Chapter 8. Societal Misrecognition and (Self-)Estrangement:
Moral Distress in Relation to Public Perceptions
1Introduction
‘Have you ever been deployed?’
‘Have you killed anyone?’
‘Do you have any problems now?’
Numerous veterans told me that people typically asked these three questions upon hearing they had served in the military. Generally the veterans tried to avoid answering, finding the questions a rude testament to civilian misunderstanding of military practice.
It is well-documented that veterans often avoid speaking about their deployment. Some studies understand this silence resulting from the fact that, unlike civilians, veterans are not just eyewitnesses to war but also acquire knowledge of war ‘with their flesh’. Being a
‘flesh witness’, it is argued, translates into feeling that ‘those who were not there cannot understand it’ (Harari 2008, p. 231) and in the sense of a military ‘us’ versus a civilian ‘them’
(Sørensen 2015). Another line of studies points to war’s potential for trauma as a reason for its
‘unspeakability’. These studies show that traumatized veterans often (subconsciously) try to banish their traumatic memories (see e.g. Herman 1967), thus regarding their silence as a type of avoidance behavior, which is one of the official symptoms of PTSD (DSM-V 2013). Shame is also known to be a reason for silence (Lee et al. 2001, Herman 2011). Further, trauma studies describe a belief among traumatized individuals that no one is capable of understanding their pain, which some scholars suggest is misplaced fear (Tedeschi and Calhoun 1993), while others assert that pain, as an utterly ‘interior’ experience, simply resists linguistic expression (Scarry 1985, p. 5). The idea of trauma resisting linguistic expression is supported by research in the field of neurobiology, which indicates that neurological malfunction (e.g.
decreased activity in Broca’s area) may play a role in people’s incapability to attach semantic representations to traumatic events (Hull 2002).
The accounts I heard from veterans resonate with theories of avoidance behavior, feared misunderstanding and the linguistic resistance of overwhelming suffering, as well as with analyses pointing to a more general tendency among veterans to claim non-transferable knowledge of war. Yet, while all these explanations thus seem valid, they are limited to the veteran’s psyche, and as the previous chapter demonstrated, contextual factors should also be considered when examining veterans’ experience. With respect to moral distress, society obviously constitutes a relevant social context. On returning home from deployment, a soldier may recall the values he held as a civilian member of society and accordingly realize he has violated these values. Alternatively, he may initially be certain that he acted according to society’s moral standards and may only start to doubt himself after public condemnation.
1 A version of this chapter appeared in 2018 as ‘Moral Injury in Relation to Public Debates: The Role of Societal Misrecognition in Moral Conflict-Colored Trauma among Soldiers’ in Social Science & Medicine, 211: 314-320.
142
Chapter 8 Societal Misrecognition and (Self-)EstrangementPart 2 Soldiers in Conflict
In this chapter, I focus on the subquestion: Did public perceptions of the Dutchbat and TFU missions and of the military in general play a role in experiences of moral distress among veterans deployed on these missions, and if so, how? As in the previous chapter, here I focus on the accounts of morally distressed veterans, but in the last section juxtapose their experiences with those of veterans who reported no distress at all. I start by sketching the wider societal context in which Dutch veterans are embedded, discussing prevailing Dutch attitudes toward the military in general. Then I turn to the specificities of the two case studies. First, I examine the public criticism of the Dutchbat mission. Second, I analyze the mixed responses that the TFU mission received. The case studies will show that, despite the differing public responses, I identified more striking parallels than differences in the experiences of both Dutchbat and TFU veterans. As will become clear, both public criticism and admiration may be experienced as misrecognition. In the final sections I reflect on these findings, explaining the similarities I found by considering the common one-dimensionality of the public perceptions surrounding the missions. I argue that the experience of societal misrecognition may directly and indirectly contribute to moral distress; indirectly, by amplifying feelings of guilt, anger and/or moral disorientation, and directly, by engendering a sense of estrangement from society and oneself.
Dutch National Attitudes toward the Military
The military is not a rabble of armed bandits. It is an organization granted power by the state to operate as ‘people with arms’ in the name of the ‘people without arms’ (Rukavishnikov and Pugh 2006, p. 131). At least in democratic societies, this means that although the public may support or oppose particular operations, they consent to the existence of the military as such. In any case it means that soldiers have good grounds to claim so. Yet, the way in which society relates to its armed forces varies from one country to another.
In the Netherlands, opinion polls conducted since 1963 show that a steady majority of the public supports the armed forces (Schoeman 2008, Blauw Research 2012). At the same time, the Dutch public seems ambivalent toward the military. Between 20 and 35 percent consider the armed forces a ‘necessary evil’, and between 10 and 20 percent believe it is ‘unnecessary’
or ‘hardly necessary’(Schoeman 2008, Blauw Research 2012). This seems partly because the Dutch public does not see the current military as ‘serving our country’ (Ministry of General Affairs 2006, Motivaction 2018). Also, it has been argued, the image of military violence does not sit well with the national self-perception of being a ‘civilized’ nation (Dudink 2002, Van der Meulen and Soeters 2005, Soeters et al. 2007).
