From trauma to trust: The psychology of sustainable peace

Peace is not only a political condition. It is a psychological process. It does not begin in conferences or through treaties but within the human being. True peace restores the capacity to feel, to trust, and to hope. When we speak today about rebuilding Shingal (Sinjar), about reconciliation and shaping a future after genocide, we are speaking about more than reconstruction or security. We are speaking about healing, about rebuilding the human soul that has been broken by violence and humiliation.

The genocide against the Yazidis in 2014 marked a turning point in the history of the region. More than 7,000 people were killed, and over 2,000 remain missing. Tens of thousands of women and children were abducted, enslaved, raped, and forced to convert. This violence was not directed only against individuals but against an entire identity, against culture, religion, and dignity. It aimed to erase a community that had existed for centuries and to destroy its collective memory.

This atrocity was not an isolated event. The Yazidis have suffered persecution for centuries. Seventy-four pogroms and genocides have been recorded. Other minorities such as Christians, Mandaeans, Shiites, and Shabak have also faced persecution and exclusion. The Kurdish population remembers the Anfal campaign, in which more than 180,000 people were killed, and the chemical attack on Halabja in 1988, where thousands lost their lives. The wounds of these crimes have not yet healed. They live on in families, in villages, and in the dreams of survivors. They shape the collective memory of entire generations.

Violence does not end when the weapons fall silent. It continues in bodies, in memories, in families, and in stories. Trauma is more than an individual condition. It is a cultural echo that passes from one generation to the next. Children often inherit the fears, the shame, and the silence of their parents. They grow up with a sense of danger they cannot name. This transgenerational trauma changes the way people see the world. It influences how communities relate to each other and to themselves. The past becomes a shadow that stays even when life seems to move on.

In many societies that have experienced violence, silence dominates. This silence protects and destroys at the same time. It helps people avoid unbearable memories, but it also prevents them from healing. The pain that is never spoken of remains present. It turns into mistrust, anger, or withdrawal. Silence is deadly because it separates the soul from life. Only when pain is named can healing begin. Speaking transforms helplessness into meaning. And meaning restores dignity.

Sustainable peace can only grow when justice, recognition, and identity are restored. Justice is more than punishment. It restores moral balance and gives value back to human life. When people see that their suffering is recognized and their stories are remembered, trust can begin to grow. Justice heals the deep feeling of worthlessness.

Equally important is the recognition of identity. Violence always aims at the self. It destroys belonging. Peacebuilding must therefore include work on identity. It must revive language, culture, and faith and reaffirm the right to exist as who one is. A society that respects the identities of its members heals not only its victims but also itself.

Peace grows where people listen to one another. The rebuilding of trust happens through personal encounters. It is a psychological process that takes place in relationships between neighbors, families, and religious communities. The Norwegian scholar Johan Galtung described peace as the presence of just relationships. The American researcher John Paul Lederach wrote that reconciliation is the work of restoring relationships. Healing does not happen through distance but through closeness and the willingness to see another person’s pain as part of our shared humanity.

Our own projects in the region try to create such spaces of encounter. They take small and quiet steps toward peace, far from media attention or political institutions. People from different faiths, communities, and backgrounds come together to listen, to understand, to mourn, and sometimes simply to sit in silence. These processes are modest and invisible to the outside world, but they are essential. They plant trust where mistrust once ruled. They allow social healing to grow slowly but steadily.

This quiet work, away from power and headlines, is the true school of peace. It demands patience and humility. It requires the courage to place humanity above ideology. Real reconciliation cannot be imposed from above. It grows in silence, in the meeting of two people who dare to trust again.

Healing, however, is not only the task of those who have suffered. The Western world and the Arab-Islamic world share a moral responsibility. The West must not preach morality while exporting weapons that prolong wars and create new trauma. It must understand that peace cannot be achieved through military or economic power but through acknowledgment of the pain it has caused or tolerated. At the same time, the Arab-Islamic world must face its own historical and moral responsibilities. It must listen to the voices of victims within its societies. It must reject violence committed in the name of religion and find the courage to break its own silence. Only then can it become a moral force for peace.

A credible peace policy, in both the Western and Arab-Islamic worlds, must recognize the psychological and cultural dimensions of violence. It must support initiatives that promote trauma recovery, education, and dialogue between cultures and religions. Peace without healing remains superficial. It is not peace but the silence before the next conflict.

The road to peace is long and requires patience. It begins with the courage to face the truth, continues through mourning, and leads to responsibility. Forgiveness is not an act of forgetting. It is the conscious decision to break the cycle of violence. It is the choice not to use the past as a weapon. Peace, in this sense, is a process of becoming human again. It is the return to the capacity to see one’s own humanity in the face of another person.

Everywhere people have survived violence, the same truth holds. Only when suffering is acknowledged, justice restored, and identity protected can healing begin. Peace does not come from power. It grows from compassion. It does not begin in institutions but in the meeting of human beings. Silence is deadly, but acknowledgment heals. Peace grows where we listen, remember, and begin again.

Dr. Jan Ilhan Kizilhan is a psychologist, author and publisher, an expert in psychotraumatology, trauma, terror and war, transcultural psychiatry, psychotherapy and migration.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rudaw.