Gender Silences In Memorialisation

Transcript

Gender Silences in Memorialisation Dr. Sahla Aroussi Faculty of Law, University of Antwerp, Belgium Memorialisation in Transitional Context Memorialisation refers to the plethora of monuments, murals, museums, commemorative ceremonies, national days of commemoration, rituals, and street naming aimed at addressing past human rights violations and preserving the memories of the victims of atrocities. In post-conflict societies memorialisation efforts are situated within the broader transitional justice mechanisms aimed at dealing with the past and achieving national reconciliation. It is therefore not surprising to see peace agreements include references to memorialisation. The Arusha Peace Agreement of Burundi, in Article six committed to the “erection of a national monument in memory of all victims bearing the words “Never Again”. Truth Commissions established in the aftermath of conflicts also often include recommendations for the setting of memorial sites and events. The final report of The Liberian Truth Commission called for the erection of memorial sites around the country and the observance of a national holiday in the memories of the victims of the Liberian conflict. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights in various instances ordered States to engage in memorialisation including through the creation of monuments and the naming of public spaces as a form of reparations for the victims1 (Swart 2008; Mégret 2010; Blustein 2012). In international law, memorialisation comes under the obligations of States to provide remedies for violations of human rights enshrined in the most prominent international instruments including the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the 1966 1 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the 1948 Genocide Convention and the 1984 Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Memorialisation also features among the UN recommended measures on the UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law. Therefore, as Mia Swart (2008: 110) put it, memorialisation shall not be understood as extra-legal acts but rather as “an aesthetic extension and performative practice of international law and politics”. Similar to other transitional justice measures, memorialisation is based on the assumption that learning about the past carries a deep moral knowledge that will consequently prevents past atrocities from happening again. Memorialisation also provides a form of acknowledgment to the victims and a social recognition of the harm that they suffered so that those affected don’t feel that they are left to grieve alone in silence (Mégret 2010). As a form of symbolic reparation, memorialisation can assist in rehabilitating the victims (Teitel 2000) and depending on how it is used; it may arguably contribute to national reconciliation (Brandon Hamber, Liz Sevcenko and Ereshnee Naidu 2010). While the recent literature on women and war has been particularly focused on sexual violence, the human rights violations suffered by women in conflicts are extensive and multifaceted. Women, like men, are also murdered, mutilated, tortured, displaced, imprisoned, dispossessed, starved and forced into slave labour. Yet, women’s experiences of human rights violations are generally exacerbated by gender discrimination, their socioeconomic status and the culturally embedded norms of patriarchal societies. Women are also directly affected by the loss of their loved ones. In particular, the death of husbands and 2 other male members of the family may result in the loss of protection, financial support and even property dispossession and ostracism. Despite, the extensive harms suffered by women transitional justice processes traditionally excluded women and trivialised their experiences of victimhood. Over the years, feminist legal scholars have condemned the international community’s failure to recognise the crimes committed against women in conflicts as crimes of international nature (Askin 1997; Gardam 1997; Charlesworth, Chinkin and Shelly 1991). Scholars have also highlighted the failure of transitional justice mechanisms to adequately prosecute and investigate gender based violence (Askin 2003; Nowrojee 2005; Engle 2005). More recently feminist have shed the light on the inability of transitional justice processes, particularly those focused on criminal prosecution, to dispense a form of meaningful justice that responds to the women victims’ various needs of participation, reparation and restoration (Cahn 2005; De Brouwer 2007; Aroussi 2011). However, the study of the gender aspect of memorialisation in transitional justice has not yet been studied by feminist scholars. This chapter focuses on the marginalisation of women in memorialisation processes. In its first section the chapter discusses in a general manner the gender stereotyped nature of memorialisation processes and of the memorials dedicated to women victims. The author links this phenomenon to the construction of nationalism in post conflict societies. The second section of this chapter looks at the Republican and Loyalist murals of Northern Ireland as case study of gender in memorialisation. The example of Northern Ireland is unique in that it shows how memorialisation pursued without a holistic transitional justice can become another space where the conflicting parties continue to struggle for control over the past and the present. 