Transforming Societies after Political Violence

My book Transforming Societies After Political Violence: Truth, Reconciliation and Mental Health, now published by Springer in New York.

Transforming Societies after Political Violence offers a template for those tasked with providing truth, justice, reconciliation, and healing. This interdisciplinary study identifies complex relationships between recovery from political violence and the psychological processes that accompany widespread social change, showing how these can be integrated to strengthen both individual and society. Author Brandon Hamber draws on his extensive experience in South Africa and comparative examples from elsewhere to examine the centrality of mental health issues in transitional justice, and the social, cultural, and identity issues involved in meeting the needs of victims. In discussing reparations (what the author terms "repairing the irreparable"), the power of ambivalence, and especially concepts of closure, he eloquently sets out professionals’ roles in helping survivors move beyond the toxic past without covering it up or becoming mired in it. ISBN: 978-0-387-89426-3, Springer 2009

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Endorsements
How to victims heal? We should not be too quick to presume. Those seeking truth and justice often prioritize victims’ interests – but without always fully understanding what those interests and needs are, or how different victims may recover in very different ways. Based on fifteen years of working with and listening to victims and survivors, Brandon Hamber helps us better understand the mental health backdrop to atrocity and recovery. With plentiful, poignant stories, and clear policy recommendations, this book should help shape – and greatly improve – future endeavors to confront unimaginable memories and pain (Priscilla Hayner, International Centre for Transitional Justice and author of Unspeakable Truths: confronting state terror and atrocity)

Brandon Hamber nails this tricky subject with humility, insight, learned insight, and golden recommendations..... if you are interested in how humans try to grapple with the consequences of man’s brutality to man, and ultimately the truth, read it! (Thulani Grenville-Grey, former South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission Mental Health Specialist)

Brandon Hamber's experience in multiple sites of transitional justice work, and his rare ability to bridge the academic and theoretical with the practical and logistical, ensures this publication is an extremely valuable contribution and a must read to those working in this fast evolving field (Piers Pigou, former South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission Investigator and Director of the South African History Archive).

Brandon Hamber has written a challenging and good interdisciplinary book, which will not only be helpful to those dealing with mental health issues during transitions from conflict, but also to lawyers and those concerned with conflict resolution more generally (Christine Bell, Director, Institute of Transitonal Justice, University of Ulster)

How countries recover from political atrocity is a question that has confronted dozens of regimes around the world for decades. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is an iconic symbol of what for some is a profound achievement in restructuring a “peaceful society.” In Transforming Societies After Political Violence: Truth, Reconciliation, and Mental Health Dr. Brandon Hamber applies his many years of experience both within the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and beyond it to a careful analysis of the complex issues – legal, historical, social, psychological - embedded in such a process. It is his astute attention to these complexities that make his book so rich. Hamber says that “if the TRC process and working with the victims appearing before it taught me anything it was that the psychological life of the survivor of extreme violence is cut through by this complexity." His work is clear testimony to that statement Transforming Societies After Political Violence is a valuable resource for researchers, practitioners, scholars and policy makers. If you read one book about countries emerging from their violent pasts, it should be Dr. Brandon Hamber’s Transforming Societies After Political Violence. I will rely on this volume in my ongoing work and I predict it will become a definitive text in this area (Nina K. Thomas, Ph.D., ABPP, Chair, Specialization in Trauma and Disaster Studies; NYU Postdoctoral program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis; Co-Chair, Relational Orientation; NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis; Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis)

Hamber brings an acute clinical sensibility and sophisticated research mind to a complex problem: state handling of reconciliation after a catastrophic upheaval. … his main focus in this book is the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) process. … a must read for any psychologist working with trauma survivors, especially postconflict trauma survivors. It calls upon a rich literature–from psychoanalysis … to trial transcripts of commissions; it integrates all these sources to provide a truly unique contribution to the psychology of trauma." (Don Dutton, PsycCRITIQUES, Vol. 54 (47/3), November, 2009)

Belfast and Johannesburg: peas in a racist pod?

