Chapter 1
The post-conflict paradox:
Engaging war, creating peace
In cases of civil war or intrastate conflict, the signing of a peace agreement brings international resources and personnel to bear on disarming, demobilizing, and reintegrating soldiers, reforming the security sector, building institutions, establishing good governance, conducting truth and reconciliation projects, and instituting transitional justice (Anderlini 2007: 15). When implemented, each of these macro level enterprises includes actors and organizations on the meso and grassroots levels (Lederach 1997: 44–55). These goals also attempt to engage causal dynamics and effects of the war while at the same time building a national framework that creates and sustains a political and social landscape of peace (Young 1997: 48–49). As the primary focus for personnel and resources rests on the macro level with elite or emerging elite leadership, relatively few tangible benefits of peace make it down to the majority of the population. War survivors, in general, initially hold fast to the knot of war weariness and generalized post-conflict hope, giving the international community and the state space to implement aspects of the peace agreement (Maulden 2007: 199). Over time, however, the knot can unravel as people continue to suffer their own personal experiential legacy from the war as well as ongoing economic uncertainty, lack of government services, and community and social conflicts. In essence, individuals cannot only re-experience the material deprivations that existed prior to the war but also struggle with the war-related burden of physical and psychological trauma and loss.
Causal factors influencing the presence, or indeed the absence, of civil war remain a subject for consideration. Cater (2003: 41) postulates that economic and political differentiation between intrastate groups derives from state institutional structures and practices and can lead to insurrection and violence. Collier et al. (2009: 21–22) have moved from focusing exclusively on greed and grievance to investigating a wider range of social and political variables that include feasibility factors such as income, natural resources, peace duration, population, social fractionalization and composition, and motivation. Keen (2000: 25), on the other hand, presents a top-down (elite) and bottom-up (grassroots) model, similar to the Lederach Approaches to Building Peace leadership triangle (1997: 39), to demonstrate the operationalization of intrastate violence; political leaders and entrepreneurs mobilize violence for their own political and economic ends, bottom-level individuals and groups participate in the violence either as part of or in response to top-level actions and policies. If the violence continues or escalates, individuals in the mid-range of the Lederach triangle, religious leaders, civil society leaders, and academics find themselves faced with the difficult choice of how to respond to ongoing circumstances. At this point, the exploration of process and practice (Richards 2005: 21–22) of war or peace becomes increasingly salient, particularly as intrastate or civil wars can seep into all levels of socio-cultural, political, and economic life potentially becoming a “total war at the grassroots level” (Summerfield 1998: 33).
Whether individuals living through war and violence fall into the by-stander, elite, or opposition categories, the injuries, deprivations, and inequities can link personal, political, and societal problems. This interpersonal sharing of negative, often violent, experience moves suffering from the individual to the social realm (Kleinman et al. 1997, ix). The idea of social suffering blurs the boundaries between the individual and the group and opens the door to the consideration of political, economic, institutional, and socio-cultural factors as dimensions of the suffering, as well as the healing dynamic. This chapter, based on fieldwork conducted in Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Burundi – each country recently emerged from civil war – highlights researcher observation and respondent narrative in an exploration of trauma, post-conflict healing, and recovery.1 As people spoke indirectly about suffering experienced both during the war, as well as in the new post-conflict environment, they did not separate experience from context, citing, for example, lack of economic opportunities, corruption by political officials, and ethnic tensions as realities integral to their lives past and present. These realities often destroyed the socio-cultural bonds that held individuals and communities together and, if ignored, could hinder social and political reconciliation during the post-conflict period (Jeong 2005: 155). Reconciliation as considered in this chapter involves individuals and groups working to restore broken relationships and learning, as a result, to live nonviolently with radical differences (Ramsbotham et al. 2005: 231).
Herman posits that psychological trauma can, among other things, be considered an affliction of the powerless (Herman 1997: 33). As such, post-conflict trauma healing and recovery for individuals and for socio-cultural groups often depend upon finding power and agency in the aftermath of war through political, economic, and social avenues. In addition, social and cultural considerations play important roles in the expression and conceptualization of war experiences, in individual differences in the appraisal process (Friedman and Marsella 1996: 23–4), and in consciousness, memory, and identity (Kirmayer 1996: 147–50). The individuals and groups spoken to in the country cases support these assertions as will be examined below. The chapter proceeds with a section exploring subjective interactions, discussing the contextual dimensions of civil war, the intervention of violence and nonviolence, and individual and group engagement with socio-cultural symbols and narrative in relation to making meaning under difficult circumstances. The following section examines the nature of social suffering in relation to recovery, focusing on agency, empowerment, creativity, individual variables that could play a role in learned optimism, and the importance of human security. The focus then shifts to reconciling suffering through remembering, cultural representations, and focusing on future oriented actions, with examples from ongoing programs. The considerations and constraints section presents concerns such as structural and cultural violence, marginalization of youth and non-elite, scarcity of resources at all levels, unofficial processes taking the place of government policy, and comparative observations from 2004 and 2010.