3 In this role processes women’s own narratives of the past and their roles during the conflict as victims and agents are silenced and distorted. Memorialisation, Nationalism and Gender in Transitional Societies A controversial issue in discussing memorialisation in the aftermath of political transition is who we define as victims and heroes of the struggle. Transitional justice processes particularly those relying on criminal prosecution do not treat all victims of the conflict equally but are selective in their approach to justice by only focusing on those extraordinary crimes and most serious perpetrators. As a rule, women victims and gender-based harm generally struggle to gain a space in this hierarchy (Aroussi 2011). Furthermore, the act of memorialising is not only re-interpretive but also politically loaded. In divided societies, the truth about the past and the parties’ respective responsibilities for the conflict are highly contested between the various protagonists. This remains the case even after agreeing to a peace deal. States’ official memorialisation efforts involve conscious and calculated decision to select who and what event or person to remember and how to remember them. This process also involves a deliberate decision about those who are not deemed worthy of commemorations and historically women belonged to this category. Official memorialisation processes typically neither recognises women as worthy victims nor as heroes. Women’s considerable contributions to peace, their involvement in managing the survival of communities and their roles in the national struggle are generally devalued and silenced and their stories of heroism and victimisation are written off history books and forgotten. Commemorative landscapes established in the aftermath of conflicts are among the most gendered, as they largely document and reproduce the experiences and narratives of men and elide or misrepresent those of women. 4 To start with memorialisation efforts dedicated to women are numerically fewer than those dedicated to men. In the USA, the war memorials for the civil war originally only detected male veterans. It took 10 years of women’s protest after the erection of the Vietnam veteran’s memorial in 1983 for the government to acknowledge the sacrifice of women and dedicate a monument to them in Washington DC. Carlson Evans (1993:2) observed that “historically women who have served humanity during America’s struggles and wars are not included in the artistic portrayals. They slip into history unrecognised and forgotten compounding the myth that they either did not serve or that their service was not noteworthy. They too, had disappeared off the landscape”. In post-apartheid South Africa, despite the government rhetoric of inclusiveness and representations of the marginalised communities, the number of government’s initiated public monuments dedicated to women is very low. Recent efforts have been made to memorialise and restore the socio-cultural gender order that the war has disrupted and to reflect some of the various roles played by women during conflicts but these attempts remain very limited in scope. In the United Kingdom, despite the significant contributions of seven million women during the Second World War, the government only erected a public monument as tribute to women in 2005 in Whitehall. Furthermore, monuments dedicated to women usually follow a collective rather than individual mode of commemoration. For instance, both the 2005 National Monument to the Women of World War II in Whitehall, and the 1993 Vietnam Women's Memorial are women collective memorials. Dedicating collective monuments for women in comparison with individualised male memorials can be interpreted as mere tokenism by which the authorities pay lip service to women’s contributions and hence become exonerated from paying tributes 5 to individual woman. Moreover, women’s memorials tend to stereotypically gendered and often connected with the formation of the nation. Women are essentially remembered as mothers or vulnerable victims. For example, the Vietnam women’s war memorial depicted the suffering of women as mothers and wives and the Gettysburg Civil War Women’s Memorial portrayed a pregnant woman in clear distress. Finally, according to scholars in the area, women’s representations in memorial objects are remarkably different than those of men particularly in size, shape and the type of material used. While male elites and heroes of the nation are commemorated with domineering and phallic shaped structures and huge bronze statutes women’s memorials often show affinities in design which include trends towards “understatement and humility, elements arranged low on the ground or close to the earth, a tendency to use elements of nature and employing colourful surfaces notably mosaics perhaps as an allusion to traditional women’s roles such as quilting, sewing, embroidery and other types of handwork” (Marshall 2010: 267). While the efforts to develop distinctive commemorative arts for women is important such representation are self-segregating and open to accusations of gender essentialism and promoting negative stereotypes about women. While the marginalisation of women in memorialisation processes can be explained by male domination of the decision making in transitional governments and particularly within the area of transitional justice, this phenomenon is inexorably bound to the construction of nationalism. Nationalism is rife in conflicts and post conflict societies. Feminist scholarship highlighted the marginalisation of women as a group and gender as an analytical category in the nationalist project (Yuval- Davis 1997, McClintock 1995, Enloe 1989, Mayer 2000). Cynthia Enloe (1989: 44) argued that the nation is constructed as a heterosexual male 6 project that “sprung out of masculinised memory, masculinised humiliation and masculinised hope”. Julie Mostov (2000: 89) observed that “the topography of the nation is mapped in gendered terms (feminized soil, landscapes and boundaries, and masculine movement over these spaces)”. Men and women’s contributions to the national project are different, juxtaposed and hierarchical (Yuval- Davis 1997, McClintock 1995). Because of their reproductive roles, women in the nationalist project are the one responsible for the biological, ideological and cultural reproduction of the nation. Motherhood in the nationalist project is employed as a signifier