Kai Erikson described his
many journeys to the town of Pakrac, in the former Yugoslavia, beginning during
the war in 1992, and the interviews he conducted with current and former
residents of the town.
Neighbors into Enemies
Pakrac is a town in Western Slavonia, now part of the post-Yugoslav independent
state of Croatia. The town was settled by Serb refugees during the Hapsburg
period, and by the 1990s the population of 8,200 was roughly half Serb and half
Croatian. Close to half the marriages in the town were ethnically mixed. In
1991, the town was divided by the UN down its center, with Serbs on one side and
Croats on the other. The line of demarcation separated former friends, neighbors
and families; many inhabitants of the town found themselves separated from at
least one parent. During “Operation Flash,” in 1995, the town was overrun by the
Croatian Army, after which it became part of Croatia, with most Serb inhabitants
fleeing to Serbia, frequently to the town of Banja Luka, which, in its turn, had
been “ethnically cleansed” of its many prewar non-Serb inhabitants.
Erikson made a first, unexpected visit to the town in 1992, from Austria,
where he was working on an unrelated project. He was struck by the tragic and
rapid change in Pakrac’s fate and the fact that, despite many authoritative
statements in the international press and by policy-makers about the roots of
the violence, very few studies, in fact, have been done of memories and
attitudes of survivors of this kind of conflict. Since then, Erikson, together
with two co-workers, has interviewed over 250 people. Some were interviewed in
Pakrac itself and some, former residents, were traced to places where they had
found refuge and interviewed there.
An selection from an interview illustrates the kind of questions raised by
what happened in Pakrac: a returning Croat whose own house was destroyed by the
fighting was asked why he chose to blow up a Serbian neighbor’s abandoned,
inhabitable house rather than move into it. He answered only, “It seemed like
the right thing to do.” What, asks Erikson, do answers like this mean? Was the
Croat’s action revenge? Was the house of his former neighbor polluted for him?
How accurate is the image of a multi-ethnic society undermined by secret
channels of mutual hatred that are always ready to break out and overwhelm it—an
image found in the work of native writers like Ivo Andric and outside observers
like Rebecca West, and now so commonplace that they have become clichés in
speaking of the Balkans? And do the local people agree with it?
No one interviewed by Erikson or his associates shares this view of a history
of animosity, which inevitably led to conflict. Everyone interviewed agrees that
there was no history of ethnic hostility in the region from the end of World War
II until 1991. An awareness of ethnic distinctions did exist but there is no
proof that hostilities are somehow characteristic of certain groups or regions,
including the Balkans. The question then becomes, how did people who had lived
together in relative harmony come to see other groups as so utterly alien?
What Erikson did find is that Croats and Serbs of Pakrac agree on some facts
about the course of events following Tito’s death in 1980, when space appeared
for the advancement of nationalist leaders and the movements they built.
However, significantly, each group tells the story differently, emphasizing
different events, and the role of the press contributed to the widening of the
gulf between the two groups. Finally, all events began to seem to the
protagonists like part of a pattern; every incident began to have a meaning
related to hostility, suspicion, and preparations for war and violence. Paranoia
became ubiquitous.
A telling fact is that every Croat interviewed believes that Serb neighbors
knew the attack on the Croats by the Serb army was coming and could have warned
them—and every Serb denies it. The picture is complicated by the fact that
plausible evidence supports parts of each account: for example, Serb and Croat
farms and houses are indistinguishable, and the army was composed of outsiders,
but nonetheless it only dynamited Croat homes, which has led Croats to believe
that Serbian neighbors must have told the army whose homes to attack. What is
universal is the sense of betrayal on both sides. (In this town, locals did not
for the most part participate in the violence themselves, but in addition to the
possibility of betrayal of neighbors to outside forces, local Croats have often
treated Serbs trying to move back or check on their houses with hostility or
evasiveness, even when the returning person was a neighbor or former friend.)
One result of this sense of betrayal, which destroyed the fabric of the
earlier society, is the new homogeneity of towns like Pakrac. In addition, and
throughout the region, people for whom the differing ethnicity—usually largely
defined by religious affiliation—of their neighbors was of little importance now
have retreated into shelters of strongly defined ethnicity; for example, once
secular Croats, Serbs and Bosnians have now become more observant Catholics,
Orthodox Christians and Muslims.
Finally, Erikson’s research explores the roots of what has been called “the
narcissism of small differences” in times of violence, the magnification of what
should be insignificant differences between different ethnic groups that has
been seen so tragically in places like Northern Ireland and Rwanda. One of the
most disturbing and inexplicable aspects of the conflict in the Balkans was that
of bodily mutilation. In trying to formulate an explanation, Erikson refers to
what he calls the “shattering of the mirror of similarity between those who
became enemies.” One of the great difficulties that the people of Yugoslavia
faced is that it was impossible to distinguish the designated Enemy from
oneself, so alike were all the people. And despite the fact that all reliable
scholarship reveals that the greatest number of atrocities came from one group
(Serbs), each side inflicted on others what they claimed their group had
suffered, and in various accounts of the violence, if you remove certain key
words (“mosque” or “church,” for example), it becomes impossible to distinguish
which side is speaking, so alike are the accounts of events.
Based on his interviews, Erikson hypothesizes a kind of “projection strategy”
which consists of this unacknowledged psychological process: “You and I are
alike. I know what you think. I can sense that my only defense is to strike you.