Subjective interactions
In Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Burundi and indeed all places where civil war thrives, violence becomes a frequent and thereby normal individual and group experience. To survive, individuals subjectively engaged with the violently normal through appraisal processes and (re-)conceptualizations of the self and others in light of contextual determinations, developing both coping and engagement strategies (Kleinman 2000: 238; Kirmayer 1996: 153). As these strategies or cognitive, emotional, and practical rationalizations are adapted and adopted by more and more individuals and groups, they become replicated and routinized, in time becoming part of accepted socio-cultural norms, values, and practices. When violence serves as the intervening variable effecting behavior, this re-valuing process can be termed social militarization, or the predisposition to use or sanction violence to solve personal and group problems. In the post-conflict environment, on the other hand, social demilitarization processes occur as nonviolent social actions enter into every day experience, undergo subjective appraisal and evaluation, and cognitive and emotional re-conceptualizations formulate and are routinized through individual and social nonviolent action (Maulden 2007: 19).
For example, as part of the “Never Again” Campaign sponsored by an international organization in early post-war programming, rural women belonging to a Bondo traditional female organization in the northwest Temne region of Sierra Leone (see Shaw 2002) organized a ceremony that gives substance to the ephemeral concepts of social militarization and demilitarization. The Bondo devil statue, painted or singed black, represented the society's spiritual and socio-cultural power and influence in the local communities. Over time, however, the statue came to reflect the conduct of the war, which especially devastated that part of the country and involved various spiritual and traditional dynamics. In a public ceremony and celebration the women covered the statue in white paint and fabric, traditionally symbolizing the desire for peace. Re-covering the statue gave tangible form to the idea that peace can envelop the darkness of violence. In so doing, Bondo society members individually and as a group uncoupled (in the present) their organization and traditions from violence and war (the past) and aligned themselves with nonviolence and peace (the future). Other community members, when viewing the reformed devil, could recall the overt as well as the implied messages, employ appraisal and attribution processes, and generate personal meanings that could shape their present and future social actions. Stories emerging around the devil's transformation could provide a cultural shape around which future nonviolent actions align.
While the Bondo devil story points to the variety of forms the long processes of individual and social demilitarization may take, the re-painting of a statue, while perhaps providing a starting place, remains insufficient for sustainable individual and group reconciliation and post-war recovery. When the war ends and the violence stops, the suffering dynamic does not immediately cease but continues through the memories, bodily violations, psychic distress, trauma, and illnesses that endure. On the other hand, peace accords and peace programs can help to foster a gentle shift toward reconsideration and healing. This reality constitutes the post-conflict paradox – remembering, perhaps re-living the war, while envisioning and conceptualizing the peace. A corollary reflects where to “place” the creation, manifestation, and continuation of peace or the ability to handle conflict with empathy, nonviolence, and creativity (Galtung et al. 2000: 19–21). Boulding (2000: 1–2) posits peace as an action that involves continuous reshaping of understandings, circumstances, and behaviors to create and sustain well-being for individuals and groups. She further notes that because aggression can penetrate all levels of analysis from the global, regional, state, community, interpersonal, to the individual, the processes of nonviolence and peace must follow similar paths to deal with human differences and their attendant conflicts. With these ideas in mind, the placement of peace as a process blurs boundaries and conceptual domains. With this broad scope of potential for peaceful influence, individuals, groups, institutional frameworks, and socio-cultural norms, values, and practices at each level of analysis have an important role to play in not only the war-to-peace transition but also in the continuing work of consolidation and sustainability. Post-conflict interactions between the international, state, local, and individual levels, as will be described further below, add to the complexity of moving away from war and violence. At the same time, however, the expansive terrain for interaction could facilitate increased potential for the conceptualization and implementation of peaceful practices.
