TOWARDS RECONCILING WITH OURSELVES AND OTHERS

In the first section of the paper, by reviewing the contemporary literature in this field, the author searches for answers to the following questions: What is reconciliation? Should it occur, why, and when? Who should participate in this process and how? What are the instruments of reconciliation? By examining the process of reconciliation, on an internal and external level, from an interpersonal and collective perspective, the author in the second section tries to bring together two reconciliation instruments, closely tied to the field of clinical psychology. Focusing on “healing by dealing with the past,” the author develops the framework for reconciliation. This framework involves three issues: the relevant facts of living in this region within the historical and socio-cultural context, a model that connects those facts, and the strategies to be undertaken for the path of recovery.

charged.Some recent wounds are still open and closely connected with a lot of painful issues from previous times that have never been properly addressed.
In addition, there is a discrepancy between the considerable importance of psychological issues in understanding, planning, and implementing the reconciliation process, and the relatively modest contribution of psychology in the development of this field.Therefore, there is a strong call for theoretical, empirical, and practical work on structuring and developing the "psychological level" of reconciliation (Hubertus, 1999).After all, humans are those who reconcile.
Nowadays, a wide spectrum of different voices about reconciliation can be heard in Serbia and Montenegro.Voices who completely reject the idea even before actually hearing what it exactly means, as well as those who continuously undertake serious action in that direction.Between them is a silent majority, who I am sure have much to say, but might be waiting for a convenient climate -for more sensible and open communication.
The need for reconciliation is becoming increasingly clear, as is the understanding of its national and international importance.Evidence for this includes: • the growing number of publications in this field -translated foreign literature (Eš, 2000;Koen, 2003) and books by domestic authors (Kuljić,2002) • empirical research (Petrović 2004) • continuous coverage in the media (e.g., a serial, "Truth -Responsibility -Reconciliation", is running once weekly for last three years on TV "B92"), • national and international conferences like the Reconciliation for the Future Workshop (2003) • international projects (Koulouri, 2001) and other initiatives that wax and wane.
Therefore, one can see considerable human potential for reconciliation in Serbia and Montenegro among professionals: psychologists, sociologists, historians, lawyers, culturologists, artists, journalists, publicists (especially those multidisciplinary-oriented); among individuals with knowledge, integrity, reputation and sensitivity in this topic area.Potential exists also within government and nongovernmental institutions, universities, churches, and the media.And, finally, within the general public inside the country as well as in diasporas.
What is still missing is a comprehensive concept and strategy, coordinated activity (towards raising awareness, improving motivation, mobilizing resources), and continuous political and financial support.The aim of this paper is not to fulfill such a large and ambitious project, but rather to make a modest contribution by highlighting some psychological perspectives relevant to the process of reconciliation in Serbia and Montenegro.

RECONCILIATION -WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT?
Reconciliation -what?
In contemporary theory, research, and practice, reconciliation is seen both as a future goal -something to achieve, and also a present process -a means to achieve that goal (Bloomfield, 2003).It could have both an interpersonal and collective perspective.From the interpersonal perspective, reconciliation may be defined as the restoration of trust in an interpersonal relationship.It presupposes a prior rupture or break in a relationship, which is usually due to harmful actions, after which one or both parties feel hurt, diminished or wronged by the other.Trust entails two components, a belief that the other has good intentions, and sufficient competence (Berg and Tomm, 2000).The same authors call our attention to an important psychological process, very much connected with the restoration of trust, but somehow overlooked.It is -vindication: a process of restoring a sense of one's own worth after being hurt.Vindication is usually done by two contrasting methods: by diminishing the worth of the other (e.g.retaliation, revenge) or by enhancing the worth of the self (e.g.competence, forgiveness).
From the collective perspective, reconciliation could be defined as the process through which a society addresses adequately the legacy of its divided past, develops a working relationship in the present, and builds a shared vision of the future (Fogg, 2003).It is a deep and painful process, which involves coming to terms with an imperfect reality, and demands changes in attitudes, aspirations, emotions, and perhaps even beliefs.This is a gradual process that takes time and cannot be rushed or imposed from the outside.Each society discovers its own route to reconciliation, designed to fit the context and owned by all stakeholders concerned .So it is also a very broad process, inclusive of the many and various interests and experiences across a society (Bloomfield, 2003).