I long to live in a society where there is no racism but, living between Belfast and Johannesburg, this is impossible.

About a year ago, xenophobia in South Africa hit the international newspapers. Foreigners, mainly from Africa, were driven from their homes, with over 50 people being killed. Over 100 people have been prosecuted for the attacks. But recently information surfaced that local businesspeople in some townships have been meeting secretly to ‘look at’ how to rid the community of businesses owned by immigrants. Sporadic attacks continue.

Belfast recently featured in international papers with a similar storyline. Some 100 Romanians were forced from their homes by mobs of young people claiming the immigrants were taking their jobs and houses and stealing from the local community. The attacks seemed to take on a neo-Nazi feel, with swastikas and Nazi salutes being prominent. Most of the Romanians have now left Northern Ireland.

However, attacks against foreigners in Northern Ireland are not new. They have been a consistent feature of the society over the last decade.

In 2004, for example, Bill Rolston, at the University of Ulster, highlighted attacks against Pakistanis, Chinese and Zimbabwean immigrants, besides others. He also reported on incidents where local minorities were greeted at night by masked men robbing their houses and telling them: “You won’t be needing these; you’ll be leaving soon.”

Police statistics show that, in 1996, there were 41 racist incidents recorded; in 2006 and 2007, there were 1 047. Research by Neil Jarman, of the Institute of Conflict Research, has found that such incidents, although perceived as taking place largely in working-class Protestant areas in Belfast and linked to far right groups, have been documented in Catholic areas and recorded in all major cities, towns and villages in Northern Ireland. Perpetrators of such incidents also vary and are not restricted to rightwingers and paramilitary groups, as some believe.

Of course, the increase in incidents of racism can reflect the growing number of immigrants, improved reporting rates and the increased visibility of the issue. But the numeric increase is undeniable and the figures are also under-representative because many incidents go unreported. Weighing up the research on the issue, the conclusion is clear: racism is a serious problem in Northern Ireland.

The public response has been interesting. As in South Africa, the majority have condemned the xenophobic violence, and a range of antiracism protests have been organised. These actions are commendable. However, there also seems to be social distancing from the problem. Routinely, commentators and the public make reference to “groups of thugs” being responsible and are at pains to point out that the majority are welcoming and want foreigners in the cities.

I agree that the incidents are the work of relatively small groups, but there also seems to be a lack of acknowledgement that prejudice is deeply ingrained across the society, as it is in South Africa. People in Northern Ireland, like those in South Africa, tend to take notice only when problems explode. In the times in between, most of us, including politicians, ignore low-level violence and racism. This reinforces the idea that there is an ‘acceptable’ level of violence and that some racism is tolerable. This creates the foundation for extremism.

I am yet to meet an African living in Belfast, myself included, who has not, at some point, been abused for not being from the society. Such incidents are generally not life threatening and most people are indeed friendly, but the hatred must be coming from somewhere and cannot be overlooked or seen as concerning specific individuals only.

In this context, surely, the majority of the population’s general avoidance of issues until they reach mammoth proportions, the ongoing use of segregated schools and housing, which inculcates a propensity for division, and the fact that most political parties continue to appeal to voters using narrow, single-identity politics and, in some cases, anti-immigration rhetoric, cannot be helping the situation.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 10 July 2009 as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

Where were you when the UK government imploded?

There is probably not a reader of this column who has not been part of a ‘where were you when?’ conversation. Where were you when Nelson Mandela walked free? When Princess Diana died? When the Twin Towers crumbled?

The last few weeks, in the UK, has been a ‘where were you when’ sort of time. Events have not been as dramatic as the assassination of JFK, but rather a slow build-up towards a ‘where were you?’ crescendo that is on its way.