During fieldwork in the countries listed above, community members rarely used the word “trauma” to describe the violent and certainly traumatic events that happened during the war. Individuals positioned the “events” beyond themselves, referring to wartime life as “very difficult” and to post-conflict life as a new road down which the country – and they – might travel. At the same time, however, they offered stringent critiques on political parties and governments and occasionally placed at least partial blame for the war on themselves and their communities. Suárez-Orozco and Robben (2000) point out that large-scale violence occurs in complex contexts intertwined with psychic, social, cultural, economic, and political dimensions, targeting social bonds and cultural practices. Meaning making, on the other hand, constitutes a fundamental human activity (Laue and Cormick 1978: 218) that allows individuals to find their place in the world no matter what the circumstances. As people struggle to make sense and meaning out of lives and selves irreparably changed by violence, images, metaphors, and narrative strands emerge from socio-cultural symbolizing systems, blending with individual traits and circumstances. This process allows individuals to call upon their own agency, their own essence, to redefine identity, increase self understanding, and reweave ways of anticipating and engaging with the world. These processes can ease the sense of powerlessness (Neimeyer 2001: 263) and by “naming the abyss” (Arvay 2001: 224) gain some control over it.
In Liberia, the phrase “put cement on everything for them,” spoken by a traditional leader, referred to the historical role of the elders and the hierarchical system in resolving individual and community conflicts. This calls to mind the spiritual nature of tradition and the increased political power held by traditional councils since the decentralization of government after the war. On the other hand, an international nongovernmental organization (NGO) funded and facilitated the reconfiguration of traditional leaders into a national presence, serving as example of the expansive post-conflict terrain described above. The use of this particular form of “cement” however, reconceptualizes the centuries old claims of tradition – a tradition encouraged by some, found burdensome or onerous by others.
A young man in Burundi who experienced ethnic violence during his school days and now spends his working life advocating for peace and justice demonstrates another example of the linkages between domains of influence and conceptualization. He maintained that barriers of fear shift by talking about what happened. For him, this proved quite literally true. The positioning of fear as a barrier and talk as a means to move that barrier can resonate strongly. On the other hand, shifting the barrier does not remove it, as he acknowledged himself during further discussion around teetering democracy, corrupt national institutions, the bribing of public officials to gain access to public goods and services, and so on. From a different point of view, adults in Sierra Leone often repeat the phrase: “save the children kill the parents.” This references not only the specific international organization and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Report but also ongoing international and state pressure to implement child rights across sectors – this dynamic can also be found in Liberia. Adults insist that children's responsibilities be included into any child-related rights policy and that the power to control and influence children remain in adult hands. In part these concerns hark back to pre-war, traditional child rearing practices, recognizing that the child, in traditional societies, also possesses spiritual powers that need to be accessed sequentially through careful initiation at the proper developmental level (Moran 2006: 146–7). Adult responses to the intervention of a child-rights agenda, however, also reflects the trauma and fear of the war years as child fighters took adult power into their own hands, killing, maiming, creating havoc and destruction in communities across the country. Children, for their part, seem well aware of their rights and, according to many conversations in Sierra Leone and Liberia, are often not shy about pointing them out to parents or guardians.
The examples in this section highlight the influences of and tensions between the international, state, and individual interpretations and evaluations of post-conflict policies and practices. In addition, these interactions are posited as providing at least the potential for the creation and manifestation of the ability to handle conflict nonviolently. As this occurs and becomes a part of everyday life, individuals and groups can conceptualize and incorporate nonviolent social action within and across domains. The section examples also demonstrate how multiple meanings can be taken from narrative phrases depending upon individual experiences and attitudes (Gonçalves et al. 2000: 276). The narrative strands themselves offer individuals a way to view life, develop alternative possibilities for understanding and individual action (Gergen and McNamee 2000: 334–5), and in essence, attempt to stave off powerlessness as they position the self in a world that can seem out of control.
Social suffering and recovery
Residents of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Burundi traditionally envision people and relationships as a form of wealth for the present as well as for the future (Honwana 2006: 52; Bayart et al. 1999: 32; Chabal and Daloz 1999: 75; Bledsoe 1980: 47). Through processes of coping or reconstructing personal and social worlds, as explored briefly above, individuals endeavor to recover the ordinary, to recall and reconstitute everyday nonviolent life, and to establish new and to reclaim former relationships. While institutional remedies – justice, political and economic equity, for example – can be considered essential to the overall sustainability of peace, so too are socio-cultural and individual efforts to refashion the normal. The socio-cultural and individual efforts gain added importance when institutional remedies flounder, promises are broken, and trust in government is waning or absent. Articulation of the post-conflict landscape needs to encompass discussion that engages society, promotes respect, and encourages new socio-cultural as well as political and economic solutions. Beyond simple declarations, however, lie the complex details of process, both personal and social.
