Abstract
In this special issueFootnote1 it has become clear that many ex-combatants did not simply reintegrate into society after independence. This article provides an additional perspective to the socio-political frame of contentious politics dominant in the special issue. A key element to explain their difficult ‘reintegration’ and to understand why former fighters challenged the state, is provided by trauma. The traumatisation of fighters, caused by warfare in the name of national goals, was exacerbated when the new state did not recognise their sacrifices. The resulting anger felt by many ex-combatants, was fuel for political contention.
This special issue has shown that ex-combatants in Vietnam, Indonesia and Mozambique did not simply reintegrate into their societies after revolutionary struggle or civil war. Rebuilding their lives in a fundamentally altered society was difficult, especially since the war had changed or even psychologically damaged some of them. In addition, many took up a fight against the newly founded government, in order to claim social justice, political security and recognition. Charles Tilly and Sidney G. Tarrow have described such interactions of organised political groups against government actors as processes of contentious politics.Footnote2 Contentious politics is this special issue’s editors’ concept of choice: it is more apt to describe the ex-combatants’ trajectories than the frame of reintegration, since it shows that ex-fighters did not disappear into society but were actually part of processes of state formation and societal transformation.
Yet, another outlook is needed to understand their trajectories and political activities more comprehensively. I argue that a key element to explain their difficult ‘reintegration’ and to comprehend why former fighters challenged the state, is a trauma-focused perspective. The trauma concept as an analytical frame reveals the psychological difficulties that many faced because of violent events in war. Some were morally injured by the violence they had committed, which resulted in tremendous feelings of guilt and shame. In this post-colonial context of long-term violence and conflict, the psychological effects of traumatic events were not only disruptive but disillusioning as well. Trauma explains why many found it difficult to rebuild their lives after independence.
Furthermore, their traumatisation became a cause of contention. The concept of moral injury makes clear how the rupture of social bonds is equally as traumatic as perpetrating violence. Social rupture occurred when ex-combatants were not recognised for their sacrifices and suffering by the state. The resulting anger and frustration that some ex-combatants felt, in turn, became powerful motivation for contention. What is more, the concept of cultural trauma subsequently explains that narratives of trauma and misrecognition became foundational forces that bonded disgruntled ex-fighters together in political groups. The antagonists, in this case the government actors who failed to fulfil the needs of the veterans, were targeted with demands for recognition. Alongside the socio-political approach of contentious politics dominant in this special issue, the trauma-informed outlook offers understanding of the life-worlds of ex-combatants.
Traumatisation and disillusionment
Psychological trauma has gained strong influence in disciplines outside of clinical psychology and psychiatry. A dominant notion regarding trauma, the Greek word for ‘wound’, is the diagnostic concept of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In 1980 the concept of PTSD was introduced in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The revolutionary concept accentuated that any individual undergoing a life-threatening event could experience psychological consequences of stress, such as nightmares, flashbacks, avoidance and hypervigilance.Footnote3 Traumatic events are commonly understood as disruptive, meaning that they violently shock the individual’s expectations of what could possibly occur in his or her life.Footnote4
To understand the difficult ‘reintegration’ of traumatised former combatants, we have to look at the context in which they lived.Footnote5 The specific context of post-colonial Mozambique, Indonesia and Vietnam will have influenced the way in which certain traumatic events and the subsequent psychological consequences were experienced. With regards to the specificity of the countries examined, one significant contextual factor is the impact of long-term violence. In a context wherein violent conflict has been raging for years, the psychological effects of life-threatening events were not only disruptive, one crucial element of our understanding of trauma, but also disillusioning.Footnote6
Research on the destructive fifteen-year long South Lebanon Conflict (1985–2000) shows high prevalence rates of both PTSD and Major Depressive Disorder.Footnote7 Traumatic events as the death of family members, displacement and the destruction of homes were part of everyday life. The frequency of such events does not make them less disruptive. Next to this, surviving or witnessing a life-threatening event in a world with habitual violence, will likely result in depression, feelings of helplessness and disillusionment, as no end to conflict is in sight.Footnote8 The example shows how the context in which an event occurs, plays a significant role for how it is experienced by people affected.Footnote9
The disruptive and disillusioning effects of traumatic events in the context of long-term conflict can be applied to Indonesia, Vietnam and Mozambique. These countries saw violent conflict in the years and even decades after revolution. Some ex-combatants had to restart their lives with the disruptive and disillusioning effects of their traumatisation. Their adaptation to civilian life was also made difficult by the disillusionment of post-independence reality. As the editors remark, their high expectations for a better life, social emancipation and economic improvement were not met. Whatever the role of the revolutionary, from politician to guerrilla fighter, member of the paramilitary, nurse or propagandist, and whether they were involved in (life-threatening and disruptive) violence, disillusionment from sustained conflict and broken promises of a better life might have affected most of them.
