IMPACT OF THE ABSENT
MALE IN SRI LANKA
By Shoma A. Chatterji
WORD-COUNT: 1189
When war – on a global scale or on ethnic terms -
weans men away from their homes, how does it affect
women in general and the community in particular?
War affects not only individual women, but also the
family, extended family, group, community, village
and wider society. Women are increasingly vulnerable
to psychological and neurological disorders as the
pressures of war bear down on their mind. Daya
Somasundaram, who teaches at the Faculty of
Medicine, University of Jaffna, points out in a
detailed paper, findings of a study of the
psychological impact of war and terrorism on women
left behind to maintain a façade of normalcy in the
most abnormal social and economic conditions.
In London, General Practices during World War II,
revealed women admissions accounting for a ratio of
2:1 (Female to Male) for neurotic illness. In
Belfast, N. Ireland, the ratio was 3:1 (Female to
Male) for all admissions for psychiatric disorders.
Significantly, the stress of civil violence was the
major contributing factor.. Somasundaram’s findings
focus on the impact of civil war mainly on the Tamil
communities in Jaffna. She points out that Jaffna
alone had 19,090 women-headed households due to the
ethnic war. These women looked after their families
single-handedly, filled in for the absent male in
what had been till then, traditional male roles.
They rode bicycles, did the entire shopping, met and
argued with authorities, took their children to
schools and temples, and generally ‘kept the home
fires burning.’ They were under constant situations
of stress that rendered them vulnerable to
breakdown. The sex ratio of admissions for
stress-related mental and neurological disorders
tilted towards women as the war went on. This was
the price women had to pay to save their society
from collapse.
The effect on the family, the widow and the children
according to a study by Kumerandran in 1998
, has been immense. Another study by Jeyanthy in
1993 assessed the impact of displacement in the
North of Sri Lanka on the functioning of the family
system. Psychological disturbances in general and
symptoms of depression in particular, were more
common in displaced families than in those living in
their own homes. Disturbances in family dynamics,
particularly disputes and quarrels between father
and mother were attributed to economic stress, lack
of privacy and the interference of others in
over-crowded camps.
Among the types of war-related psychiatric problems
seen in these women, the commonest is somatization.
Physical complaints of heaviness in the head,
pressure on the chest, and difficulty in breathing
are cultural idioms of distress. They prove the
impact of the changed responsibilities women face.
Other problems are depression following loss of
loved ones, property, dignity, virginity, anxiety
and PTSD.
Absence of a male member of the family due to death,
‘disappearance’, injury or displacement creates
infallible gaps in the functioning of the family
unit. The uncertainty or grief about the missing
member adds to the maladaptive family dynamics that
already sustains during war. The loss of the
essential unifying role of the missing member is
bound to cause disruption and disharmony within the
family. A common situation is where the father has been detained, ‘disappears’
or killed but the family members have no definite
knowledge either about his whereabouts or about this
well-being. They are trapped within the vicious
circle of what can be termed a `conspiracy of
silence.' The family, mainly the wife/mother, is
forced to ensure that further inquiries about the
missing man’s whereabouts or well-being are not made
at all as these may lead to more problems for the
husband/son in case he is still alive and well. The
woman in the family is forced to sustain this
conspiracy of silence even when she knows the truth
– that he is dead, or imprisoned or has gone
missing, because under the circumstances, she does
not wish to transfer her own trauma to the rest of
the family. In certain cases, the woman is forced to
take on the role of a ‘widow’ and adapt to all the
negative implications of being a 'widow' whether she
knows or does not know the truth. If the woman
shares her trauma with the other members of the
family, her trauma could be diluted through sharing.
But social conditioning has ensured that she take it
on completely on herself.
The ongoing ethnic conflict between the Sri Lankan
and the local Tamils has weakened the extended and
nuclear family system, or shattered through factors
like displacement, separation, migration, death,
detention, disappearance etc. of the members. The
traditional family unit as the basic social
institution has survived. But its function has
changed radically as a result of chronic conflict.
The cohesiveness of traditional relationships is no
longer the same. The role of the mother has
undergone a dramatic transformation due to the rise
in the non-traditional responsibilities, activities
and the so-called "liberation" she has been forced
on her.
Entire communities or villages have been
targeted, destroying whole villages and their way of
life and environment. The village traditions,
structures and institutions that formed the
foundation and framework for their daily life have
changed forever. A classic example is the systemic
attacks on all the Tamil villages in the Trincomalee
District, which eventually displaced all of them,
forcing them to relocate either to the city or to
other districts. Another example is the Moslems of
the North. Apart from direct attacks, whole villages
of all three communities have been disrupted,
displaced and uprooted due to the ongoing conflict.
The fishing and the farming communities are the
worst victims of ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka. A
very good example of the collective effect of
displacement can be seen in the mass exodus from
Valikamam in 1995. Even when people returned to
their villages, as they did in Jaffna in 1996, the
village was not the same. The old structures and
institutions had stopped functioning. Thus the
protective environment provided by their village –
the basic principle of social life according to
traditional Tamil principles – was gone forever.
Given the widespread nature of the
traumatization due to war, the psychosocial
reactions in the women are often accepted as a
normal part of life. But at the community level,
manifestations of the trauma can be seen in the
social processes and structures. Women have learnt
to survive under extraordinarily stressful
conditions. But the community reels under the
impact. Coping strategies must be designed with
caution and implemented with patience. The problem
of collective traumatization is best approached
through community-level interventions such as
spreading general awareness among the public,
training, vocational training, indigenous coping
strategies, expressive therapy, special programmes,
reconciliation and rehabilitation.
Healing of memories and truth commissions along the lines done in South
Africa will help. Many have undergone untold horrors
that have been never accepted or recognized
publicly. In the South, people will have to learn to
accept the problem of minorities and acknowledge the
suffering they have been through. In the North,
opening up of political space, tolerance of other
views, acceptance of plurality and sharing of power
are necessary if the Tamil community is to come out
of this situation, grow and develop toward a better
future.
Friday, July 18, 2003