Processes involve multiple possibilities or socio-cognitive variables – for example interpretations of situations/events, expectations, and goals – that mediate and regulate social action (Dweck 2000: 139). This mediation/regulation happens through personal attribution and appraisal, as discussed above, motivating the individual towards alignment with certain groups or ideas and away from others. The alignment constitutes one form of personal agency, albeit constrained by existing conditions, real and perceived, concerning what is available at the moment and what might be possible in the future. An evaluation of township youth who participated in the violence in South Africa during the 1980s (Straker 1992: 218) supports this alignment, noting that the roots of optimism lay within the perceptions as well as the actualities of the current environment, mitigated by individual physiological and temperamental makeup. In sum, people in general explain situations differently, to themselves and to others; some explanations leave room for hope, others do not. The trick in post-conflict environments, therefore, becomes creating a space, both real and perceived, for hope or learned optimism to overcome anomie, disaffection, or learned pessimism (Dweck 2000: 140). When the “peace normal” becomes a legitimate goal, the creation of a landscape of peaceful actions and consciousness becomes a possibility.
Nordstrom (1997: 13) posits that people need to be able to reconstruct the world of the familiar after it has been destroyed by war, a type of tangible and intangible meaning making process. She cites creativity as a core survival strategy as well as a sophisticated mechanism to assert not only personal agency, but also political will. Rabwoni (2002: 166), more specifically, presents a framework for coping and recovery that has two aspects – economic and psychological. In this model, economic success – defined in relative, contextually dependent terms – fosters individual, family, and community esteem, encompassing the psychological dimension. Each of these approaches to post-conflict recovery looks back as well as forward. The intimate relationship between personal and societal problems, examined here through the lens of social suffering, also includes elements of and tensions between localized and international conceptions of security. International focus holds firm on immediate disarming, demobilizing, and reintegrating (DDR) of war fighters followed by comprehensive security sector reform – both armed forces and police. Millions pour into post-conflict countries to accomplish these goals. Citizens may support these efforts but are well aware, at least in the country cases under review here, that the results to date are tentative. The fact that the elite ensure their own security by hiring security contractors and send even primary school children out of the country to be educated bears witness to the legitimacy of local concerns.
The main issues for the non-elite rest with more holistic considerations of security such as employment, access to basic services, clean water, political participation, and cultural identity (Uvin 2009: 53). The human security framework places people's welfare at the center of policies and programs and focuses on communities with the goal of repairing the harm done during the war and works to prevent future harm (Gutlove 2009: 183). Research findings from Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Burundi highlight the salience of human security as something people expect, to some extent, in the present but hope to see fulfilled in the future. Returning to the idea of individual and group perceptions, when residents experience an increase in personal security, for example have access to healthcare or job training, they also gain control over at least some of their circumstances and feel a correspondingly diminished sense of powerlessness. Atashi (2009: 57–8) claims that public safety, jobs, housing, healthcare, education, and future prosperity weigh more heavily with many people than does dealing with the past through, for example, the TRC process. Although reconciliation will be explored in more detail below, my research corroborates her statement.
When speaking with a friend at University while in Liberia in 2010, the discussion turned to dehumanization experienced during the war. While physical and sexual abuses were mentioned, as expected in terms of dehumanization, this individual placed particular emphasis on the experience of material dispossession, the loss of goods and land and the subsequent feeling of being diminished as a person. Not being able to protect oneself or one's family, not being able to support oneself or family, the complete loss of pride and status, and the humiliation of standing in line for meager supplies continued to live in this person's mind and heart. They had, however, taken these experiences and decided to work tirelessly for transformation at all levels – political, economic, and social – using agency and personal effort to overcome powerlessness and despair. From a different perspective, a woman in Burundi who recently founded an NGO for women's political engagement related how she had previously worked with an international organization to train emerging grassroots leaders. As she did so, she became painfully aware of her privileged state, particularly in relation to the women with whom she worked. The experience, she explained, taught her to be humble. These individuals all participated in repairing post-conflict networks of interaction, helping individuals connect to the larger social environment. As they did so, they underwent their own transformations, demonstrating the reciprocity inherent in social actions, influencing and being influenced in response. This type of community building – linking personal well-being with group harmony – has strong roots on the African continent where wealth and security measures not only in material belongings, but also, and perhaps more importantly, in personal connections.
