Collective recovery after genocide
The content base of radio soap Musekeweya is the scientific work of Ervin Staub as well as that of traumatologist Laurie Pearlman. Pearlman is co-developer of the RICH approach, aimed at trauma recovery after group violence.
Learning to live with each other again after 750,000 murders
Rwanda, April-July 1994: a country smaller than the Netherlands, with a population of approximately 8 million people. Within 100 days, 700,000 Tutsis and 50,000 less extreme Hutus were killed. Murders were committed mainly with machetes. People killed their neighbors, colleagues, friends, and even members of their own family (related by marriage). Women were raped on a large scale. These figures and circumstances are almost incomprehensible. How could people ever learn to live together again? Would it even be possible?
In Rwanda, almost everyone has been left traumatized by the genocide
Psychological manipulation recovery
When Ervin Staub and I began to work in Rwanda in 1999, I observed many of the same individual trauma adaptations that I saw in complex trauma psychotherapy clients in the U.S. It seemed possible to use the RICH treatment model as a foundation for trauma work in Rwanda, as described below. In Rwanda, almost everyone has been left traumatized by the genocide. Victims and witnesses are traumatized as a result of what they saw and experienced, and offenders due to by the often extremely violent crimes they committed. There is much to be done after periods of extreme violence in order to achieve reconciliation, reconstruction of society, and peace building. An important issue is recovery from traumas, not in the least because heavily traumatized people are more susceptible to psychological manipulation through the reawakening of intense feelings of fear and danger, both to improve their quality of life and to reduce the likelihood of future violence. Attention should be equally devoted to the trauma recovery process of offenders as well as victims, because if harm doers trauma is not addressed, they are at risk for future offending.
There are only a handful of psychologists in Rwanda
Collective culture
This form of trauma recovery cannot be introduced in a Western manner, such as referring people to a psychologist. There are only a handful of psychologists in Rwanda, and an individual approach such as this does not suit the collective culture of African countries. More attention should be directed at communal healing: teaching people within a community how to support each other, also in an emotional sense.
Because genocide is a group process, community recovery is essential
Community approach
Moreover, genocide creates a wide range of negative aftereffects for individuals, communities, and societies. Constructive functioning at each level, including effective involvement in efforts to reconcile and prevent future violence, requires some trauma recovery, as well as mourning losses. Because genocide is a group process, community (rather than solely individual) recovery is an essential focus. I focus on trauma recovery of individuals in their larger social context. That is, I address group approaches that may contribute to individual and community recovery. For this reason, we based the trauma recovery element of the radio project on the so-called RICH approach, representing Respect, Information, Connection and Hope.
RICH: Respect, Information, Connection, and Hope
The acronym RICH captures the essential elements of recovery: Respect, Information, Connection, and Hope. The premise is that trauma recovery requires RICH relationships. It is not a treatment model, but a philosophy of or framework for treatment can be adapted to a range of social/cultural contexts. The Rwandans with whom we worked embraced it and together we decided to allow for cultural adaptation and application to their collective trauma recovery needs. In the context of the aftermath of genocide or other forms of mass violence, RICH can be operationalized as follows.
Respect could include acknowledgment by others of the injustice of the violence and its damage, justice (through formally acknowledging responsibility for wrongdoing, justice demands respect for survivors, thereby addressing their disrupted world view), agency (by including the voice of the victim group in recovery and justice processes), and restitution (such as restoring property to its owners or providing victim compensation).
Information could include facts about what happened, how and why genocide comes about, the potential effects of violence (psychological trauma), what to expect in the aftermath of mass violence (symptoms, natural course of these problems), paths to healing, and how to help oneself and others as well as finding both material and social resources (such as trauma recovery assistance and community-based opportunities to rebuild civil society). Information confirms or corrects one’s judgment, and can address self-trust, both physical safety and psychological security.
Connection takes both intrapersonal and interpersonal forms: acknowledging to oneself what happened (losses as well as one’s behaviors during the violence and their consequences), connecting with experience (remembering and talking about what happened while feeling the emotions), connecting with the greater community (repairing rifts among survivors, harm doers and bystanders), re-establishing community and receiving support and validation from others.