Moral injury
Next to the more general understanding of trauma in post-colonial worlds as both disruptive and disillusioning, another concept is crucial to understanding the traumatic experiences of fighters. Moral injury provides a different outlook on trauma, not by emphasising the consequences of life-threatening events, but in terms of the transgression of individually held moral values. One prominent view of the term, proposed by Brett T. Litz and his colleagues, accentuates that witnessing or perpetrating violence, or being unable to prevent human suffering, are acts that transgress deeply held moral expectations and beliefs.Footnote10 These transgressive acts can produce profound confusion about right and wrong, a sense of loss and bitter feelings of guilt and shame.Footnote11 Moral injury can be the result of perpetration-related events wherein fighters caused or were unable to prevent the suffering of others.Footnote12 Perpetrating violence, such as killing, is a traumatic breach, a point of no return.Footnote13 Moral injury has become an increasingly popular concept within trauma-focused research in the last two decades. The concept also opens an additional perspective to study former combatants in post-colonial states and provides a theoretical basis to understand their qualms.
With the concept of moral injury, it is possible to interpret a number of experiences covered in this special issue. We come across the morally damaging effects of perpetrating violence in the article of Peter Keppy about Indonesian former combatants who fought in the war of independence (1945–9).Footnote14 He refers to a classic of Indonesian cinema, After the Curfew (1954), written and directed by two former freedom fighters, Usmar Ismail and Asrul Sani. Although fictional, the movie is based on the experiences of Ismail and Sani in the early 1950s, a period wherein former fighters were organised in criminally active or politically contentious groups, some of which staged violent insurgencies. The movie told the story of the guerrilla Iskandar who returned ‘from the mountains’. He was unable to adapt to civilian life and felt estranged from others because of what he had witnessed and perpetrated during the war. He was haunted by the guilt of having killed an innocent woman, whose screams he still heard, on the orders and false pretences of his former commander. For Iskandar, his post-war disappointment about the shallowness and unreliability of people was unbearable. Ultimately, Iskandar sought justice and aimed to settle the score. He had to kill one more time: his former commander who deceived him. On the run from the military police, Iskandar was finally caught and shot, at the doorstep of his fiancée.
Morally transgressive acts can become a painful burden for former combatants. In this special issue we encounter another example of moral injury. Contributing authors Tâm T.T. Ngô and Dat Nguyen vividly describe trauma and coping of Vietnamese veterans in post-war Vietnam.Footnote15 They provide the anecdote of a lieutenant general in Hanoi who felt guilty for not being able to alleviate the nervous breakdowns of one of his soldiers. During the liberation of Saigon, the soldier ran over civilians with his army tank. What torments him is the sound of the crushing of their skulls. But there was little that the lieutenant general could do for his former subordinate, which, in turn, resulted in tremendous feelings of guilt. Moral injury is a deeply interpersonal matter, whereby the one who fails to prevent suffering or who perpetrates feels empathy, and consequentially shame and guilt, for the lives lost or damaged.Footnote16
Misrecognition
Dutch anthropologist Tine Molendijk demonstrated in her research that the rupture of social bonds between people can be morally injurious for former fighters too, even if they are not ‘traumatised’ by morally transgressive events during war.Footnote17 One such rupture is the betrayal of fighters by military and political leaders, whereby the fighters became the victim of transgressive behaviour of superiors.Footnote18 Regarding Iskandar, our fictitious protagonist, it can be argued that he was not only damaged by the acts that he committed, but also by the betrayal of his commander who under false pretences ordered him to kill an innocent woman.
Misrecognition is another factor related to the rupture of social bonds. The absence of recognition – not being seen or heard – is a violation of the moral relation with others and can negatively affect former fighters.Footnote19 According to Axel Honneth, it is the experience of ‘not being recognised in one’s own self-understanding that constitutes the condition for moral injury’.Footnote20 In this form, misrecognition is detrimental to psychological well-being. For Vietnamese veterans on the losing side of the civil war whose lives were tainted by discrimination and marginalisation, or for Indonesian veterans who felt estranged from society because of the acts they committed, political and social misrecognition may have led to isolation and estrangement from others.Footnote21
Receiving recognition on the other hand, being heard and being seen, is considered essential for a sense of self-worth and for psychosocial functioning.Footnote22 Studies show that support from family, friends and colleagues can provide such recognition, and is an important protective factor against developing post-traumatic stress.Footnote23 It can explain that many, probably the majority, of the ex-combatants are not psychologically damaged, although painful memories of violence remain.Footnote24 The importance of social groups is highlighted by Nikkie Wiegink’s contribution on the fighters of the Renamo political armed group and its actions in the Maringue region between 2013 and 2019.Footnote25 It was a new chapter of violent struggle of Renamo against the Frelimo government, the victors of an earlier conflict, that of independence against the Portuguese. Wiegink’s research found that social relationships, networks, and institutions were in many ways shaped by the conflict and by connections with Renamo. These relationships were strengthened by the former military structure, by friendship, marriage and drinking groups, providing ex-Renamo combatants with physical and economic safety, and above all a sense of belonging.