Reconciling suffering
Shaw writes (2002: 5) that socio-cultural remembering of the past in practices of the present involves everyday choices that are “rendered internal” or incorporated within individual and socio-cultural practices. The approaches to post-conflict recovery, discussed above, support this premise. Throughout the chapter to this point the exploration has focused on the potential for individuals and groups to creatively remake their experiential, cognitive, and emotional world after violence. Das and Kleinman (2001: 6, 18) posit that during this creative endeavor, experiences transform from vague psychological and social process to more discernable form. The authors refer directly to cultural representations evoked or realized in stories that have the potential to order social processes of control, in other words, create normative – and peaceful, empowering – changes, part of the conceptualization of social demilitarization. The Bondo devil comes immediately to mind, as do the limitations of images and stories alone to consolidate and sustain individual and social recovery and normative change. With this in view, the discussion now turns to two organizations – one in Sierra Leone, one in Liberia – that formalize recovery through reconciling past and present suffering through actions also focused on the future.
The first organization works in rural Sierra Leonean communities – that request its presence – using traditional methods with the stated theory that peace at the community level presents an antidote to war. This theory is underpinned by the fact that most of the fighting during the different phases of the civil war occurred in the countryside, and the predominance of fighters came from rural communities. When the organization enters a community, the community members themselves have already determined leaders, attendees, and location. Generally a “peace tree” is chosen under which everyone sits – in Liberia, it may be a palaver hut. A “mini” truth and reconciliation process happens – because the community members want it to happen. Confessions occur spontaneously, whoever speaks feels conscience-driven to do so. The process blends trauma healing – saying and hearing the words of experience with community support and encouragement; restorative justice – perpetrator providing some small service to victim if appropriate, victim offering forgiveness when possible; reconciling community relationships; and restoring social harmony. The idea is to help people look beyond the past, reduce feelings of powerlessness, and foster greater community cohesion. The National Truth and Reconciliation Commission, on the other hand, while producing an extensive exploration of causal factors and some victim and perpetrator encounters, had serious time and resource constraints and was not, at the time of initial fieldwork in 2004, a primary concern for most Sierra Leonean respondents. Upon returning in 2010, however, the TRC Report had become a rallying cry for community based NGOs, as will be discussed below.
The fact that rural communities needed to request the organization's presence implies untold community meetings, collaboration between leadership and constituents, and the pre-intervention work (Fisher 1997: 53) that, while difficult, becomes essential for successful programming. In addition, all of the meetings and so on could foster a stronger sense of control and purpose as residents plan for their future, presenting the potential to enact individual and community agency, acting rather than being acted upon as so often happened before and during the war. As such, community leaders could gain status and residents gain trust in their fellows as well as hope for a more harmonious present and possibly a sustainable, peaceful future. Social pressure and community ethos may well influence truth telling by both victim and perpetrator once the process begins as the comment “the ceremony is so emotional you cannot hold anything back,” expressed by a Sierra Leonean NGO practitioner seems to indicate. If true, the experience could serve to further strengthen community ties through sharing such strong feelings. In addition, the social and cultural experience and the methods and goals of the process could be added to the socio-cultural set of norms, values, and practices, internalizing and codifying peacemaking processes for community residents.
The second organization works with former combatants in Liberia – whether child or adult soldiers. The leadership expressed their goals of bringing broken ends together and building new relationships among the sons and daughters of the soil. In accordance with the predominance of post-conflict DDR and security sector reform sponsored by international actors, these young men initially participated directly in the programs introduced at the beginning of the war to peace transition. Their critique of these programs and the need that they saw everywhere about them presented a creative opportunity to organize and develop programs they felt would be more effective. Some of their comments focused on what they presented to program participants, such as accept what happens and what is out of your control and look for spiritual nature from the God that you believe in, the latter calling to mind the Prayer of Serenity. The various training workshops offered come from a psychosocial point of view, as they pointed out in their description, including statements such as “mould the mind psychologically” and “build your own abilities to live with others.” The key phrase “build their minds” did not refer to the intrapsychic alone, but also encompassed a community point of view, emphasizing how to integrate with community initiatives, and how former combatants should acceptably present themselves. All of these aspects were subsumed under the phrase “rewind the process of dehumanization.” The young men, several with traditional society backgrounds, further explained the absolute necessity for fighters who received traditional spiritual blessing and instruction to return to the place where these gifts were given in order to go through the appropriate ritual cleansing. They pointed to the abundance of disoriented, wandering, seemingly lost young men on the streets as example of what could happen if fundamental spiritual and community demands were ignored. All of these processes formed what they called self-identity recovery.