Hope arises from all of these dimensions—respect, information, and connection—as well as from developing a life worth living, investing in the future, contributing to others’ well-being, and finding or creating meaning. An important source of meaning is having a role in one’s community. Hope, restored through meaning, is an antidote to disrupted spirituality.
Promoting reconciliation, and preventing future conflict
Musekeweya and trauma recovery
In 2001, Ervin Staub, George Weiss, Anneke van Hoek, and I initiated a public education program intended to promote trauma recovery and prevent future violence in Rwanda. The programs began broadcasting in Rwanda in 2004 with radio soap Musekeweya and expanded broadcasting to Burundi in 2005 and to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006. Its basis is an approach to addressing post-genocide trauma and psychological wounds, promoting reconciliation, and preventing future conflict based on Staub’s theoretical work on the origins and prevention of group violence and reconciliation and my and colleagues’ constructivist self development theory and RICH approach to trauma recovery.
Local scriptwriters create the program scripts
Entertaining radio dramas
The program conveys information about the origins of group violence, psychological trauma, recovery, reconciliation, and violence prevention through entertaining radio dramas and informational programs. It encourages pluralism, active bystandership, and a neighbor-to-neighbor approach to trauma recovery. It also has a grassroots component in which trained community members help resolve conflicts among people in their communities that come to their attention. Local and international staff work collaboratively to develop the overall design of each program and specific story lines within the dramas, which include evidence-based educational messages, transformed to apply to each local culture. Local scriptwriters create the program scripts, incorporating these messages. Staff then translatess the scripts into English for an international “academic team” who reviews them for fidelity to the educational messages. Local actors and production teams bring the programs to the air in the local languages.
Examples of the trauma messages are:
Group violence has profound effects on all parties: victims or survivors, perpetrators or harm doers, and bystanders or witnesses.
There are individual differences in how people are affected by violence. These include changes in identity, self-concept, attitudes toward others, empathy, meaning, and trauma responses such as fear, sleep difficulties, aggression, nightmares, alcohol use, and social withdrawal. Some of these responses can increase the likelihood that people will contribute to future violence, or be unable to help stop it as it begins to unfold.
Trauma is not madness. It can be understood. Many traumatized people function adequately in their daily lives.
Healing is a long, slow process.
It is important to share one’s trauma story.
People who have suffered traumatic losses must mourn those losses. Ceremonies, commemorations, community rituals, and testimonials that connect people to each other, to the past, and to the future can support this mourning and promote recovery.
Retraumatization is less likely with preparation for encountering reminders of traumatic experiences, support during those encounters, and discussion afterwards of what it was like to encounter reminders.
Neighbors can help neighbors heal by listening empathically, and demonstrating compassion and tolerance, respecting and not judging others’ experiences, creating ceremonies together, and inviting neighbors into daily activities.
Reconciliation behaviors
Research on the program in post-genocide Rwanda has shown it to be effective in increasing empathy for various groups including survivors, leaders, and perpetrators; increasing people’s willingness to speak their beliefs; heightening their awareness of trauma; and increasing their independence of authority. Those in an experimental group who listened to the radio drama tended more to engage in reconciliation behaviors, approaching people who harmed them or whom they had harmed. In contrast, people not exposed to the drama talked more about reconciliation without engaging in such action.
Acknowledging the inevitable wounds that genocide inflicts on all parties
RICH in Musekeweya
Musekeweya includes elements of the RICH approach. It provides respect by collaborating with local stakeholders and partners to develop and translate the concepts into the culture, emphasizing a neighbor-to-neighbor approach to trauma recovery (suggesting that each person can help others, meaning that everyone has something to contribute and that professionals are not the only potential helpers), placing trauma in a broader context (not pathologizing those affected by violence, but acknowledging the inevitable wounds that genocide inflicts on all parties), and asserting the importance of justice. It provides information on the origins and prevention of group violence, its potential traumatic effects, paths to recovery, and essential elements of reconciliation. It supports connection by suggesting that neighbors can help neighbors heal, emphasizing the importance of acknowledging what happened and expressing its impact, and promoting active bystandership. It also encourages connection through its venue, radio, to which most people in the region listen in natural community groups. It suggests that meaning is an essential component of the recovery process, and orients people to reconciliation and the development of a peaceful future, which all contribute to hope.