Five shades of victimhood

Much of the writing on post-conflict memory treats victimhood as a switch: either a group competes over suffering, or it recognises that everyone suffered. In the places I have worked, from Belfast to Sarajevo, the switch rarely describes what people actually say.

Victimhood narratives come in degrees. At one end sits what I call revengeful victimhood, where past suffering is used to justify harm in the present. Then come strong, mid and weak forms of competitive victimhood, distinguished by how far they recognise the suffering of the other side and how far they admit the harm done by one’s own. Only at the far end do we find inclusive victimhood, the idea that we all suffered.

The point of the typology is not to grade societies. It is to notice movement. A party manifesto that stops denying the other side’s dead, even while insisting that its own community suffered more, has moved. A commemoration that names victims from both communities has moved further. These are small shifts, and they are easy to miss if the only categories available are competition and inclusion.

Noticing movement also tempers expectations. In relationships where violence was overwhelmingly one-directional, narratives of shared suffering may never be appropriate, and asking for them can itself be a form of denial. What can reasonably be asked is recognition: of the other’s dead, and of one’s own responsibility. That is where reconciliation processes should look for progress.