Everyday Perforations in Peace Processes

No doubt, there are perforations in any peace process. Some are invisible or hard to reach, others hidden beneath political shenanigans complicated by the entanglement of post-conflict trauma, debt and socioeconomic pressures.

However, some are hidden in plain sight and could be addressed. I am talking about the everyday places imbued with the memories of violence, control and oppression. These post-conflict places were once nestled quietly within the blurry backdrop of ‘normality’ and oversaw the daily routines of the day-to-day. Shops, street corners, carparks, bus stops, cafes, cinemas, petrol stations, schools etc. They used to shape the ‘everyday’, people passed them without a moment's thought, and yet they were the places that helped build a subconscious sense of place, they were familiar and gave a tangible sense of belonging and security.  They made up parts of the built environment that gave orientation and allowed movement, these ordinary spaces and places formed the backdrop to meetings, errands, romances, ambitions and day-to-day routines.   

During a conflict, some ordinary places leap from the everyday blur and become INFRA-ORDINARY. Libraries became prisons, churches became interrogation facilities, schools became places to execute prisoners, carparks became holding camps and small office buildings became hosts of unspeakable atrocities………. After a conflict,  these now Infa-ordinary places struggle to step back into the everyday blur, instead, they loiter on street corners, behind barbwire fences, down alleys or behind museums. Some stand empty in farmer’s fields, some are given creepy new make-overs and given their old use back. However, all of them, continually remind local communities of the horrors of war. They are places that aren't grand enough to attract international funds and attention from organisations keen to recognise, rebuild and conserve international cultural heritage. With low cultural value, they are abandoned, overlooked, avoided,  sold or left to rot. In the main, many stand boarded up, derelict with official-looking signs barring access but adorned with graffiti marking it as unwanted and unforgiven status. Others stand unkempt, seen as un-monumental / un-official markers of horror and fear. Yet, all are high in social significance a peacebuilding potential, untapped and overlooked they continue to haunt communities and undermine peace efforts.  

It doesn't take much effort to imagine the impact these buildings have on a peace accord and the communities it hopes to serve. It’s not hard to visualise traumatised people going about their daily tasks trying to normalise their lives, rebuild their environment and heal from the post-conflict entanglements of emotion and a new reality. However, It is difficult to understand the complicated realities of a fractured and disorientated everyday blur. Living in a neighbourhood where once trusted and un-intrusive buildings now provokes and symbolises a broken normality.  An environment where going to school, buying bread, getting petrol or meeting friends are met by unsettling choices of whether to pass or avoid the places that reiterate nightmares and stir memories of victims and perpetrators, echoing narratives of control and power.  Places of unaddressed presence offering tangibility to any whispers of fear, hate and the fragility of humanity's coexistence.

These infra-ordinary places perforate meta-narratives and the grand actions of peacebuilding technocrats and politicians, they are granules of violence, present and persistent, burning embers of conflict smouldering day and night in the consciousness and context of people and their past. These places impact the everyday, the here and the now. They also represent a future risk as they are easily fanned to often help ignite more violence.  

Take time to reflect on the likelihood that whilst engaged in peacebuilding projects locally, the people NGOs work with and rely on, in other words, local staff, artisans, suppliers, taxis, caters, politicians, stakeholder groups etc, walked, drove or cycled past everyday reminders of violence on their way to help build peace and will pass them again on their way home. Regularly reminding them of the once-ordinary places that were used for torture, murder, rape and imprisonment.

Help me find these places, I want to map and eventually design a reuse approach for them, add new positive value and acknowledge their role in building and sustaining a peace they helped destroy

If you know of these infra-ordinary places get in touch contactcrrb@aol.com

These examples might help target the building I am looking for.

• Fish Shop on the Shankill Road Nr. Ireland (Click here)

• Primary School in Mosul used for mass murder was painted and re-opened as a school (click here -this report has several case studies /the aforementioned school/Pepsi factory/a Sink Hole etc)

• An office / the ‘white house’ is a humble structure now belonging to a mining company in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina (click here) imprisonment and atrocities

• Church was used by ISIS for imprisonment, and torture (click here)

• An office block (insurance building) in central Mosul (click here)

• Hitler's Birth Place (click here) is an odd example but an example of a place struggling to address its significance after the war.

• Ukraine’s Mariupol Theatre (click here)

• Gaza - Ramleh Prison & Clinic (Click here)

• “Ghost houses” in Sudan (click here)

• Maekelawi Jail in Ethiopia