This accumulation has concerned the revelations by the Daily Telegraph about UK members of Parliament’s (MPs’) expenses. The culmination will, at the risk of making wild predictions, be the collapse of the once dominant Labour Party of Tony Blair and then Gordon Brown. The process will reach its pinnacle when Labour loses the general election next year.

The revelations of how MPs from all parties have used expense accounts have been damning. MPs can claim expenses for costs of running a second home because most have to live in two places, that is, in their constituency and also in London, to attend Parliament. MPs can claim up to £24 006 (in 2008/9) for this ‘additional costs allowance’. They can claim things such as mortgage interest payments on second homes and utility bills. However, officials have allowed MPs to claim for furnishings, maintenance and food. Until recently, claims up to £250 did not even 
require a receipt.

The most shocking claims have included a claim for £1 645 for a ‘duck island’ (a little wooden house where your ducks can sleep, if you are wondering), expenses to clean a moat around a large house, £1 000 for the removal of ivy from a wall, household maintenance and refurbishment worth thousands, new toilet seats, trees, bath plugs, trouser presses, TVs, carpets and mock Tudor beams, not to mention all sorts of food claims.

What is even more worrying is that an array of politicians have engaged in ‘flipping’. This is the process whereby they claim one house as their second home, carry out necessary maintenance and refurbishments, and then flip to their ‘first’ home, claiming it then as their second home. Expenses for that property then follow. Other politicians have been even more crooked, claiming mortgage interest for properties on which they no longer owe money, and couples who are politicians claiming for the same property.

MPs, however, argue that their claims are, generally, within the rules. The rules, however, state that costs can only be claimed for those “incurred . . . wholly, exclusively and necessarily to enable” them to “stay overnight away from my only or main home for the purpose of performing” duties as an MP. But anyone can see that MPs have been using allowances to literally feather their nests, increasing their property values and lowering their daily expenses through having their grocery bills supplemented. Are such claims necessary to perform governmental duties?

Of course, not all politicians have been engaged in such practices, although most must have known about the system and its excesses. A number of ‘more guilty’ MPs have resigned. Others are attempting to pay back some of their extravagant claims. But even in making these repayments, most seem to continue to miss the point.

Many persist on defining their repayment as a benevolent gesture for an error in judgment that took place within the context of the rules. But, to the person in the street, this just smacks of insincerity because everyone knows the rules have been abused. There is the letter of the law, but then there is the spirit of the law. The actions of many UK MPs are, at best, ‘generally corrupt’, and, if such actions took place in Africa, no one would hesitate to condemn the whole system as endemically corrupt.

So, my MP friends, where will you be when the UK government comes crumbling down? Cleaning your duck pond or down on your knees begging for forgiveness?

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on  12 June 2009. as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

JZ cometh – am I bothered?

I have a confession that is unpopular in both South Africa and globally, and will probably result in my being ripped to shreds from all side. But here goes – I confess that I cannot make up my mind about how I feel about Jacob Zuma and I am not sure if it matters.

Apparently, JZ is either the anti-Christ or the saviour South Africa has been waiting for – the the man who will lead us into a new dispensation of milk, honey and BMWs for the poor this Christmas, or into a barren wilderness of economic decline and corrupt, banana republic politics where we will all be taking regular showers (if there was enough water) to protect ourselves from infectious diseases.

What is it about him that provokes people so much?

Is it simply that he does not fit the mould of the Mbeki, Clinton, Blair era of politicians – the great reformers who spent their time on a slippery slope to the right while pretending to care deeply about the welfare of the poor as the gap between the haves and have-nots was increasing? Or is it because JZ is a so-called traditionalist, and many whites in South Africa and in the Western world do not know what that means and it evokes racist stereotypes in them? Or that his supporters are still so unfamiliar with the liberal democracy they voted for in 1994 that they think, rather naively, that JZ is actually the vanguard of a new revolution and, therefore, worth backing, no matter what?

I am not sure. But I do know we should all be asking ourselves why we feel so strongly about him. This might tell us more about ourselves than him.

