Why Vamık Volkan Deserves the Nobel Peace Prize

Vamık Volkan is one of the most significant psychoanalysts of this or any other time. He is a man who has been able to move out of the consulting room into the world of large group ethnic conflict and social trauma. He has sought to understand these phenomena, to write about them with uncommon clarity, and to actively engage current and former enemies with the aim of resolving differences and preventing violence.

He applies techniques developed to treat troubled individuals to help large groups talk to their enemies in ways that can lead to solutions rather than to further conflict. He has taken very seriously the words of Anwar el-Sadat that the conflict between Arabs and Israelis was 70% psychological. He went to work on that 70% not only with Arabs and Israelis, but also with Soviets and Americans; Estonians and Russians; Serbians, Croatians and Bosniaks; Georgians and South Ossetians; and of personal importance to him, Turks and Greeks. He has worked with people in post-war societies like Albania and Kuwait.

Volkan was born a Muslim Turk on the island of Cyprus and thus witnessed ethnic conflict on his island first hand. But it was only after a career in psychoanalysis and psychiatric administration that he undertook the study of and the direct therapeutic approach to ethnic conflict and social trauma. It is clear that growing up in Cyprus has given him a special sensitivity toward and intimate insight into the issues of ethnic identity and conflict. He is also possessed of a tremendous empathy with people different from himself who struggle with conflicts around large-group identity. One example of his excellent work is his book written with col-

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leagues Gabriele Ast and William F. Greer called The Third Reich in the Unconscious: Transgenerational Transmission and its Consequences. In this book, Volkan focuses on the effect of the Holocaust not only on those directly affected but also on how social trauma can be transmitted to the next generation. Central to this book as in several other of his works, is the notion that trauma persists where there is an inability for members of a large group to mourn losses and defeats.

This notion became instrumental in my own work in Eastern Europe where it was clear that the Holocaust had not been fully mourned by communities of the Jewish victims but also by the Polish and Ukrainian bystanders who had the Holocaust perpetrated on their soil, sometimes with the local populace involved in the genocide. I have focused specifically on the writing of accurate history of the Holocaust period and on the restoration of Jewish cemeteries through combined efforts of the local population, especially parish priests, and the Jewish communities in Poland and in the United States. This approach helped the mourning process for both groups and has helped in the healing. This approach stems directly from Volkan’s personal example of getting out of the office and classroom and dealing directly with people in places of ethnic conflict. Volkan’s prolific writing has made his own experiences and his understanding of these experiences accessible to colleagues like me as well as to the informed public.

In 1932, Albert Einstein wrote Sigmund Freud on behalf of the League of Nations asking him to contribute what he had learned about human nature to the understanding of war and the persecution of minorities. Freud wrote back a lengthy letter outlining some important ideas about what psychoanalysis could offer to the understanding of war. His reply was, however, quite pessimistic. Hitler assumed power the very next year, and World War II seemed to have justified Freud’s pessimism. Interestingly, few psychoanalysts took up the question of war and ethnic conflict until Volkan began his work in the 1970’s.

The significance of Volkan’s work lies in the application of the understanding of human nature with regard to the question of large group identity, in particular to the resolution of large-group conflict. Volkan is able to outline approaches to healing the trau-

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matic consequences of conflicts that have already taken place as well. History has shown that these conflicts stem from an unbroken vicious circle of offense, revenge, and revenge against the revenge. While realistically cautious about what can be accomplished, Volkan has greatly extended Freud’s initial ideas into the causes of war and has given us some amount of hope that ways can be found to reduce the psychological conditions for war and ethnic violence, and to repair some of the damage already wrought by this dark side of human nature.

I have urged the Nobel Committee on several occasions to consider Vamık Volkan for the Nobel Peace Prize. He is not a world leader; he is not a politician; he is not even a professional diplomat. He is fundamentally a healer who has sought to put understanding, empathy, and rationality in place of hatred and intolerance. His award would be a vote for hope, a vote for healing, and a vote for the fact that one person can make a significant difference toward the goal of peace.

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