In line with self-perceptions, Dutch society’s prevailing view of its armed forces is as a relatively non-martial military that favors peaceful solutions over violent ones and generally acts in morally responsible ways (Sion 2006, Zaalberg 2013). Images are seldom one-on-one representations of reality, and this also holds for the Dutch self-image. Considering recent missions, for instance, it can be said that many national militaries focus on non-violent strategies of diplomacy and development (Olsthoorn and Verweij 2012, Zaalberg 2013), whereas the Dutch also used force (Van der Meulen and Soeters 2005, Zaalberg 2013).
143
Chapter 8 Societal Misrecognition and (Self-)EstrangementPart 2 Soldiers in ConflictNevertheless, the powerful image exists. As a famous sociological expression goes: ‘if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences’ (Thomas and Thomas 1928, p. 572). A national self-image shapes public and political perceptions. For instance, a past image of Dutch non-martial humanitarianism informed the creation of a dichotomy between US ‘terrorist hunts’ versus Dutch ‘friendly’ methods (TK 2006, p. 18), which have been proudly but somewhat inaccurately labeled ‘the Dutch approach’ (Klep 2011, Zaalberg 2013, Grandia 2015). This image, in turn, has become a target of criticism in the Netherlands.
Dutch media commentators used it to describe ‘us’ as being overly preoccupied with maintaining a sense of ‘moral superiority’ while caring too little about the reality (Dudink 2002, p. 44, NIOD 2002, pp. 123–4). Similarly, the Dutch Association of Infantry Officers used the image to criticize the army for losing its warrior spirit and becoming averse to risk (Van Bemmel 2011).
As this chapter will discuss in more detail, it seems that Dutch societal attitudes to the military are characterized by a degree of discomfort and uncertainty as to whether the armed forces are mostly ‘necessary’ or mostly ‘evil’. In the case of Dutchbat, soldiers were criticized for having failed to do the ‘necessary’. The Srebrenica tragedy came to be seen as testifying to Dutchbat’s unwillingness to fight, and even to ‘us’, the entire Dutch nation, being ‘too sweet for war’ (Van der Meulen 1998, pp. 37–38). In contrast, the mission in Afghanistan showed Dutch soldiers willing to engage in combat, but their fighting generated both praise and criticism for being unnecessarily aggressive (‘evil’).
Chapter 5 showed that soldiers may cope with tensions between the military and society by interpreting the two worlds in terms of yin and yang, as opposites that exist only by virtue of each other. In doing so, they simultaneously affirm and bridge a gap between the military and civilian world, which seemingly enables them to reject potential public criticism without completely separating themselves from society. However, such rejection cannot eliminate the influence of public opinion on political decision-making and thus on the missions soldiers are sent on. Also, as will become clear, yin-yang constructions cannot entirely protect soldiers from the effects of harsh critiques directed at them, and they cannot always prevent inner conflict developing, as they cannot take away the fact that the person moving between the military and civilian worlds, however flexible he may be in negotiating the two, is still the same one person.
Public Perceptions and Morally Distressing Experiences
This section discusses the experiences of Dutchbat veterans with public perceptions of their mission and, subsequently, those of TFU veterans, by focusing on two events that each sparked much societal attention: the fall of Srebrenica and the Battle of Chora in Afghanistan. While these two extreme events are not representative of all Dutchbat and TFU veteran experiences, they are illustrative in the sense that their extremity manifests public expectations and beliefs that surrounded the missions in general.
The following two discussions – of the fall of Srebrenica first, then of the Battle of Chora – are each divided into three sections. The first part describes the public responses to the event
144
Part 2 Soldiers in Conflict Chapter 8 Societal Misrecognition and (Self-)Estrangement
in question, the second part examines how veterans experienced these public responses, and the third part reflects on how the veterans’ personal experiences related to public perceptions and on why public perceptions took shape the way they did.
Dutchbat, UNPROFOR: The Fall of Srebrenica
In the Netherlands, there was a clear ‘public mandate’ for intervention in the former Yugoslavia (Van der Meulen 2004, p. 34). Opinion polls held in 1992 indicated that 68% of the Dutch public thought that humanitarian intervention in Bosnia was justified; 63% believed that military force was permitted to enforce peace (Ten Cate 1998, p. 86). Dutch media repeated and reinforced this attitude. From mid-1992 on, media commentators began making highly morally charged comparisons of the situation in Bosnia to World War II and the Holocaust, thus strengthening the imperative that something had to be done (Wieten 2002, pp. 3382–3, Algra et al. 2007). For a whole year after 1993, one current affairs television program invariably closed with the words: ‘And still there is no intervention’ (‘En nog steeds wordt er niet ingegrepen’) (NIOD 2002, p. 746). Forceful military intervention never happened but the UN did decide to establish several ‘Safe Areas’, of which the Srebrenica enclave was one.
