Dilemmas of Reconciliation: A Short Summary of SiT 2000 in Dubrovnik

By Jadranka Mimica and Susan Scharwiess

    In many ways, the Dubrovnik meeting in 2000 was the most beautiful SiT meeting yet. 44 participants from 15 countries met at a small hotel in the cliffs of a small bay in Dubrovnik (the historical city on the Croatian coast which had been shelled and largely destroyed by Serb forces in 1991). Now that the city has been rebuilt, it provided not only a relaxing atmosphere for the work of the group (particularly welcome after our 'war-meeting' of the year before in Dobogokö) - but also a meaningful framework for discussion of our topic, ‘Reconciliation and Integration’, the last meeting of our three-year focus on Overcoming Violence: Persons, Families, & societies.

    Working in such a place that represents absolute beauty (rephrasing George Bernard Shaw who said
that no one should die before seeing Dubrovnik) which had also been the scene of violent conflict triggered a feeling which Lars used to have while working in Croatia, and had called 'beauty and the beast'. Isn't there always both beauty and the beast cohabiting in each of the parties in violent conflict? - and when we see them together at the site of beauty we can see this juxtaposition more clearly. In the blossom-scented sunlight, we wondered how the beast starts to dominate the beauty, how the beauty can somehow be kept alive while the beast is doing its stuff, and how can we empower the beauty to re-gain power and re-establish balance, or to become strong enough to create space for reconciliation and/or reconstruction of normality. This image from Jadranka captures the spirit of our meeting, which was meant to face the issues while avoiding a dualism of good and evil
or any kind of 'demonization.'

    An introduction to all aspects of our topic was given by the philosopher Göran Gretic from our co-sponsoring organization Forum Europe with his address 'Identity of Europe' in which he placed our current concerns squarely within the framework of Europe as it has developed on the basis of mediterranean humanism. This was in the context of our persistent efforts to understand how social process influences the psycho-social patterns we encounter in our therapeutic work. The case of Europe as of now, the sensitive process of uniting, and the way it has been managed for decades, can be viewed as a reconciliation process, since it follows centuries of conflicts and antagonisms. We wanted to learn about patterns shared by all the countries at a very deep level which had enabled the process to take place. It would be too simple to speak of cultural similarities, since what we can call
    European proved again to be a complex phenomenon, which can be defined most of all by 'otherness', this being other than that, and the existence of cultural patterns opposing each other in various combinations. A unique structure, based on a basic 'right to differ' has become a common ground allowing Europe to grow together. The major challenge is to continue studying this model, to learn whether any of lessons learned could apply in still divided societies of the Balkans and the Caucasus, eventually the rest of the world in conflict. The way he presented his speech, clothing deep insights in simple English, offered the basis for a stimulating plenary discussion.

    Further major frameworks for our work were offered by Peter Levine in his short workshop on dealing with traumata and Pande Vidinovski, in an address which some listeners found quite hopeless (a reaction which demonstrated to him that you have to have Slavic blood to understand some things). Jancis Long reviewed the history of SiT work with trauma.
    Meanwhile, group-members were presenting various practical approaches to reconciliation in afternoon workshops which were all very well-received (except for the obvious draw-back that no one could attend them all). Still, we were increasingly frustrated by not seeming to be able to 'grasp the essence' of reconciliation as we had other topics in previous year. Was it 'too boring'? Why did it slip away? Obviously, reconciliation as a topic challenged us from the very beginning. Maybe even the increased number of presentations, considerably more than ever, was created by a certain anxiety which surrounds the topic.

    Maybe we were looking for a rational definition in order to create a theoretic framework within which we could have felt more comfortable, and maybe less threatened. We did not really find it. There does not seem to be a simple and sound definition of what reconciliation is.
A number of presentations focused on whether or not that which we cannot clearly intellectually define is feasible and can actually happen, or whether it is not possible. It emerged that there is room for a spiritual dimension of this question. One can believe or not believe in reconciliation. This belief will further influence our research findings and our insights; it gives a spiritual meaning to the psychological process that we want to study.
    Thus we began to be able to sense some qualities of the process we could not define:
- Was our tendency of escaping into intellectualization due to the fact that the topic seemed to require us to reflect and accept the fact that we are all capable of conflict, and scared of reconciliation? Conflict seems to be well-grounded and nourished in individual identity, while the process of reconciliation could require us to give up 'nourishing elements' such as pride, the position of victim or survivor, or a position as inheritor of universal justice (or injustice).

    - Is there anything nourishing about reconciliation?
    - Is reconciliation actually a unique phenomenon, or might we have achieved more by exploring it in the context of something else which can be more easily defined? For example, we later heard an Irish colleague speak in Oslo who sees reconciliation in the context of 'reconstruction of normality'. He stressed that reconciliation happens 'undercover' while normality is reconstructed. This is very important for example in the Kosovo context, where most people think that reconciliation is not possible, as well as in view of the general belief that it is impossible to work pro-actively on reconciliation. What we can do proactively is to reconstruct normality, where if our Irish colleague is right, reconciliation will emerge 'undercover', without our using the concept or talking about it. The conflict will simply lose its destructive strength and will be increasingly less of the issue, which is also part of the process of reconstruction of normality. What we can do is to promote normality and mental health, bearing in mind that that means promoting a number of constructive processes including reconciliation.
    Whether or not our discussions were clarifying reconciliation, we were living it. Group members from all parts of former Yugoslavia obviously felt comfortable with each other, at the meeting, and in the city. Some re-visited significant family vacation areas in and around Dubrovnik. Our party featured not just the food and drink from all of our homes which has become a SiT tradition, but also music from various places including Serbia.
Our group process was extremely careful. When we planned an extra meeting to discuss our process and some members decided to go for a walk to town instead, we ended up discussing whether or not this situation actually could be called a split (developing two factions within the discussing group: those who thought it was and those who thought it was not a split.)
    A certain symbolic meaning attached to the election for two Board Members and Coordinator, which ended up being very simple and unanimous after quite a lot of preparatory discussions. SiT was obviously full of energy and on the way to healing from the difficulties of the year before.

    So why couldn't we 'grasp' our topic? It took months of discussion before we realized: we had
attempted too much. Reconciliation is not 'just' the end of violence, it is something more and something specific. Lars Christiansen listed the stages of the process as: Open conflict, Armistice, Parallel existence, Co-existence, and then Reconciliation.
    Dubrovnik itself represents overcoming violence, with its new brighter red roofs indicating previous destruction.
    But what is going on inside the houses and in the people's hearts? Here, they are dedicated to finding reconciliation, which is a longer process. We decided to follow their example and continue on the path of seeking what is specific about this kind of a solution.....We saw that Dubrovnik would be nothing but a small and isolated town, if there were no stability and if it were not open to each and every living creature. So reconciliation is essential for its survival, both economic and cultural. This is not always the case, but here and now, it is for sure.
    Ten years of hardship and poverty have taught the lesson, which is more obvious here than in the rest of the country, so people are in that sense at least a bit ahead....
In other words, the path seems to be through ourselves, rather than through examples that involve the rest of the world, but not us. This important lesson led to the decision to continue with reconciliation by studying country specific case examples. We hope to bring examples that really trigger something, like we always bring the cases that trigger something within us to supervision sessions. We also hope to create a space for everyone to learn why this particular case triggers the presenter as a unique and complex being.