International Social Science Journal (Chinese Edition)

No.3, 2017

Victims as moral beacons of humanitarianism in post-conflict societies

(Abstract)

John D. Brewer, Bernadette C. Hayes, Katrin Dudgeon, Natascha Mueller-Hirth, Francis Teeney and Shirley-Lal Wijesinghe

This paper reports on interview data amongst victims of conflict and organised violence. Despite their victimhood, they evince a level of forgivingness, civility and tolerance that constructs in the very acts of atrocity that portend its demise, a form of humanitarianism which enables victims to be moral beacons in post-conflict societies that otherwise are largely devoid of any a moral or sacred canopy. Data cover victims in Sri Lanka, South Africa and Northern Ireland. The theoretical contribution of the paper is to proffer a view that humanitarianism in societies emerging out of conflict is best understood as a social practice constituted by victims’ practices for tolerance and civility. This makes humanitarianism pro-social, having the potential to affect social consciousness and social understandings in post-conflict societies and to assist in the remaking of society after conflict.