Life after trauma

Even in his capacity as director of the Flemish Peace Institute, Baum’s first instinct was to look away. “The direct confrontation with trauma is shocking, and we feel very ill at ease,” he told a crowd of academics, public officials and NGO workers during a recent congress at the Flemish Parliament. “We need to look trauma in the eye. We have a responsibility to ask ourselves what we can do as the involved third party.”

A handful of lawmakers and academics have decided that even if Flanders has not known any armed conflicts in decades, it cannot look away from what is happening elsewhere in the world. The conference Between Trauma and Transformation was organised by the Flemish Department of Foreign Affairs as part of a series of commemorative activities on the occasion of the centenary of the First World War. Over the course of one morning, speakers explored how research insights and scientific advances can improve trauma therapy and peace-building in conflict areas.

“It’s very important for Flemings to know that we were one of the major battlefields in Europe for hundreds of years because we were a buffer zone between the most important powers of the past,” says Axel Buyse, representative of the Flemish government to the EU. “I think, if you have any sense of history, you should know this.” Buyse says the upcoming centennial of the Great War that ravaged much of Flanders is a good opportunity to stress the importance of remembrance. “We are using this to do some educational work.”

At first glance, it may seem like there are few reasons for Flemings to care about trauma. Flanders has not been a conflict zone in more than 60 years. “But trauma is everywhere,” says Patrick Luyten, an assistant professor in psychology at the University of Leuven.

There are the collective traumas that rocked the country in recent years, he says – the bus accident in Sierre that killed 22 children from two Flemish schools last year, and the wide-scale sexual abuses by the Catholic Church. Then, there are also the deeply personal traumas that produce lifelong scars – the ones that result from bullying, the loss of loved ones, violence at the hands of a partner, or from growing up in social deprivation.

“Trauma influences us all in very negative ways,” Luyten said, “and it will continue to do so, if we do not intervene.”

As secretary-general of the Flemish Interuniversity Council, Rosette S’Jegers has accompanied Flemish university deans to conflict areas a number of times in recent years. Time and again, S’Jegers was struck by the local scientific community’s interest in, and respect for, what Flemish universities and researchers were doing.

“We may not be a world power with decision-making clout in international councils, or a discussion partner with billions to invest in some project,” S’Jegers said, “but our institutions have a reputation for excellence in education and research. Plus, Flanders as a region and Belgium as a country have a reputation for acting as a mediator in conflict areas.”

When they visited Israel and the Palestine territories, S’Jegers and the university deans scratched their heads at the paradox before them – how seemingly inevitable it was for researchers’ know-how and scientific synergies to become completely isolated in escalating conflict areas because of the political situation.

“Palestinian universities, for example, tend to be cut off from all the world-renowned research taking place just around the corner in Israel,” explained S’Jegers. This would become the impetus for the Flemish Interuniversity Council to create a platform to help facilitate indirect exchanges between Palestinian and Israeli research institutions.

When Flemish minister-president Kris Peeters subsequently visited the Palestine territories last year on a routine mission, he asked the handful of university administrators who had accompanied him: “Why not expand their initiative?” He envisioned a network that would give academic support to not just research institutions in the Middle East, but also to other long-time conflict regions with which Flanders could potentially have partnerships. “It was Peeters who imagined this as something larger,” says S’Jegers.

Peeters then asked the Flemish Interuniversity Council to map the scientific potential of the existing Flemish research and know-how on trauma. “Governments are often interested in scientific insights,” explained Baum, “especially when they are useful in policy-making.” The main purpose for this network is to serve as a tool that can be used in the Flemish government’s diplomatic missions abroad, for instance when intervening in conflict areas or sending out emergency-response teams.

The Flemish government’s move comes amid a broader context in which governments around the world have begun to shift their approach in conflict areas from diplomacy to trauma counselling. “But both are important,” said Buyse. “We should still pay great attention to diplomacy because diplomacy is important in quite a few situations where there is a need to control and end conflict. But it is a good evolution, if you ask me, that we also pay attention to this counselling component.”

For now, the overriding aim is to continue to map the existing Flemish research on trauma. Of course, this inventory cannot be the end goal in and of itself, said Koen Verlaeckt, secretary-general of the Flemish Department of Foreign Affairs. “In further expanding this trauma and transformation network it is critical that we continue to focus on researchers, but also on the people in the field and on policymakers.”