The massacre in 1995 meant the end of the UN mission, and unsurprisingly brought about heated debates throughout Europe but especially in the Netherlands because of the involvement of Dutchbat. The drama confirmed the opinion of those who had called for robust military intervention, while it forced those who supported a peacekeeping mission to reevaluate their views (cf. Van der Meulen 1998, Klep and Winslow 1999). In the Dutch media, the narrative emerged ‘that the Netherlands had been put back in its place, never having been a military-minded country, and had been punished for its overly idealistic ambition of wanting to be “the best student in the international class”’ (Klep and Winslow 1999, p. 116).
Beyond all this, the Srebrenica debacle led to sharp criticism of the Dutch soldiers involved.
Initially, the soldiers of Dutchbat III were hailed as heroes. The Dutch Minister of Defense immediately emphasized and would keep emphasizing that the soldiers bore no blame in the tragedy. But the mass murder in Srebrenica soon raised questions, and constantly emerging scandals about the conduct of the Dutch peacekeepers – of which the Minister was unaware – led the media and parliamentarians to question their innocence (NIOD 2002, pp. 2327–8). While statements defending the soldiers did appear, criticism dominated the media, including claims of Dutchbat having been ‘passive’ and ‘cowardly’ (Van der Meulen and Soeters 2005, Van de Bildt 2015). Most criticism conveyed the view that Dutch soldiers, members of an allegedly idealistic non-violent country, had had good intentions but had also been unprepared, naïve and driven by self-preservation (Van der Meulen 1998, Klep and Winslow 1999, NIOD 2002, Van der Meulen and Soeters 2005).
Among the revelations leading to public controversy was a video recording of Dutchbat commander Karremans making a toast with Mladić, the commander of the Bosnian Serb forces, at a meeting that took place just before the fall of Srebrenica (NIOD 2002, p. 2024).
Another shocking revelation was an evacuee list prepared by the deputy commander of Dutchbat during the fall of Srebrenica, and a roll of film containing photos of Bosnian
145
Chapter 8 Societal Misrecognition and (Self-)EstrangementPart 2 Soldiers in ConflictMuslim corpses taken by a Dutchbat soldier (NIOD 2002, p. 2287). Yet another infamous image entailed video recordings of drinking, dancing and partying Dutchbat soldiers at a UN base in Zagreb, Croatia, where they had been sent after the fall before being flown back to the Netherlands (NIOD 2002, p. 2275). In Zagreb, moreover, Commander Karremans spoke the soon-to-be infamous line that in this war one could not distinguish between the ‘good guys’
and ‘bad guys’ (NIOD 2002, p. 2259). Then there was the story of Dutch troops driving over Muslim refugees, which Prime Minister Kok said ‘dismayed’ him, stating that there could be
‘no question of understanding whatsoever’ if this incident had really happened (NRC 1998) – which later turned out to indeed be the case (NIOD 2002, p. 2380). These and other stories came to signify cowardice in public narratives; indeed ‘Dutchbat’ soon became synonymous with ‘cowardice’ (Van der Meulen 1998, NIOD 2002, pp. 2024; 2245). The scandals fueled doubts that the Dutch soldiers had not just been cowards but had even been accomplices in the mass murders (Van der Meulen 1998, De Graaff 2006). Meanwhile, the Dutch government refused to take the blame for the drama (Van den Berg 2014).
By end 1995, public and parliamentarian focus shifted to the Dutch government, the UN and the international community (NIOD 2002, pp. 2330–1). These levels confirmed that significant constraints had been imposed on the Dutch soldiers who had also been denied international support in the fall of Srebrenica despite repeated requests (ibid). In the following years, the image of the Dutch troops shifted from ‘cowards’ to ‘powerless victims’, reinforced by additional revelations offering more context to the scandals that had dominated the public debate. In 1999, uncut footage of the Karremans-Mladić toast was shown in public, revealing a an aggressive Mladić uttering threats at an exhausted Karremans, thus fostering the belief that Karremans had actually had little chance to negotiate with Mladić (NIOD 2002, p. 2024). As for the footage of the partying Dutch soldiers, it became clear that many had been crying rather than dancing, and for other soldiers, dancing had been a form of release from the tension that had built up in the previous days and weeks (NIOD 2002, pp. 2276–7). The incident of an YPR driving over refugees also came to be seen in a new light, as an accident that happened in the immense chaos and panic of collective flight following the fall of Srebrenica, when the YPR was under fire (NIOD 2002, p. 2374, Trouw 2002).