Misrecognition can both have psychological effects for former fighters as well as political consequences. When ex-combatants sense that the state does not offer sufficient recognition in the form of pensions or political representation, this might lead to profound feelings of anger.Footnote26 Hypothetically, this emotional mix of betrayal and anger could motivate disgruntled ex-combatants to challenge the state. Misrecognition in the form of perceived exclusion from the polity will give legitimacy to claim-making political groups. In Mozambique, the ruling Frelimo elite had the power to set out the political field of inclusion and exclusion, of who is a loyal, and who is ‘alien’ or even an enemy to the state. Many who sided with Renamo shared feelings of being lesser citizens and of being excluded from state resources. Such grievances added to Renamo’s political appeal.
Next to the traumatic consequences of misrecognition, whereby underlying motivations for contention become clear, trauma and misrecognition can also shape the social reality of political groups. According to the cultural-sociological approach of cultural trauma, pioneered by American sociologist Jeffrey C. Alexander, the actual psychological experience of the specific traumatic event is only secondary. Much more important is the subsequent interpretation and social construction of trauma. The cultural trauma approach holds that members of a collectivity feel that they have been subjected to a traumatic event that indefinitely marked their group consciousness. A carrier group, the representatives of a collectivity, claims a fundamental injury and a ‘demand for emotional, institutional, and symbolic reparation and reconstitution’.Footnote27 Former combatants could indeed have claimed the trauma of the misrecognition by government actors, of damaged social bonds between fighters and the newly founded state, the disillusionment of the shattered promises of a better life, and of living in the margins of political power. A social construction of trauma can become a driving force for contention, spurring collective action to demand recognition from government actors. Sometimes claims of being injured or traumatised by antagonistic ethnic and/or political groups, which in turn must be battled against, were the prelude to civil war and mass violence that have damaged the social fabric of post-colonial societies.Footnote28
Conclusion
Because of the staggering diversity of the experiences of revolutionaries, it is impossible to do justice to the myriad forms in which trauma in post-colonial countries occurred.Footnote29 The trauma perspective did however provide explanatory interpretations of the psychological problems of former combatants. To answer what trauma reveals about the experiences of former combatants in post-colonial contexts, I have first of all offered underlying explanations of why life after conflict was difficult for some, but certainly not for all ex-combatants. Some fighters were involved in morally transgressive acts during war, such as perpetrating violence against others. This has damaged combatants and produced intense feelings of shame and guilt. Regarding the historical context of post-colonial countries, where violence has been long-lasting, we come to see trauma not only as a disruptive, but also as a disillusioning experience. In Indonesia, Vietnam and Mozambique renewed conflict after revolution has led to the disillusionment of many.
Second, the trauma perspective complements the socio-political concept of contentious politics by providing psychological explanations as to why former combatants challenged the newly founded state. Two important observations, moral injury as a result of misrecognition and cultural trauma, give the theory of contentious politics a dimension that has not been addressed in the case studies. Moral injury literature has elicited how the rupture of social bonds is equally as injurious as perpetrating transgressive acts. Social rupture occurs when ex-combatants were not recognised for their sacrifices and suffering, nor being provided with honours and material benefits by the state. The resulting disillusionment, anger and frustration that some ex-combatants might have felt, in turn could have become volatile motivation for claim-making and collective action. Certainly, misrecognition is not the sole explanation for collective action, but it explains the reasons of ex-combatants to challenge the state.
The cultural trauma approach is also crucial to understand political contention in post-colonial settings. Concerning the process of claim-making, Alexander’s theory of cultural trauma intersects with the socio-political theory of contentious politics of Tilly and Tarrow. According to the former theory, representatives of a collectivity, also known as the carrier group, claim the existence of trauma which has fundamentally shaped the identity of the collectivity. It is claimed that the trauma is caused by an antagonistic force, by political actors associated with the state who failed to recognise combatants for their sacrifices. The antagonists will be the target of claims by ex-combatants for emotional, institutional and symbolic reparation. Put differently, contentious politics can occur when organised former fighters claim the existence of their collective trauma, whereby their collective political action is by all means aimed to be seen and heard.
