Defining Victims of Violence
Billy Mitchell talks to Mina Wardle, Director� of the Shankill Stress and Trauma Group
In Northern Ireland we have a very bad habit of defining victim-hood in the narrowest of terms. We tend to draw a circle around �our� people and deny victim-hood to all who fall outside that circle.� Such cherry-picking simply serves to justify injury to some, suggesting that there are �deserving� and �undeserving� victims � those who �are good value for it� and others who are not. The implications� are not spelt out so bluntly, but that is what lies at the heart of such distinctions.
The Shankill Stress and Trauma Group, on whose Management Committee I am privileged to serve,� has always had a policy of being wholly inclusive and non-judgemental in its approach to victim-hood. This has often led to the Group being marginalised by certain politicians and media commentators. Our Director, Mina Wardle, explained it like this,� �Because we refuse to differentiate between the hurt and trauma suffered by civilians, soldiers, policemen, or paramilitaries we are frowned upon in certain quarters�.� The Group also suffers from prejudicial treatment because it refuses to differentiate between the victim-hood of individuals or communities on the basis of religion or politics..
The inclusive policy of the Shankill Stress and Trauma Group stems as much from the nature of the conflict as experienced by the people of the Greater Shankill area as it does from the basic justice of being inclusive. Mina explains it like this, �Considering in our area on 11th October 1969 my community shot the first RUC officer, and on the same night two cousins were shot by the army. Soon after, the first baby of the conflict died in a bomb attack, aged twelve months. Why shouldn�t we be inclusive in our approach?�.
As for recognising the hurt and trauma suffered by families of paramilitary members who became victims, Mina recalls that �the first Shankill Bomb (the Four Step Inn) led to a victim�s relative becoming a perpetrator (for revenge), serving a lengthy prison sentence and then becoming a victim again when he was murdered. Things for him had turned full circle - from victim to avenger and back again to victim.� �Yes, we are inclusive�, insisted Mina, �even of those whom others regard as provocative victims�.
In 1998 when Mina and other members of the Shankill Group met with the Bar Council they were shocked when Council members sought to raise the bogey of paramilitary victims. �Should we compensate the wives and children of dead paramilitaries?�, asked the lawyers�. �Why not?�, answered the Group, �What have these women and children done to be excluded and thus further punished?� It would appear that even within the legal profession the principle of inclusion has been ring fenced for a special class of victim.
It is not just the victims of the current conflict that Mina is concerned about. A community is made up of all age groups and there are those living in the Greater Shankill area who have known few years in their lives that did not involve suffering due to conflict or war. In a community with a long tradition of military service there have been Somme Orphans, World War II widows, as well as women �worried sick about husbands, brothers, sons and grandchildren serving in Korea, Aden, Malaya, the Falklands and the Gulf�.
Taken in isolation, the involvement of local people in such conflicts may seem insignificant. When experienced by a community as a series of events over a period of some eighty-six years, the impact is quite significant indeed. As Mina pointed out, �There were few untroubled years between 1914 and 1945. Between 1945 and 1969 we have had one short period of twenty-four years of relative peace. Even then we had Korea, Aden, Malaya and Cyprus�.
The hurt experienced by these �forgotten� victims of other conflicts has had a significant impact upon the hurt experienced by those who have suffered during the past thirty years of conflict. The aggregate of suffering, past and present, within the Greater Shankill area is being addressed for the first time in living history. Thanks to the work of the Shankill Stress & Trauma Group.
A wide range of names have been used to signify victims. �Victim�, �survivor�, �exister�, �empowered� and �those who have suffered� have all been used. The Shankill Stress Group defends the right of individuals to use the name that they feel most comfortable with. Mina uses a range of different names to describe herself, depending on the circumstances she finds herself in.
��Today, as I talk about my experiences,� I can say that I am a survivor, this is my path to survival. Two days before Christmas last year, when reading stories of people whom I loved and cared for, I was a victim. I was taken right back to that time, that place, those sounds � right back to my hurt and anger. When my husband wakes up in flashback situations I become a �carer�. So I claim the right to use whatever title I desire. I don�t wish to be standardised�.
Genuine concern for healing in the community will lead us to acknowledge that all who have suffered loss as a result of violence have a right to have that suffering validated. This means that the definition of "victim-hood" must be all-inclusive.