These young men took trauma very seriously. They understood the dimensions of suffering and the difficulty of finding meaning outside of the fighting identity. However, they were not doomed to become petty traders, wheel barrel boys, drugs peddlers, or criminals. What variables entered into this outcome, such as individual psychological, physiological, and temperamental makeup as spoken of by Straker (1992: 37), are unknown. They did have some roots of optimism and hope where many could find neither. On the one hand they were fortunate; on the other they were creative. They sought and found alternative meanings and shifted their normative framework to demilitarize not only their body after the fighting stopped, but also their hearts and minds. As they did so, grouping together for a common purpose, the leadership team gained status and respect for the work that they did, eventually joining with a network of scholars, practitioners, and international organizations interested in the former combatant dilemma. This networking allowed them wider access to funding sources and opportunities for education and additional trainings, opportunities out of reach for the vast majority of former combatants in Liberia.
The examples above illustrate the paradox of engaging war while creating peace as presented in preceding sections. Of note are the pervasive presence of powerlessness experienced as a result of trauma, the social suffering that holds over after the war, the individual and group processes of understanding and meaning making that can re-configure the self and the world in which the self exists. Equally valuable are the normative shifts that can alter the post-conflict landscape, the creative dimensions to healing and recovery, the difficulty of de-linking context, experience, hope, and despair, and the role of opportunity and the importance of community. The stories and anecdotes also indicate that reconciling suffering can be a long process, worked out on many levels of engagement.
Considerations and constraints
In all three country cases, youth – persons aged 15 to 35 – struggles against government failure in several areas. Public goods and services remain scarce, education beyond primary school proves very difficult to attain, and steady employment remains a hope for the future. Currently youth, who make up at least 50 percent of the population, face a doubtful future as few opportunities exist that would allow them to advance through achievement to adult status. These circumstances can be caused by corruption, lack of political will, and inadequate institutional capacity, all of which fall under the category of structural violence. The locus of structural violence can be found in the difference between the potential and the actual that could result from the use of institutional power (Galtung 1969: 186–96). Cultural violence employs socio-cultural dynamics such as ethnicity or gender to justify or legitimize direct or structural violence (Galtung 1999: 39). The structural and cultural dimensions of violence can also be conceptualized as the “soft knife” of routine processes of ordinary oppression (Kleinman et al. 1997: x). This soft knife, used extensively in the country cases of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Burundi during their respective civil wars, continues to impact post-conflict life. Country residents recognize the forms if not the terms, feeling the effects of that recognition as part of the ongoing pattern of social suffering. While youth are singled out for exploration, the dearth of public goods and services affects every individual who does not fall into or align directly with the elite category, either in social, economic, or political terms.
To counter remaining outside the sphere of influence with little or no chance of entry, non-elite youth have, over the post-conflict years, increasingly become NGO entrepreneurs. They organize and network in ways that allow individuals to use their strength, their creativity, and the knowledge gained from life's experiences to advocate for important issues, develop programs, and engage in various aspects of peacebuilding and social reconciliation. Many of the youth respondents in each of the country cases engage themselves, at least part time, in some version of a community-based or grassroots NGO. Some devoted their own money to the project; others sought grants and external funding. All spoke of the funding gap that exists between the resources available to international or long-established regional organizations and those limited funds available, if at all, to local, in-country agencies. Aside from the ever-present financial concerns, Burundian organizations seemed to stress political empowerment, engagement in the electoral process, and all aspects of human rights. It was through these forms that social reconciliation, at least to a large extent, was expected to occur (Uvin 2009: 16). While the TRC processes in both Liberia and Sierra Leone were imperfect, young agency personnel focused keenly on the suggestions made in Commission reports, using report details as legitimizing not only the mission of their organizations as they addressed specific recommendations but also their status as they lobbied government officials, wrote white papers, encouraged passage of legislation, and engaged policymakers directly.
While governments move slowly to institute available TRC recommendations designed not only to understand the root causes of the war but to also put mechanisms in place to prevent the same thing from happening again, the unofficial processes of reconciliation continue. One respondent claimed that unofficial processes are the fulcrum for change. In Bong County, Liberia, for example, in a village where a massacre occurred during the war, an individual dreamed repeatedly of dead ancestors who came to him pleading that they did not want to be forgotten. After a visit to a traditional healer, it was determined that a memorial needed to be erected on behalf of those killed. Once the monument was in place and a proper ceremony conducted, the ancestor dreams ceased. For the community, it was reported that hope replaced despair, residents developed a greater sense of purpose, and community solidarity flourished. Despite the importance of unofficial processes in promoting and facilitating change, individual empowerment, and social reconciliation, however, they are not sufficient for sustainable peace. In each country case discussed here political tensions and electoral crises loom, economies shrink, and opportunities dwindle.
