Healing Through Remembering: A Day of Reflection

by Kate Turner
Director
Healing Through Remembering

Each year on 11th September, people around the world remember the terrible events of that day in 2001. We can take the opportunity to reflect and remember, to talk about what happened, why, and how we were affected.

Choosing to remember and discuss these events every year on 11th September is natural, since this was the date of the attacks. But what happens when there is no specific anniversary, when violence and trauma are spread across years, even decades?

Here in Northern Ireland, there is no day of the year that is not the anniversary of a death that occurred during three decades of conflict. No day, not even in a leap year. This came as a surprise – no one had ever paused to realize this before. The violence, which lasted from the late 1960s until the ceasefires of the early 1990s, claimed nearly 4,000 lives in an area with a population of 1.5 million. The killed, injured and bereaved included people in Britain, Ireland, wider Europe, and elsewhere.

While the years of extensive violence in Northern Ireland are over, there is still much pain, and many people are unable or unwilling to recognize the victimhood felt by others. In addition, there is no agreement on the causes of the conflict, and many feel that injustices remain unresolved. This means that any act of inclusive, collective reflection or remembering is very difficult. But something is needed.  Some people feel that, with the passage of time, their pain or loss is forgotten by others, while some find media coverage of significant anniversaries makes them relive painful incidents.

Healing Through Remembering (HTR), an organization based in Belfast, looks at how best to deal with the past relating to the conflict in and about Northern Ireland. In the years after the 1998 Belfast “Good Friday” Agreement, HTR began exploring the creation of an inclusive Day of Reflection for everyone affected by the conflict.

Following international research and broad consultation, HTR launched the first Day of Reflection in 2007. The Day provides an occasion both for people affected to remember in their own way and for everyone to take time to consider the future.

The aims and principles of the Day are to offer an opportunity:

• 
  to acknowledge the deep hurt and loss caused by the conflict in and about Northern Ireland;
• 
  to remember the men, women and children who live with the consequences of the conflict;
• 
  to reflect on our own attitudes and on what more each of us might have done, or might still
• do, to uphold all other people’s rights to life and quality of life; and
• 
  to make a personal commitment that, as we begin to move forward as a society, such loss
• should never be allowed to happen again.

Every year since 2007, a Day of Reflection has been marked by a wide diversity of groups and individuals across Northern Ireland and beyond. It has not been easy. The Day’s value relies on people marking it in a way that meets their needs and respects their loved ones without causingoffense to anyone else. Yet despite these challenges, with each year that passes, participation grows.

This is not a state-sponsored day. It is not marked in any big, public, collective manner. Rather, it belongs to each person who chooses to mark it. Groups gather together, organizations create a space for people to stop and think, and individuals pause in their day-to-day routine to privately reflect. Yet all of them know that other people, with very different views and perspectives, are also marking the Day.

Those bereaved and injured remember their pain and loss every day. Yet anniversaries offer the rest of us an opportunity to remember and reflect. Since there is no day of the year that is not the anniversary of a death for at least one family, HTR was challenged to determine which day would mark the Day of Reflection. We chose the 21st June, the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. As the day of most light, the solstice represents hope while still recognizing that darkness and pain are always there. It represents a natural pause in the seasons to allow us to reflect on all that has happened, what we hope for coming generations, and what we can still do to achieve a more peaceful future.

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