My actions are thus your fault, and so my atrocious behavior is yours.” Put in
other terms, similar thinking by the Enemy is attributed to the undeniable
similarities between members of one group and those of another, which is
followed by the assumption of the Enemy’s intention to do harm, and the belief
that the evils I myself committed originated in my Enemy’s mind. Read this way,
the accounts of bodily mutilation carried out across the region can be
understood both as a way to mark, or differentiate, members of groups which were
in fact very similar but had been designated enemies, and also as a way to
punish the Enemy for causing the violent acts one is committing oneself.
Questions and Answers
QUESTION: Can you elaborate on the developments which led to the final
events in the region?
KAI ERIKSON: The role of the press has not yet been sufficiently
explored. It apparently created a level of discourse in which identity, not so
important before the years leading up to the conflict, was reified and widely accepted. Lurid reporting took place at a
level that would not be recognizable to us here in the U.S. today, and created
both a strong sense of fear and a perceived need for militancy. In addition,
there was the role of bands of young men who acquired arms and were mobilized,
people who in other societies might be called sociopaths. They were recognized
for what they were in the former Yugoslavia but somehow they were able to set a
spiral of violence in motion that could not be checked. Behind the press and
these armed gangs were groups and individuals who were trying to get power and
the spoils of power, local leaders as well as national. They understood the
useful role of fear, the power of instability and of a social vacuum. We cannot
underestimate the ease with which people get drawn into conflict once they hear
reports about members of their own group being harmed.
QUESTION: Were there any examples of neighbors who maintained their
neighborliness? If so, how do we account for the existence of both kinds of
examples?
KAI ERIKSON: Little work has been done by sociologists on this issue;
mostly it is journalists who have written on it, and many of their descriptions
are very good. There are definitely examples of one group helping another during
the war, protecting the property of neighbors who were driven away, for example.
It is worth noting that the hypothesis that most damage in civil wars is done by
neighbors with grudges has not been borne out by my research. The phenomenon has
only been reliably reported as being a factor in behavior within the detention
camps.
QUESTION: What was the fate of the many mixed families in Pakrac?
KAI ERIKSON: In the rural world, the greatest allegiance is still to
blood ties, not those made by marriage. Those urban people of the former
Yugoslavia who had intermarried were much less affected than the population of
the countryside and small towns, so some intermarried people who moved to the
cities remained together. Of those that remained in Pakrac, many couples
separated and remain so. About 50% of mixed couples seem to have stayed
together, and of those, about 50% did so by moving to the cities. Children of
families that split up were forced to choose between one parent, one identity
and another.
QUESTION: Based on these interviews, how do you conceive the
difference between international war and civil war? In general discussions, wars
tend too often to be mixed together; there appear to be striking differences and
perhaps these are not stressed enough. Civil war is apparently a totally
different animal from, say, an Ottoman invasion of the region, where trust would
not have been expected even before the invasion. Is it true that in the case of
civil wars there is a prewar level of trust inherent in the society which has
been shattered, with much more disastrous results for social reconstruction?
KAI ERIKSON: I agree with this analysis. A breaking of trust is never
such a big issue when an outside aggressor is involved. That is why partition
seems like a solution so often because it restores a sphere where people can
trust one another, only now based on perceived similarity. There is in general a
distinction between disasters that happen naturally and those that come about
through acts of betrayal among a people who have lived gathered together. When a
neighbor becomes an enemy, the situation is intolerable.
--Contributed by Senior Program Officer Lili Cole
Further Reading:
Return and
Trust Rebuilding Project, Pakrac [DOC].
Description of a reconciliation
project organized by a local non-governmental organization, the Center for
Peace, Non-Violence and Human Rights, based in Osijek, Croatia, which was
founded during the war.
Erikson referred to these two seminal works in his talk: Ivo Andric’s novel
The Bridge on the Drina is a classic, if grim picture of the
relations between the various peoples of the region—Turks, converted Slav
Muslims (Bosnians), Orthodox Serbs, Roma (gypsies), Jews and Catholic
Croats—throughout their modern history. In the novel, violence between these
peoples feels fated and inescapable; individuals seem to be moved like chess
pieces by the forces of fate. Erikson’s findings indicate that this artistic
rendering of Yugoslav history is not the whole picture—but the novel is referred
to so often, by inhabitants of the region as well as by outsiders, that it is
well worth reading.
Rebecca West’s Black Lamb, Grey Falcon, a detailed description of her
travels through the region in the early twentieth century’s one of the most
beautiful pieces of travel writing in the English language, although it is
misleading in the sense that it reinforces the notion that ethnic enmities in
the Balkans run deep and can be understood as the basis of the 1991 eruptions.
The book foreshadows the century of violence which awaited the region West knew
and loved, but also catches the compelling nature of the Balkans, its mixed
population and its history as a crossroads where great empires rich in diverse
cultures met, clashed and left behind traces of their presence in art, music,
architecture, cooking and festivals.
Kai Erikson’s earlier work examined how communities react to disaster,
particularly natural disaster, and began with a study of the town of Buffalo
Creek after a devastating flood, Everything in Its Path: Destruction of Community in the Buffalo
Creek Flood (Simon & Schuster, 1976). More recently he has become
interested in the distinct reactions to disasters that are manmade, including
accidents at nuclear facilities and environmental disasters such as toxic leaks.
A New Species of Trouble: Explorations in Disaster, Trauma and
Community. (W.W. Norton & Co., 1994) is his comparative study of the
impact of several such disasters on communities and their citizens. Erikson’s
as-yet unpublished multiyear study of the town of Pakrac adds to this research
the factor of interethnic conflict, how a community reacts to a disaster in
which all forms of destruction are the results of deliberate human violence, not
just negligence, greed or human error.
|
|