Acknowledgements
I want to thank this special issue’s editors Peter Keppy and Roel Frakking for the invitation to write this reflection, and for their remarks and support during the writing process. The reviewers provided valuable comments: I want to express my appreciation for their time and help.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Bart Nauta
Bart Nauta (MA) is a historian and interdisciplinary researcher at ARQ National Psychotrauma Centre and a PhD candidate at Utrecht University. In his doctoral research he explores the concept of perpetrator trauma. His recent publications are ‘A Cage Went in Search of a Bird: On the Politics of Condemnation, Compensation and Convalescence’ in the Journal of International Criminal Justice (2023), which he wrote together with Thijs Bouwknegt, and ‘Caught between Is and Ought: the Moral Dissonance Model’ in Frontiers in Psychiatry (2022) with Hans te Brake.
Notes
1 Roel Frakking and Peter Keppy, eds., ‘Remobilisation Within Porous Polities: Ex-combatants’ Claims-making in Post-colonial Indonesia, Vietnam and Mozambique’, War & Society 43, no. 4 (October 2024).
2 Charles Tilly and Sidney G. Tarrow, Contentious Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 7–12.
3 Didier Fassin and Richard Rechtman, The Empire of Trauma: An inquiry into the condition of victimhood (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 77.
4 Lilian Wilde, ‘Trauma Across Cultures: Cultural Dimensions of the phenomenology of Post–traumatic Experiences’, Phenomenology and Mind 18 (May 2020), 226.
5 Robert Lemelson and Annie Tucker, Widening the Frame with Visual Psychological Anthropology: Perspectives on Trauma, Gendered Violence, and Stigma in Indonesia (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan Cham, 2021), 49.
6 Wilde, 226.
7 Laila F. Farhood et al, ‘PTSD and Depression Construct: Prevalence and Predictors of Co–occurrence in a South Lebanese Civilian Sample’, European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 7, no. 1 (July 2016), 1–11.
8 Wilde, 226.
9 Ibid.
10 Brett T. Litz et al, ‘Moral Injury and Moral Repair in War Veterans: A Preliminary Model and Intervention Strategy’, Clinical Psychology Review, 29, no. 8 (July 2009), 695–706.
11 Mary Catherine McDonald, ‘Haunted by a Different Ghost: Re–thinking Moral Injury’, Essays in Philosophy, 18, no. 2 (July 2017), 217; Brandon J. Griffin et al., ‘Moral Injury: An Integrative Review’, Journal of Traumatic Stress, 32, no. 3 (January 2019), 350–62.
12 Griffin et al., 350.
13 Kjell Anderson, Perpetrating Genocide: A Criminological Account (Milton Park: Routledge, 2018), 228; Erin McGlothlin, ‘The Vexing Problem of Perpetrator Trauma’, in The Routledge Companion to Literature and Trauma, ed. by Colin Davis and Hanna Meretoja (Milton Park: Routledge, 2020), 106.
14 Peter Keppy, ‘The Making and Taming of the Veteran in 1950s Indonesia’, War & Society, 43, no. 4 (October 2024).
15 Tâm T.T. Ngô and Dat Nguyen, ‘Caring for the War Dead and the Differential Reintegration of Former Combatants in Postwar Vietnam’, War & Society, 43, no. 4 (October 2024).
16 Jackie June ter Heide, ‘Empathy Is Key in the Development of Moral Injury’, European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 11, no. 1 (November 2020), 3.
17 Tine Molendijk, ‘Moral Injury in Relation to Public Debates: The Role of Societal Misrecognition in Moral Conflict–Colored Trauma Among Soldiers’, Social Science & Medicine 211 (August 2018), 314.
18 Griffin et al., 352.
19 Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 25.
20 Axel Honneth, ‘Recognition and Moral Obligation’, Social Research, 64, no. 1 (April 1997), 23.
21 Griffin et al., 352.
22 Charles Taylor, Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 25.
23 Casey D. Calhoun et al, ‘The Role of Social Support in Coping with Psychological Trauma: An Integrated Biopsychosocial Model for Posttraumatic Stress Recovery’, Psychiatric Quarterly 93, no. 4 (October 2022), 949–70.
24 Robert H. Pietrzak and Joan M. Cook, ‘Psychological Resilience in Older US veterans: Results from the National Health and Resilience in Veterans’ Study’, Depression and Anxiety, 30, no. 5 (2013), 432.
25 Nikkie Wiegink, ‘Renamobilised: Former Combatants and an Armed Opposition Party in Mozambique’, War & Society, 43, no. 4 (October 2024).
26 Griffin et al., 352.
27 Jeffrey C. Alexander, ‘Toward a Theory of Cultural Trauma’, in Jeffrey C. Alexander et al., eds., Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 11.
28 One example of such a claim was present in the run–up to the Rwandan genocide, whereby the Hutu–extremists claimed the historical trauma of the domination of the Tutsi royalty in (pre–) colonial times: Jacques Semelin, Purify and Destroy: The Political Uses of Massacre and Genocide (London: Hurst Publishers, 2013), 63, 77; Alexander, 7.
29 McGlothlin, 101.