Internal and external dimensions of reconciliation
All this being considered, it is obvious that the reconciliation process we need in Serbia and Montenegro should have both internal and external dimensions.By this I mean two things: at the interpersonal level, the complete reconciliation process needs to include restoring a sense of self-worth (i.e., competence and a capacity for forgiveness), as well as the rebuilding of trust in others (i.e., in their good intentions and their sufficient competence).At the collective level, an adequate reconciliation process in Serbia and Montenegro needs to include the country dealing with its own reconciliation issues, as well as turning out to its neighbors and the international community.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" (Santayana) »In a post-conflict situation: war has ended, a settlement has been reached, and a new regime is struggling to construct a new society out of the ashes of the old.Part of that task of construction is effectively reconciling the divided elements of society and building better relationships between the previously warring factions... (While) politics address the issues that have divided societies in the past, reconciliation redesigns relationships towards respect, understanding, and cooperation« (Bloomfield, 2003, p.12).It is a foundation of stable and lasting peace and a safeguard against a return to violent divisions.

Reconciling -when?
Even when the need for reconciliation is somehow recognized, the usual response to this question is, "Yes, but not now!".This response is likely to have internal and external factors.Internal factors include the persistence of strong emotions, insufficient evidence and inadequate distance for understanding what happened clearly, fear that opening up old wounds will bring further dissension, etc.All of this results in "drawing a strong line" with the past, and turning towards the future exclusively (Eš, 2000).
Besides internal factors, external factors can also postpone the process of reconciliation, which is only one of the major challenges in the complex post war agenda.Short term political or economic interests such as the development of a safe environment, free elections, national constitution, and stable currency can also take priority over reconciliation."It is unwise to believe that after a war that the mere passage of time will ultimately produce reconciliation.All the evidence today shows, the quest for truth, justice, reparation ... does not simply disappear with time... something has to be done before the victims become further trapped in their pain and isolation" (Huyse, 2003, p. 27).

Reconciliation-who?
Who "owns" the process?
The role of public authorities in planning and setting up reconciliation programmes is crucial.But opinions differ as to the direction such official policies should take.The bottom -up approach is one that views improved interpersonal relations among community members as the primary area for reconciliation work.Local, home -grown reconciliation and grass-roots initiatives are viewed as the key to success.The top-down approach is characterized by a perception that for local dynamics to change, national intervention must first take place.This will filter down, or create the conditions and incentives within which local actors can pursue the reconciliation process.Both approaches are essential for a more sustainable long-term reconciliation process (Huyse, 2003).

Who is involved in the process?
Reconciliation develops between individuals, groups and communities who are connected as victims, beneficiaries and perpetrators (Huyse, 2003).Beneficiaries of the violent system are those who are also responsible in a moral sense.Victims and perpetrators are at the heart of reconciliation activities.However, both categories embrace many more persons and groups than those who are directly involved in violent acts.So we can talk about primary, secondary and tertiary victims and perpetrators (Berg and Tomm, 2000).Aside from the usual focus on victims and perpetrators, the role of the witness is also significant and, I believe, fairly overlooked.It will be very useful to further explore the role this third party has in the dynamics of violent conflicts and in reconciliation processes as well.Such an approach, I believe, could broaden the whole picture, open new perspectives for understanding, and create new possibilities for the reconciliation process itself.

Reconciling -how?
Basic instruments of this process are: • healing the wounds of the survivors, • some form of retributive or restorative justice, • historical accounting via truth-telling • reparation of the material and psychological damage There are close links between these four mechanisms and none of them can produce a full reconciliation alone (Huyse, 2003).
Having this in mind, for the purpose of this paper, I will focus on healing and historical accounting, the instruments of reconciliation most directly related to psychological considerations.Healing the wounds of survivors is not only about assisting individuals to address their psychological health needs in an isolated way (i.e., to help them through, for example, a grieving process).It is also essential to deal with the causes of the distress and symptoms.What needs to be healed is, therefore, the multitude of individual, political, social and cultural responses to a traumatic situation and its aftermath (Hamber, 2003).
Hamber offers a set of broad principles that should guide all strategies aimed at healing.These are: a) understand the context (i.e., acknowledge the social and cultural context and address the individual as a whole), b) use local resources (i.e., build upon localized coping mechanisms and models of social and emotional resilience), and c) link healing with wider reconstruction efforts.The same author also emphasizes that psycho-social interventions which operate in a vacuum are less effective, and cannot in themselves replace the need for truth, acknowledgement, and justice.Confronting the past in a reconciliatory way is the issue of many important healing-oriented programs (such as counseling, crisis and other interventions) assigned to individuals, families and groups, in conflict and postconflict situations, as well as during peace time.The acknowledgment of what happened is also crucial for promoting justice and breaking the vicious circle of impunity.
The instruments of truth-seeking (i.e., truth commissions, historical commissions, and other official and semi-official governmental and nongovernmental, national and international inquires), established internationally during the last 50 years, were more convenient for national and political than for individual or family reconciliation.What we need is the further development of truth-seeking instruments that have the potential for promoting enlightenment about past events on both a micro and macro level.