What I like about him is that he provokes a reaction in people, whether by design or accident. Anyone who can help stimulate debate and breathe life into politics, as the recent South African election proved is okay by my book.

Of course, I need to qualify this. Robert Mugabe provokes debate, as did Idi Amin and Pol Pot before him, and I not particularly fond of any of these gentlemen. But JZ is more of an enigma. There is something about him that is potentially hopeful and destructive at the same time. I am also a sucker for his rendition of his theme tune, Umshini Wami (Bring me my machine gun). It reminds me of my grandfather asking me to fetch his slippers.

Many whites are now quaking in their boots, and probably some of the new black middle class are wondering about their investments too. But what did South Africans expect? Given the economic disparities in South Africa, how could anyone but a populist have risen to power at some point and promise radical change? It would have been nice if the person chosen to do this was as unsoiled as Barack Obama, but life is mostly not like that.

So this is how I read it: Zuma is in a position where complacency is not an option. Given the corruption case, he has to be squeaky clean. The biggest threat to everyone is not what he will do, but rather that he does not do enough. He has to deliver for the entire country. Whether we approve of him or not, or his choice of song when it comes to public crooning, his mission to change the lot of the poor is in everyone’s long-term interest.

So maybe it is time we all stopped worrying about him as a person and focused on the big looming questions. How is South Africa going to become a fairer place? How do we ensure that democracy remains robust and human rights are protected for all? JZ will be part of this for a while, but, in a genuine democracy, politicians are temporary, whereas social problems can endure, and that is worth worrying about.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on 8 May 2009. as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

Is man-made climate change just hot air?

It appears, as a species, that humans are prone to ignoring problems rather than dealing with them. Take for example the recent claim by Northern Ireland Minister of the Environment Sammy Wilson* that the hubbub about global warming is exaggerated.

Mr Wilson is “not of the opinion that climate change is happening at the rate that some would tell us it is” and he does “not believe that it is within the power of humans to change the climate of the planet through reducing CO2 emissions”.

Credit: Wylve at English Wikipedia / CC BY-SA

Nicholas Stern, author of the Stern Review on climate change commissioned by the British government in 2006, laughs off such claims. In his recent book, A Blueprint For a Safer Planet, he notes that what astounds him about the denial of man-made climate change and what needs to be done by humans to stop it, is that deniers are generally non-scientists. Mr Wilson is a case in point: he is a Politics and Economics graduate, and qualified teacher.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their point of view, and Mr Wilson is not an idiot and has no doubt studied the subject. We should also not squash dissenting voices as they can move debates forward. I also agree with Mr Wilson that the green debate can get a bit hysterical at times. But surely all us non-scientists can rely on are rational and scientific voices on certain issues.

Stern, who the Guardian describes as “soberly suited” and “grey”, does not fit the caricature of an alarmist green radical. Yet Stern remains adamant that given the robust nature of the science on the human effects of emissions, arguments by those that deny it are akin to denying an association between HIV and Aids or smoking and cancer.

Interestingly Stern goes on to analyse why some people deny climate change or paint those that talk about it as over-the-top. He concludes most of the naysayers do so for political reasons.

From Stern’s perspective some right wing thinkers want to deny climate change because they see it as a Trojan Horse for greater regulation of the free market. Some left wing thinkers tend to see environmentalism as a middle class preoccupation that diverts attention from the urgent need for economic growth in the developing world.

In Mr Wilson’s case he clearly holds the Trojan Horse theory, trashing the idea of green taxes which he sees as over-regulation and part of a raft of unnecessary “intrusive policies” around the environment.

But Mr Wilson aside, what is most interesting about Professor Stern’s analysis is how it applies to so many issues.