Although public feelings of understanding and even sympathy for Dutchbat’s ‘mission impossible’ began to develop at the end of 1995 (Klep and Winslow 1999, p. 117), the soldiers were not entirely let off the hook. In 1996, for instance, a satirical play called ‘Srebrenica!’
portrayed them as dumb and racist, driving over Muslims without a care (Kieskamp 1996).
And in 2000, 40 well-known Dutch writers and media commentators wrote an open letter demanding that the Dutch government should take responsibility for the ‘blatant disgrace’
that ‘Dutchbat had not made a serious effort to save lives’, (Giphart et al. 2000).
Some critics saw Dutchbat’s failure to prevent the tragedy as representative of the Netherlands at large (Van der Meulen 1998, Westerman and Honig 1998). They came to the conclusion that ‘we’ are ‘too sweet for war’ and ‘always yielding’ (Van der Meulen 1998, pp. 37–
38). Some compared the Dutch soldiers’ alleged passivity to ‘our’ ‘spinelessness’ in World War II (De Swaan 1995, Van der Meulen 1998, pp. 37–38). Moreover, as members of Dutch society, some felt jointly responsible for the events of Srebrenica and thus ashamed, not on the soldiers’ behalf, but ‘personally ashamed’, as Dutch sociologist De Swaan said about himself (De Swaan 2004). A Dutch journalist said he felt that ‘we put them on the train to Auschwitz
146
Part 2 Soldiers in Conflict Chapter 8 Societal Misrecognition and (Self-)Estrangement
again’ (Van den Boogaard cited in De Graaff 2006, p. 44). With articulations like these, critics explained the fall of Srebrenica as an outcome of a moral weakness that all Dutch citizens possessed: cowardice (cf. Van der Meulen 1998, De Swaan 2004).
The Netherlands Institute for War Documentation (NIOD) published a much-anticipated report of the events of Srebrenica in 2002. Besides extensively documenting the events, the report included a detailed analysis of how the Dutch media had become involved in
‘a somewhat one-sided fixation on incidents and on the “scandal” element of Srebrenica’
(Wieten 2002, p. 3416). Within days of the publication – even before the government resigned in response – various media commentators published mea culpas in agreement, looking critically back on their own writings. The editor-in-chief of De Volkskrant, for instance, stated that ‘we, and you and I have shaped a rather stereotypical image of the Bosnian conflict and the Dutch involvement in it. We, some more than others, have offered too much morality, too few facts, too many opinions, too little analysis and too much emotion’ (Broertjes 2002, cited in Rijsdijk 2012, p. 116). The chief-editor of Trouw wrote a similar acknowledgment, that at the time of the conflict, ‘journalists who persisted to draw a more complex reality came under pressure within their own circle. Also in this newspaper’ (Van Exter 2002).
In 2006, all Dutchbat III veterans were decorated with a ‘Dutchbat III insignia’, not to reward them, it was emphasized, but as a sign of recognition. A large part of the public seemed to approve this decoration, but several protests were organized as well, indicative of the still lingering suspicion of veterans (Van de Bildt 2015). Television programs treated the decoration as a subject deserving satire. One show, for instance, jokingly depicted a Dutchbat veteran saying ‘if only we’d known that we would get decorated for this later, we’d have given away women and children as well’ (Dit Was Het Nieuws 2006). The Dutch public, thus, seemed divided on the issue.
Over the decades, a large part of the public seems to have become sympathetic to the soldiers of Dutchbat III (Algra et al. 2007) and recent media coverage of the Srebrenica tragedy has mostly been supportive (see e.g. Müller 2010, Outeren 2011, Lindhout 2012, Koelé 2016).
Yet, articles still appear that accuse the soldiers of lacking willingness to fight (see e.g.
Koelman 2015). Though most people now seem to agree that Dutchbat had no other option, some still believe that the soldiers should have tried anyway and fought themselves to death (cf. De Graaff 2006, Telegraaf 2016).
Dutchbat, UNPROFOR: Veterans’ Experiences Frustration and Anger
The stories that circulated in the media about Dutchbat after the fall of Srebrenica stood in stark contrast to the veterans’ personal experience and therefore engendered frustration and anger. The stories infuriated many veterans, especially those about the party Dutchbat troops allegedly held after they arrived in Zagreb, and the Karremans-Mladić toast, filmed just before the fall of Srebrenica. Consider for instance the following two quotes.
Well, it wasn’t a nice party! Why weren’t we allowed to be glad we survived? It’s those press mosquitoes saying, thousands of people die and Dutchbat celebrates. Just think before
147
Chapter 8 Societal Misrecognition and (Self-)EstrangementPart 2 Soldiers in Conflictyou say something like that. Just go and see one of us, [you’ll see us] sitting at home,
you say something like that. Just go and see one of us, [you’ll see us] sitting at home,