Introduction: Making the Cross Count
David Porter

Comment: We Don't Have to do Anything
Denis Bambrick

Affliction
David Bolton

When Worlds Collide
Alwyn Thomson

The Way of the Cross
David Porter

Parades Commission
David Porter

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AFFLICTION
Why the afflicted should have a say in peace making

In the first part of my article (Victims of Violence) I sought to identity three key tasks which I believe to be central elements in our response to those who have suffered through violence. These are: acknowledging, remembering and learning. In this submission I would like to propose how these tasks can be given effect in a way which enables those who have suffered to be part-owners of a peace process. As before I am not speaking on behalf of any group or for those who have been affected by violence. I come to these sensitive issues as a social worker who has worked with people who have been bereaved and injured through acts of violence.

Affliction (in French, maiheur) is a word used by the French mystic and philosopher Simone Weil to encapsulate the experiences of one who has suffered. She describes affliction as suffering caused by another person, and it involves physical pain and humiliation held in place by fear. Pain and the fear of pain caused by others leads to something akin to death in the mind and soul of one who suffers. Affliction seems like the absence of God. It involves an inability to love. People experience scorn, disgust, guilt, defilement and self-hatred. 'Affliction... deprives its victims of their personality, and makes them into things'. Such people 'have no words to express what is happening to them'.

This description of suffering through violence describes, powerfully and poetically, the experience of the one who suffers, and describes well the experience of many who have suffered as a consequence of the violence within and between our communities. Affliction through violence is generally an experience of a breach of trust. Most of us grow up and live our lives with an underlying belief that the world is a positive and safe place to live in. Such beliefs, which are fundamentally important for our psychological well being, are seriously threatened by experiences of violence. We lose faith with the world.

Within the context of a process that we hope will lead us to peace, it is therefore of greatest importance that as a community we address the experience of affliction and the breach of trust that many people have known.

If we fail to do this we will not enable those who have suffered through violence to unpack the experience of affliction and to belong in the peace which we all hope will be achieved. Victims of violence run the very real risk of being left out in the cold when settlements are being reached and when peace can truly be declared. If we fail to acknowledge and address the needs of victims of violence, we will not have enabled them to bring to a completion the tasks of mourning and adjustment. We will have further marginalised, and therefore afflicted, those who have suffered most directly and profoundly, through the tragedy that has befallen us all.

Bridging the Gap
There is a gap to be bridged between those who have suffered through violence and those who have been responsible for that violence. The gap is at an interpersonal level, and relates to the accountability by those responsible for the violence and the accommodation of those responsible for violence by those who have suffered. Both the afflictor and afflicted will be challenged to respond in a way which goes beyond what might be expected, and in the case of the victims of violence, beyond what we might reasonably expect. The challenge facing the victims of violence is that of forgiveness. This is a response which many have struggled with, some finding that forgiveness is not possible without an explanation or an apology, and even if that is forthcoming, forgiveness would still be difficult or impossible. The response of forgiveness would be less difficult and make more sense if it is matched by an acknowledgement of the suffering and acceptance of responsibility for the terror, injury, death and destruction.

How can such responses be enabled? How can they be enabled in a way which clarifies the hurt and sorrow of those who suffer through violence? How can the wider community be helped to accept and understand the depth of pain people have suffered?

The Resolution of Grief and Suffering
In the transition from violent conflict to peace involving accommodation, and constructive processes and alternatives to violence, our attention is removed increasingly from the suffering and losses and from the causes. We need to know that for many people who have been afflicted through violence, the present political interactions and positioning makes them feel that, already, they and their suffering and losses have been forgotten. There is the possibility that while we can never fully set aside the pain of the past 25 years, it will increasingly cease to move those of us who have not been afflicted. The prospect and experience of peace will distance us from the conflict and fill our lives with different and more positive things. There is a real danger we will cease to recognise the suffering that goes on behind the closed doors of the homes of those who have suffered through violence.

Set against that, there is the need to allow us all to move on. To move towards peace, to embrace and enjoy the experience, not just for ourselves and our families, but for our neighbours too. Those who have suffered and lost must also be allowed to move on. This article seeks to draw attention to the fact that for many, there will be no moving on, until a number of matters are first of all addressed.

