PTI Event: Karsten Fischer on Victimhood Narratives as a Challenge for Reconciliation

Competitive victimhood claims are widely used as a mobilization strategy in political campaigns across the entire political spectrum, but they are likely to block reconciliation and lead to conflict escalation. In the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict different victimhood narratives are at stake, which focus on the respective moral justification as victims of aggression. In effect, the relationship between claiming victimhood and conflict escalation goes both ways: Intractable conflicts generate further and more severe victimization experiences, and conflicts become intractable because of the social psychological consequences of victimhood narratives. This suggests that overcoming the intractability of conflicts may require a reduction of competitive victimhood. In the case of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict an inclusive victimhood narrative might possibly increase positive intergroup attitudes. However, the mutual awareness of having become a tragic victim of historical entanglements requires historical awareness instead of identity politics.