LONG TERM EFFECT OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE

Long term effect of political violence

Long term effect of political violence

Introduction

The article examines the long term effects that political violence has, but in doing so it has concentrated merely on a single event or it relies on individuals and groups who experienced some form of violence a long time after the incident had occurred. This article draws on the narrative inquiry methodology for exploring the effects that political violence has had after a 20-year period. Among the many aspects that have been explored are the personal account that individuals had regarding their personal violent experiences, the impact on psychological health, the growing awareness of service provision and the effects that violence has after a ceasefire.

Discussion

It is a common know how that traumatic events such as those of war, political conflict or natural disasters have an adverse affect on the psychological well being of people. It affects not only individual but also the communities. This article has used narrative accounts that employ in-depth interviews related to the life of people in Northern Ireland over a period o f twenty years. These are used to determine and identify both the victims and the survivors. The trauma and violence in Northern Ireland over the past two decades has been studied using coping and adaptation and employing a narrative inquiry (ANDERSON, 2004, pp 10-12).

The people of Northern Ireland since 1969 have been faced with traumatic events that have been instigated by political and sectarian conflicts. Dubbed as the “troubles” they have caused widespread sufferings in which 3,600 people have been killed with over 40,000 injured. Other thousands of people were witnesses to such traumatic events while a large portion of them were also attacked and intimidated. This is the population that the study deals upon and it is an intelligent move on the apart of the writer of this article to focus on those who have suffered directly or indirectly to monitor the changes that may have been incurred by the individual and the communities on their psychological health. Attending to the general population may not have yielded the same result as a large portion of the population would not have been witness to such traumatic events in way or the other. Therefore, there was a strong need to focus entirely on those who have suffered directly or have been witness to such drastic incidents that could have possibly affected them in order to reach a better understanding of the trauma and violence felt by the people of Northern Ireland. This translates as one of the main strengths of this paper (BELK, 2006, pp 16-17).

The tragedy has been that even with the declaration of the ceasefire; violence did not end even if it did abate in its intensity. The ceasefire agreed to in 1994 and the agreement of Good Friday meant that the death toll decreased but violence still continued. Riots and feuds which are all different forms of violence continued and they continued to have a better impact on ...