While this chapter has focused almost exclusively on mid-level and grassroots activities, another paradox of post-conflict peacebuilding turns on the fact that without a reasonably functioning government, peace will remains negative – direct top-down violence held at bay, but with structural and cultural violence increasing. On the one hand, civil society as a positive peacebuilding force relies on the political, economic, and institutional framework of a functioning state; on the other hand, the state – politically, economically, institutionally – is embedded within civil society (Kjellman and Berg Harpviken 2010: 33–7). The boundaries between the state and civil society blur as they identify themselves in contrast to the other while working for individuals and constituencies. Ideally, the symbiotic relationship could benefit the state, civil society, and individuals. Conceptualizations of civil society focus on its role as collective intermediary between the individual and the state as well as its function as a counterbalance to the capacities or autocratic tendencies of the state (Sayndee 2009: 174). Given the post-conflict uncertainty felt by individuals, grassroots organizations, and the state, tensions between the government and civil society sectors do not come as a surprise. Each views the other with varying degrees of distrust or disdain, creating barriers to engagement that lead to further lack of trust, conflict over scarce resources, and fear over the distribution of power. Under those conditions, bottom-up direct violence – whether civil unrest, gang activities, domestic violence, or crime – cannot be ruled out.
A comparison between Sierra Leone field observations in 2004 and 2010 highlights changes from war transition to post-conflict stagnation. As I sat in an internet café soon after arriving on the Freetown peninsula in 2004, the proprietor rushed into the room and in a voice tight with tension loudly announced: “There has been a break out at the prison.” Patrons arose, seemingly as one, moving quickly toward the exit. As I finished my correspondence, the man approached me directly: “You have to leave now Madame.” After my departure, he pulled down the metal grate, closed and locked the doors, making the shop as secure as possible. On the street, there was tangible panic – people running and shouting, fear marking their faces. When I asked one of my street friends what was going on he took my arm and exclaimed: “Madame, you must be careful – criminals.” Surveying the hectic activity on the street, I walked around the corner and went into a local bank to conduct some business. When I re-emerged, the atmosphere had calmed but a frisson of anxiety lingered. Arriving back at the guesthouse, I mentioned the incident to my friends who worked in housekeeping. Each of the three young women stiffened as they listened, their eyes wide and startled. One woman collapsed onto the stairs.
The anecdote above demonstrates the dynamic between war and peace as experienced in daily life. At the time of the story, Sierra Leone had been at peace for two years with most of the post-conflict programming winding down. The war, however, remained close. The outward scars of war were visible in destroyed or burned buildings and in the presence of amputees begging along the street. Inwardly, however, the prison break experience allowed me to feel just a small sample of the emotion with which these war survivors struggled. People did not, however, directly share these emotions with me. Everything was generally subsumed within the phrase: “well, you know, there was a war here.” Occasionally I heard a more qualified: “things were very difficult.” Part of the difficulty rested in the fact that individual hearts and minds could still recall and re-experience the fear and trauma that accompanied the war. Later, I realized that Pademba Road Prison and Foday Sankoh, leader of the Revolutionary United Front of Sierra Leone (RUF), were inextricably linked both in historical terms and in the minds of the people. As I walked on Wilberforce Street that morning, I remained ignorant of this reality. Respondents and community members later added their own thinking on the prison break. Some were amused by the public reaction, others not, but they all knew that whenever the rebels came to Freetown one of the first things they did was open the doors of the prison. Consequently, if the prison doors had been opened and people had escaped, the probability was high that some military faction had freed them; in other words, that the war had returned.
During fieldwork in 2010, I encountered nothing so dramatic as panic on the streets, nothing as blatant as people running away in fear. What I did find were gang tags scrawled on most open wall space where none had been previously, an increase in children on the street instead of in school, reports that children brought knives and razor blades stuck in the bread they brought for lunch and stabbings occurring over controversies at soccer matches. Political rancor, despite the recent elections, spilled out on the airwaves, accusations of politically motivated rape blended with discussions of political manipulation by youth. Recent and ongoing construction of the criminal court building and police station close to the Pademba Road Prison may allay fears of a prison break, but the more subtle evidence of people unhappily struggling to survive from day to day disturbed. Discussions with residents and respondents indicated similar concerns. In post-conflict environments, the potential for relative deprivation or the perceived discrepancy between values, expectations, and capabilities (Gurr 1970) remains high. Under such circumstances, discontent can easily flower, overshadowing war-weariness and generalized hope, and leading to a renewal of at least some forms of violence. Recalling the knot of war weariness and generalized post-conflict hope grasped by country residents as mentioned in the introduction, recent observations in Sierra Leone indicate that the knot has slipped and the ropes have begun to fray.
