Victimhood and Attitudes towards Dealing with the Legacy of a Violent Past: Northern Ireland as a Case Study

Abstract

Using Northern Ireland as a case study, this article provides the first nationally representative and systematic study of victims' views on how to deal with the past; • Focusing specifically on Northern Ireland, it both investigates and provides a comprehensive account of the marked divisions between the various religious groupings-Protestants, Catholics and the non-affiliated-in terms of a range of truth recovery mechanisms to deal with legacy of its violent past; • It empirically investigates and validates two key predictors-perceptions of victimhood and general attitudes towards the past-in determining the source of these divisions • It outlines the implications of our findings for other societies emerging from conflict. Truth recovery mechanisms have become a cornerstone of peacebuilding efforts in societies emerging from conflict. Yet, to date, the view of victims in post-conflict societies concerning such arrangements remains highly anecdotal and often second-hand in nature. Mindful of this omission and using Northern Ireland as a case study, this article investigates the views of victims towards a range of mechanisms to deal with the legacy of Northern Ireland's violent past. Based on the 2011 NorthernIreland Social and Political Attitudes Survey, the results suggest some marked divisions in relation to this issue, with victims within the Catholic community being significantly more supportive of such initiatives than either Protestants or those with no religion. Moreover, while perceptions of victimhood emerge as the key predictor of attitudes among Protestants and the non-affiliated, general opinions on how to deal with the past are the key determinant of views among members of the Catholic community.

Functions of collective victimhood

“…Despite the complex and violent nature of the Troubles, after almost 30 years of violence, in 1998 the Good Friday Agreement (GFA)/Belfast Agreement was ratified by the populations of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, leading to the establishment of a governing executive based on power sharing in the region. This agreement, the culmination of a protracted peace process undertaken by the parties to the conflict, is now considered an exemplar of conflict resolution throughout the world (Brewer and Hayes, 2015).…”

“…Despite the success of the peace process and the political achievements that emerged from the GFA, the legacy of the conflict remains a divisive issue. The victims of the violence have experienced relative neglect in the aftermath of the GFA and more generally, due to the failure to develop a formal truth recovery mechanism as part of the political settlement, and competing narratives of victimhood have emerged in line with the existing divisions in Northern Ireland's society (Brewer and Hayes, 2015). The potential boundaries of any definition of victimhood is an ongoing debate, as is the place of perpetrator-victims in these definitions.…”

“…For example, in a report commissioned by the government in 1998 known as the Bloomfield Report, it was suggested that every citizen could potentially be considered a victim of the Troubles. However, given the potential for inclusion of former perpetrators of political violence, this angered Unionist groups, and given its failure to address the issue of state violence, it incensed Republican groups (Brewer and Hayes, 2015).…”

The politics of ‘whataboutery’: The problem of trauma trumping the political in conflictual societies

“…Responses at the launch exemplify the limitations of a straightforward ‘business-like politics’ when dealing with traumatized individuals and the likelihood that the impossibility of a cure for their loss will generate pathological forms of ‘whataboutery’. The Report, which recommended (among other things) a GBP12,000 payment to ‘victims’ or families of ‘victims’ of the conflict, was greeted with tears and fury from many of those with grievances that the report sought to address (Brewer and Hayes, 2015; Lawther, 2014: Chapter 3). Many of these victims refused the notion of payments to other families who had lost loved ones especially where those loved ones were active paramilitary operatives and had, in fact, initiated a lethal attack.…”

Review of periodical literature published in 2015

“…Articles related to the historical analysis of the Troubles in Northern Ireland were again quite prominent this past year. Brewer and Hayes use Northern Ireland as a case study to provide a nationally representative and systematic study of victims’ views on how to deal with the past. Using the 2011 Northern Ireland Social and Political Attitudes Survey, they investigate the views of victims towards a range of mechanisms to deal with the legacy of Northern Ireland's violent past, and find that victims within the Catholic community were significantly more supportive of such initiatives than either Protestants or those with no religion.…”