of the life of the nation and its continuation (Yuval-Davis 1997). McClintock (1995: 66) looking at nationalist policies argued that women are often represented as “the atavistic and authentic ‘body’ of national tradition, embodying nationalism’s conservative principle of continuity”. As such, in postconflict settings, rhetoric about motherhood and socially conservative policies are generally employed as mechanisms for social control forcing women to internalise the desirable national image of the pure mother and wife. Women in this nationalised project are imagined and eroticised as “brave mothers who sacrificed their husbands and sons for the best interest of the nation, the one who tend the wounds of the fallen warriors and faithful wives who keep the hearth burning and bear the future generation of heroes” (Mostov 2000: 95). Raped women and mourning mothers in the nationalist project are also used as symbols of the national tragedy to galvanise the warriors for their protection and for national revenge. On the other hand men in the nationalist project are romanticised as the protectors of the nation and the guardians of its purity. The ideal masculinity (manliness) in the nationalist project is associated with virility, national pride, patriotism, courage, physical strength, 7 militarism and self-sacrifice which many post-conflict society try to restore (Ashe 2006). Men demonstrate their bravery through the battlefield. Men’s experiences of battles on the other hand are glorified and those killed become national heroes and cultural legends. Mostov argued that “the warrior becomes the property of the nation, his sacrifice a celebration of national spirit; his death a page in national history and his grave a boundary of the nation state” (Mostov 2000: 94). The strong connection between nationalism and masculinities is best observed through memorialisation processes. In national mythology and history books, it is quite true that, heroes are always men and heroism almost always involves military might and masculinity. In post-conflict processes nationalism purports attempts to recover the unique character of the nation and restore its purity. Thus, nationalism naturalises and reproduces conservative constructions of masculinity and femininity that are often at odd with the roles played by both women and men during conflicts. Memorialisation is central to the nation continuation and to the nationalist project. Memories are retold, reinterpreted and distorted overtime to suit the nation needs but rarely reflect real events in a factual or accurate manner. While women in many societies play the role of the keepers of the national memory, the genre of official commemoration through public monuments is historically a male preserve. Hence, memorialisation efforts hardly represent the wide-ranging experiences of women and men in the national struggle. Gender Silences in Memorialisation: The Case of Northern Ireland From 1969 until the 1994 ceasefire the conflict in Northern Ireland claimed more than 3200 lives and seriously injured 36,000 others (McWilliams 1997). The current population of Northern Ireland is small bordering on 1.7 million, of which around 53% are Protestants and 8 almost 44% are Catholics (NISRA 2012). The length of the conflict with the small size of the Northern Ireland population has meant that most people in Northern Ireland have a relative or at least know someone who was killed or seriously injured in the conflict. The conflict was fought over the constitutional status of Northern Ireland both on the political and military fronts. The main protagonists of the political conflicts were the British Unionists and Irish Nationalists. The primary armed parties to the conflict have been the Republican paramilitaries, a variant of Irish Nationalists that want Northern Ireland to become part of an island-wide Irish republic and the Loyalist paramilitaries, a variant of British Unionists that want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom; and the British military forces. The Good Friday Agreement, negotiated in 1998, offered a devolved power-sharing government and held out the hope of a peaceful accommodation between two deeply divided communities. After the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, armed conflict and sectarian violence in Northern Ireland has largely ended with the exception of few cases of assassination and largely unsuccessful but continuous terrorists’ attacks by the Real Irish Republican Army which is an offshoot of the IRA. Yet, for many citizens of Northern Ireland recovery from 30 years of sectarian conflict is a slow and painful process particularly owing to entrenched segregations and institutionalised divisions within societies (Stringer et al. 2009). The Good Friday agreement did not include any explicit reference to dealing with the past. In the aftermath of the agreement Northern Ireland followed a ‘piecemeal’ approach to transitional justice that included public enquiries, civil actions, police led-truth recovery, community initiatives and the more recently consultative group on the past established in 2007. Most of these initiatives have been state-centric and focused on the actions of the 9 security forces despite the fact that the state was only responsible for 10% of the deaths. Today, the number of prosecutions of State actors remains very low and the majority of the paramilitary prisoners have been released on license (Hegarty 2002). Through this limited approach to the past, the Unionists/ Loyalists and Nationalists/ Republicans have managed to avoid a nationwide mechanism that establishes an official version detailing the whole truth about the past and the parties’ respective responsibilities. The very idea of establishing such mechanisms is still very resisted by the conflicting parties. The Unionists still insist that the full responsibility for the conflicts lies not with them but with the Republican paramilitary