The response of forgiveness would be less difficult and make more sense if it is matched by an acknowledgement of the suffering and acceptance of responsibility for the terror, injury, death and destruction.

The Forum would be established with the support the Governments, the politic parties in Northern Ireland the Churches, and legitimised and empowered to receive submissions from the victims of violence. It would be funded jointly by the two Governments and possibly with additional international funds. The Forum would be presided over by person of high standing, held in esteem by the sponsoring Governments, parties and churches. Other members with relevant experience of the conflict would assist the chairperson. The Forum would have a secretariat to support its business, and would be located at a designated place in Northern Ireland, with the freedom to convene at other locations if desirable. It would be strictly non-political and would only receive evidence which articulates the human and personal pain and suffering. Submissions could be received in person or in writing (or in forms determined by and acceptable to the Forum). They would be recorded and placed on record in published form due account being taken of confidentiality where necessary). At the completion of its task, the Forum would issue a final report with any observations and recommendations for the attention of the sponsoring Governments, parties and churches. This would address matters such as the overall impact and scale of violence, the nature and type of further help support for victims, and on how we ought to remember in a sensitive and meaningful way. The Forum should initially convene for up to 2 years (and make recommendations months after 8 months as to whether that should be extended).

The Forum should draw guidelines as to what circumstances and experiences should be taken account of in determining who are the victims of violence, and may seek advice from others on this matter. These considerations should be completed within 2 months of being established, to allow the Forum to commence its primary task as early as practicable. Within that framework, all who regard themselves as victims of violence would have the right to make a submission.

The timing for the institution of the Forum would depend in part on the decisions being reached about a political settlement, but the voice of those afflicted through violence needs to be part of the considerations in talks. Therefore, the Forum should be instituted as soon as is practicable.

There is the potential for this Forum to be used by political interests for political gain. Such misuse of the Forum would be unacceptable. Politicians and Governments would be required to mandate the Forum, and commit themselves to learning from it, but would have to avoid interfering with its task of providing a setting for the telling of the story of the suffering of individuals.

Declaration and Acknowledgement
In preparing this submission, I tried to shape a proposal for a second Forum which would hear the perspective of those responsible for violence. Its function, within the terms of this submission, would primarily be aimed at enabling those responsible for violence and the consequent suffering to declare their involvement, so that those who suffered could hear a reason, an explanation, an acknowledgement, and possibly even an apology. Such a process would provide that other part of the equation of acknowledgement, forgiveness and reconciliation. It would also provide an opportunity for those who have been responsible for violence to, in some way, begin their own journey of reconciliation with themselves.

This proposal could have considerable potential, along with the Forum for People Afflicted through Violence, in facilitating the proper conclusion of matters between victims and those responsible for violence, which is an essential ingredient of a wholesome peace.

There are problems, however, with this second proposal, which are beyond the restrictions of this article, and which relate to legal, constitutional and political matters. Nevertheless, I would appeal to Governments and politicians to seriously consider how the process described could be facilitated, through a proper, acceptable and honourable framework. In the promotion of reconciliation the balance between pragmatic political agreements and the upholding of principles and values which underpin common law and our common human experience, needs to be carefully judged.

This article has explored how the voice of the members of our total community, and others in places further afield, who have been afflicted through the violence can be heard and accommodated within a peace making process. The suffering and loss of those who have been bereaved, injured and traumatised, and the all too great a number of those who have been killed, are at the heart of the tragedy of the conflict between our communities. This remains a matter which needs to be addressed in a serious way, as a corner stone of peace and peace making. The violence and the death, injury and suffering it resulted in, are all key elements. Within the process of peace making, one of the motives which has driven us to make peace has been the need to address the violence and its causes. Within our peace making we must also address its consequences. In the process of reaching a settlement, our community and its representatives will need to do business with those responsible for violence. It must not neglect to also do business with the victims of violence.

In the promotion of reconciliation the balance between pragmatic political agreements and the upholding of principles and values ...needs to be carefully judged.

David Bolton trained as a social worker and has worked extensively with people bereaved and psychologically traumatised by tragic and violent experiences. He is currently manager of Community Services in the Omagh area and Chairperson of the Omagh and Fermanagh District Partnership for Peace and Reconciliation. This article is taken from a paper submitted to the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation.