When Bereavement Makes Enemies Human

Across the world, one common feature that unites societies suffering under violent conflict is the experience of trauma. Most commonly, this trauma is understood as a paralyzing force that inhibits its victims of thinking clearly and rationally, creating the need for others, mostly political elites representing these constituencies, to speak out in their place. By appropriating their constituencies’ trauma, then, political elites are enabled to instrumentalize it to legitimize their political goals, such as the perpetuation of the violent conflict itself. In this paper, however, I argue that trauma can also be a powerful source of agency for the traumatized, with the potential to transform them into agents with the capacity to create frameworks for peace. In examining the case of the Parents Circle/Families Forum (PC/FF), I show how the experience of trauma through the conflict enables the victims of trauma to understand the irrationality of the armed conflict, countering the political elite’s narrative and prompting them to promote a peaceful solution to the war. Furthermore, their efforts can be a powerful source of reconciliation by engaging across conflict lines, thus promoting both sympathy for and empathy with the supposed enemy.