In Northern Ireland, for example, when it comes to integrated education between Catholics and Protestants, those with a right leaning disposition tend see any attempts to regulate and force integration as an imposition, and an attempt at regulating the social and cultural lives of children and communities. Some from the left rubbish the idea of integration as a middle class fancy. But in their actions both fail to face up to the truth—only 6% of children go to mixed schools and solid research overwhelmingly shows that sectarian attitudes from both sides are alive and well, and that contact between groups, under certain conditions, reduces prejudice.

Of course, everything is political. And those for and against integrated schooling, as well as those pro and anti the environmental lobby, have something to gain from different outcomes to the issues they feel passionate about. But surely common sense, at very least, should inform our perspective, especially if we are in a position of power.

As I have written before in this column, it does not take a scientist to know that spewing gases into the atmosphere that in certain doses can kill humans and animals is obviously problematic. But then again who would want logic dictating how we should live.

* In June 2009, Mr Wilson was moved from the Department of the Environment to become Minister of Finance and Personnel. This article was written prior to the reshuffle.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on  10 April 2009. as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.

Is the credit crunch the new Black Death?

Sometimes I find myself studying random and frankly weird subjects. My most recent foray has involved delving into the history of the Black Death. This makes me appear macabre, but I stumbled across a radio programme on the subject and it pricked my interest.

From 1340 onwards, the Black Death killed some 75-million people across the globe. In Europe it is estimated that 25-million to 50-million people died, meaning that one-third of the European population was wiped out. The scale of death had sweeping social consequences.

For example, the disease, or cluster of diseases, had a major impact on the Catholic Church. Not only were swathes of the church leadership infected and killed, with some sources putting the estimates as high as 40%, it also led to a decline in faith and religious allegiance. Many felt God had forsaken them. For others their loyalty to the church dwindled because promises by the church that the righteous would be saved, or a divine cure could be found, never materialised.

The result, as Samuel K Cohn, professor of medieval history at the University of Glasgow, has noted, was that chroniclers of the plague turned from supernatural and religious causes to considering social, political, and even evidence-based medical causes. He argues this provides new insights into how the Renaissance came about.

Put another way, traditional orthodoxy, assumed knowledge and power, which at the time was monopolised by the church, were challenged and this led to innovation. Further, some argue that the decline in numbers of available workers resulted in improved wages and was one of the factors that contributed to the end of the feudal system.

Of course, I am simplifying a complex history, and there are many competing versions of what I have outlined above, but the point I am trying to make is that disaster can lead to progress. Obviously, pestilence and horrific disease is not what anyone would choose as a way of advancing society. But any process that challenges, for whatever reason, unjust power structures merits interest.

The current financial crisis is a case in point. For the last 20 years, the financial system has been the high church of Western society. Investment bankers were treated as demigods and free market radicals as purveyors of an ideology that was unquestionable. The market, as a self-regulating force that rewarded those who knew how to play it, was an irrefutable belief system.

But many bankers have been proven incompetent and some corrupt, and the world’s largest banks have had to be ‘regulated’ and bailed out by government cash. Financial orthodoxy has been shaken to its core.

However, another consequence of the Black Death in the 1300s was the tendency to scapegoat individuals as the impact of the disease spiralled. For example, Jews, and other minorities, were persecuted across Europe as rumours spread that the plague was caused by them, with some thinking they were poisoning the water.

Applying this to the present, I believe it is only right that the financial crisis should lead us to question perceived economic wisdom, but we should also show restraint and resist attempts to look for easy answers or assume only a handful of people are to blame. Most across the globe bought obediently into the system hoping to make a quick buck.

There are individuals who milked the system and large pension payoffs for those who failed to prevent the collapse are distasteful in the extreme. But campaigns to go after specific bankers miss the bigger picture.

There is a need to find a new economic order and energy should go into that. The system has failed not just individuals.

So, just as the Black Death led to change, the current financial crisis should be about finding new ways to diagnose and run a socially responsible economic system while curing the rampant disease called greed at its core.

This article by Brandon Hamber was published on Polity and in the Engineering News on  13 March 2009. as part of the column "Look South". Copyright Brandon Hamber.