Conclusion
The overarching hope in post-conflict countries hinges on peacebuilding processes and activities that revise the organizational structures that existed prior to and during war to include less violent or nonviolent forms of social action. Immediately at war's end, the focus in terms of resources and personnel favors macro level institutional reform and democratization processes. At the same time – although to a lesser extent, at least in terms of resources – transition projects work to rebuild a vibrant civil society that could participate with the top level in decision and policymaking activities as they leverage the social capital of cooperation, trust, and support that rests with the mid-range and their grassroots constituents. Ideally, this symbiotic relationship, as mentioned previously, would allow for greater political buy-in from the population as their concerns were acknowledged, articulated, and addressed at both the top and mid levels. If this were the case, a macro level space could open up in which the creation of peacebuilding norms and values could emerge, replicate, and, in time, become sustainable. As these norms became part of the post-conflict normative framework of policies and practices, individuals could benefit materially in the more equitable distribution of resources, diminished corruption, and the reshaping of understandings, circumstances, and behaviors to create and sustain well-being (Boulding 2000: 4). As well-being increases, feelings of powerlessness can retreat as individuals experience the power to act to improve their circumstances, gain status and respect through their efforts, and see the future as an improvement on the past and present.
It often happens, however, that the above processes either move very slowly or encounter roadblocks such as top-level resistance, distrust, and obstruction as individuals and groups refuse to share power or resources, equating sharing with losing. Official rhetoric may well follow the ideal format, policies may be developed, and laws may be passed, none of which guarantees implementation. At this point, mid-range actors can and do apply pressure, challenging government ministries and officials to implement, for example, TRC suggestions or to fully enact aspects of the peace accords. Community members themselves petition government officials to fulfill promises, such as reparations for amputee victims in Sierra Leone. As individuals and groups engage with peacebuilding and justice, they demonstrate to the macro level and to themselves that they will no longer remain silent and accepting as often occurred prior to the war. They hold fast to agency and empowerment as they work for economic, social, and political equity as well as for social and political reconciliation. In so doing, capacities for trust, initiative, and competence can grow, allowing individuals to reconstruct personal and social worlds, to reconstitute everyday nonviolent life, and to build relationships.
This chapter approached the post-conflict paradox by exploring civil war dynamics as well as post-conflict realities and the relation of both to social suffering and recovery. Individual appraisal and (re-)conceptualization processes provided the ground from which to explore subjective engagement with violence and nonviolence, and ways that the subjective can influence socio-cultural norms, values, and practices. The importance of shifting barriers of fear to make way for individual and community coping, recovery, and renewal echoed throughout. Difficulties inherent in creating a peaceful internal and external landscape under conditions of scarcity were explored, and field examples highlighting the roles of perception, creativity, and emotion analysed. The chapter points out that the post-conflict period presents particular dilemmas for country residents, as well as for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers. No matter how sound the policy, resources will prove insufficient to do all that needs to be done. International focus on top-level reforms, while making intuitive sense, has not proven sufficient to get newly reconstituted governments and fledgling institutions operating on their own and with the best interests of citizens as their guide. Old alliances, attitudes, and approaches to power and influence survive the war and reappear post-conflict, presenting huge stumbling blocks to movement down the road to sustainable peace. The longer these impediments influence progress, the more frustrated and angry country residents could become.
On the other hand, the chapter presents research anecdotes that demonstrate the resiliency and creativity of individuals and their willingness to use these gifts to help their fellows. People wait patiently for macro-level change while at the same time they engage, by necessity as well as inclination, in unofficial mid-range and grassroots processes, the post-conflict fulcrum as mentioned previously. These unofficial processes, in addition to providing employment and engagement for thousands, allow individuals with no link to power to engage their agency and ability, helping others to transform suffering as they transform in response. The intimate relationship that exists between individual and societal problems, as seen through the lens of social suffering, requires a recovery strategy that engages the past in order to understand the present, and examines the present to plan for the future. As this occurs, broken ends can be brought together, self-identity recovered, dehumanization rewound, communities strengthened, and hope rekindled.
Note
1 I wish to thank the Center for Consciousness and Transformation at George Mason University for their generous support of recent research in Sierra Leone and Burundi and to acknowledge my research colleague Elavie Ndura-Ouédraogo.