A FRAMEWORK FOR RECONCILIATION IN SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO
"Revealing is healing" (South African reconciliation slogan) Thinking about reconciliation as a clinical psychologist, my focus here is on healing by dealing with the past.Therefore I will strive to construct a useful and acceptable framework that might be the starting point for the reconciliation -both on internal and external levels.
Some facts of life in Serbia and Montenegro, within historical and sociocultural contexts.

2.
A model which tries to connect these facts towards opening space and giving possible guidelines for the reconciliation process.This model leans on contemporary psychological concepts coming from both theory and practice.

SOME FACTS OF LIFE IN SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO
These facts refer to the period of the last 125 years.Even though some of them belong to recent history, most are vividly present as the actual memory in several generations of still living people, shaping their present and future lives.
Changes are frequent, intensive, extreme and ongoing The two independent states of Serbia and Montenegro were established in the second half of the 19 th century as agricultural, monarchist states, with less than 4 million inhabitants living in both of them (Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, 1968).Their inhabitants were mainly of one nationality, one language and one religion.Surrounded along most of their borders by two large empires in decline, the Ottoman and the Austro-Hungarian Empires (Stojanović, 2003), the two states, Serbia and Montenegro, lasted the next 34 years.
Kingdom of Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia / Kingdom of Yugoslavia was established following six years of continuous wars as a multinational, multilingual, multi-confessional and agro-industrial monarchy.It was inhabited by 12-15 million people and lasted for the next 24 years (Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, 1968).This was a fairly short period for people to adequately adapt to a wide spectrum of numerous and deep changes.
After World War II, the second, Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia was established, populated by 16 -23 million inhabitants (Enciklopedija Jugoslavije, 1968).These people were expected to develop new views and values, mainly opposite to those held before, (such as no god-no king-no private property) in the period of another 46 years of its existence.
After that came the third, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, consisting of Serbia and Montenegro.Its 10 million inhabitants (Statistical Yearbook of Yugoslavia, 1992) lived more than 10 years under tremendous strain -both internal and external.Internal strain came from chronic and escalating destructive conflicts and massive political, social, economic and moral decline.External strain mostly came from eight years of international isolation and sanctions, and NATO military intervention.
In 2003, a loose confederation of Serbia & Montenegro was established.It is populated by approximately 8 million inhabitants (without population data from Kosovo which have not been available since 1998 -Statistical Yearbook of Serbia, 2004).Among them, more than 500,000 are refugees and displaced people, which is the largest number in any European country (UNHCR, 2004).The confederation of Serbia and Montenegro was created for a limited amount of time, with unclear borders and a dated constitution.It has important institutions that are poorly functioning, developing or even lacking.Since the most recent war, this society has been in a painful process of transition, on the path to the European Union, whose outcome is still far and pretty uncertain.
Changes are not only frequent, intensive, extreme and ongoing.They are also violently induced.
All of the mentioned states were raised out of wars: The Balkan Wars (1912-1914), World War I (1914-1918), World War II (1941-1945) and four regional wars with Slovenia (1991), Croatia andBosnia (1992-1995) and Kosovo (1998Kosovo ( -1999)).A total of more than 15 years of wars in more then one hundred years, draws our attention to the impressive and endless listing of all the visible and invisible direct, structural and cultural violence in the aftermath: • Somatic and spiritual effects on humans (such as numbers killed, bereaved, ill, wounded, traumatized, raped, displaced...) The pain, hatred, depression, apathy, revenge and victory addiction in their families, friends and other close and distant members of their community, ethnic or religious group.

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The material and nonmaterial damage to societies -to buildings and infrastructure, as well as to institutions and governance: to the economy, law and order, health and education, to human rights.

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Time delayed violence (the one transmitted to the next generations; offspring trauma and glory) poisons not only a society and its culture, but also pollutes the natural environment (through explosions of land-mines, etc.) • Finally, when the loss is massive (i.e., affects a larger cross section of a group and involves longer-lasting damage) , and chronic (i.e., with periods of stability and peace too short for a proper recovery), it also makes sense to talk about growth-torn people, growth-torn societies, and a growth-torn world (Galtung,1998)

THE TRANSGENERATIONAL PATTERN
What we could see that follows from the above is a perpetuation of a destructive transgenerational pattern (as presented in the Figure 1).The perpetuating pattern of frequent, intensive, extreme, ongoing and violent changes (Ad 1.) has its impact on the lives of individuals and families, society and culture.Looking into a family life of four generations, it is clear that each generation has been brought up in a socio-cultural context, where the next differs extremely from the previous one.Therefore, each generation has a difficult task to learn to live according to the new views and values.Values that are not only quite opposite, but also imposed through violent conflicts.The questions "to whom and what to be loyal and for how long?", call for answers in each generation (Srna et al., 1996).
Humans cannot accept change without mourning what has been lost (Ad 2).The work of mourning helps the mourner assimilate and adapt to a changed reality and release the energy for undertaking new projects and developing new relationships.Like individuals or families, large groups who share the same loss, collectively go through a similar psychological mourning process.After the initial shock and attempts to reverse the feelings of loss, society becomes involved in religious and cultural rituals, usually repeated over time, with decreasing intensity, on the anniversaries of such events.The work of collective mourning eventually fades away and the society's adaptation to these shared losses is, on the whole, a silent one (Volkan, 1997).
The nature of the response to loss depends on a variety of circumstances both external and internal.When there are "chronic societal wounds left in their wake" (Volkan, 1997), the natural mourning process could be interrupted, blocked or complicated .Then, instead of recovery we have a dysfunctional adaptation to loss.Time stops in denial.Feelings of pain and anger, fear of further loss, shame and guilt, that could not be experienced consciously and worked through, become unconsciously displaced, directed towards others, or passed on to later generations.
Children might experience this piece of parental missing history as a persistent "psychic hole", a gap in their emotional understanding and a compulsion to enact the parents' traumatic experience in their own life as a kind of "primitive identification".This identification leads to a loss of the child's sense of self and to his inability to differentiate between himself and his damaged parent (Kogan, 1999).An unconscious family burden obstructs family differentiation, disturbs family relations, and jeopardizes family functioning.All of this further contributes to a frozen identity, deeper generational gaps, and family loyalty problems (Srna et al, 2000).
At the societal level, the phenomena which are described within the concepts of a "chosen trauma" and a "chosen glory", can be easily recognized (Volkan, 1997).Shared mental representations of historical events (one that induces feelings of humiliation and helplessness, and the other that induces the feelings of success and triumph), can be under certain circumstances spontaneously reactivated, or intentionally and severely abused and manipulated.Once reactivated, a chosen trauma bonds the individuals in the group, reinforces their sense of victimization, and spurs the group to avenge its ancestors' hurts and to justify the aggression.Even if it does not actually cause violent conflicts, it could strongly contribute to the same, by providing an "ancient fuel for the modern inferno" (Volkan, 1997, p. 50).
This unmourned massive loss blocks natural developmental processes, leaving all system levels (individual, family, social and cultural) in permanent fragmentation, polarization, isolation and discontinuity (Ad 3.).It also strengthens collectivization and centralization as strong centripetal forces, which usually operate as defense mechanisms in troubled times.Vertical social influences dominate over the horizontal ones.This means that societal power overtakes the power from families and individuals.
Such a chronic tension in all levels of the system (individual, family, social and cultural) is always fertile ground for conflicts (Ad 4).It diminishes the conflict resolution capacity, which is already pretty much deteriorated through the continuous process of violent changes and dysfunctional adaptation to loss.The two most popular conflict resolution styles become: • Denial of problems (e.g."no problem" are the first words that strangers will learn in Serbia and Montenegro), and withdrawing/remaining neutral in conflicts (e.g.always minding their own business, even in situations of street robbery and violence, when it is expected that people will react).
• Suppression of conflicts -authority/obedience approach: winning through power, manipulation and control, rather than seeking a valuable solution.While the second style usually leads to some results, both styles show a low level of concern for people (Frey, 1979).With diminished conflict resolution capacity, and conflict resolution styles neglectful of human needs, conflicts stay poorly managed and unresolved, so they easily turn into violence (Ad 5).And here we are again at the beginning of another cycle of change, loss etc.

POSSIBLE PATH OF RECOVERY
A path of recovery could be seen through two interconnected processesreconciliation and recomposition.According to this model, reconciliation is seen as a process change, which is directed to the following: 1.

RECONCILIATION RECOMPOSITION process change structural change
Recomposition is seen as a structural change, directed toward issues such as: polarization, fragmentation, isolation and discontinuity.These could be identified at all system levels: individual, family, communal, social, and cultural.

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Perpetuation of a destructive transgenerational pattern