organisations (Lawther 2010). There is also a fear among the Unionist that a truth process might be used by the Nationalists/ Republicans to advance their political agenda on the island. These fear are compounded by the uncertainty ensued by the Good Friday Agreement and the fact that the constitutional status and external self-determination of Northern Ireland can change following a referendum held on the Island of Ireland (Bell and Cavanaugh 1999). The Republicans on the other hand inadvertently benefited from such a state centric approach to the past that feeds into their own narrative of blamelessness. The continuous contestation between the parties of the truth about the conflict and the absence of a comprehensive transitional justice process has meant that, as Bell (2002) asserted, in Northern Ireland “the present is the past”. The focus on piecemeal transitional justice has also led to a selective approach to the past and the history of the conflict which inevitably led to the silencing of the truth and particularly on the role of women as victims and active agent during the Northern Irish Troubles. Women’s Experiences during the Northern Irish Conflict 10 Women in Northern Ireland have suffered from the violence orchestrated during the conflict. Monica McWilliams, when exploring the myriads of violence that women were subjected to during the three decades of conflict, drew attention to the horrific sectarian murders of women, the numerous arson attacks by paramilitaries on female headed households and the gang rapes committed against women from the other side (McWilliams 1997). Along with the violence in public spaces there was also an upsurge in domestic violence incidences with the violent ways of the streets spilling over into family homes. For instance, between 1991 and 1994 25% of the murders committed in Northern Ireland were related to domestic violence (McWilliams 1997: 82). The rise in the number of spousal homicide is particularly related to the availability of weapons during the conflict, a phenomenon that feminists termed the “armed patriarchy”. Yet, such violence was generally ignored given that the attention was focused on “tracking the trajectory of the last bullet fired and …the sound of the next exploding bomb” (Garrett 1999:34). Furthermore during the troubles women have been left to cope with the injuries, deaths and arrests of members of their families. Many women suddenly found o themselves as head of household having to keep the family together and to provide for them with very little skills and resources. However, women’s experiences of the Northern Irish troubles were not exclusively limited to victimhood. Northern Irish women were active across the religious communities in peacemaking efforts and particularly in organising non-violent mass protests to demand an end to the conflict (Anderlini 2007: 56). The Peace People women movement, founded by Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan Maguire in 1976, organised various protests with thousands of Catholics and Protestants taking to the streets in huge rallies to call for an end to the 11 hostilities by all sides. Women in these protests often drew on their maternal and familial role to legitimate their political action in a male dominated l arena (Ashe 2006). Women in Northern Ireland have also actively participated in both Republican and Loyalist paramilitaries (Alison 2004). Nationalist women have participated in the IRA women’s auxiliary organisation Cumann na mBan since the 1960s. Following the restructuring of the IRA many Republican women have been integrated into the Irish Republican Army paramilitary group on equal basis with men (Ward 1989: 259). Loyalist women also have been involved with the loyalist paramilitary groups. The roles that loyalist women played mainly consisted of providing support activities such as: “storing and transporting arms, munitions, and intelligence, conducting surveillance, cleaning crime scenes and carrying out punishment beatings on behalf of the organisation and armed robbery” (McEvoy 2009: 270). Women have been also active as political actors. When the formal peace process started, the lead mediator US senator George Mitchel announced that the peace negotiation would only involve representatives of political parties. To gain access to the multi-party peace talks women groups in six weeks only have swiftly moved to create the Northern Ireland Women’s Coalition, a political party made of women across the religious and political divide (Kilmurray and McWilliams 2011). The Coalition was the first women political party to emerge and one that provided an alternative to the mainstream Unionist and Nationalist political culture of division. The new Coalition had no resources or headquarters and so in the running up to the election women had to put incredible efforts in the campaign to spread their message. As a result, the Coalition party succeeded in winning a seat at the negotiating table (Anderlini 2007: 69). Because of their experience at a grassroots level and 12 in their communities’ women at the peace table effectively brought the voices of the victims and the economic and social issues of concern to many. But while women’s experiences of the conflict are varied the commemorative landscapes in Northern Ireland have followed pattern that privileged men’s experiences and accounts of the conflict at the expense of the women’s narratives. The commemorative landscape in Northern Ireland In the absence of a holistic transitional justice mechanism for Northern Ireland, contested narratives of the past continued to exist and were manifested throughout the commemorative landscape. As such, memorialisation processes became a space where the paramilitary parties continued to struggle and compete inter and intra groups for power and recognition. Since the major ceasefire and particularly after the Good Friday agreement, there has been a noticeable increase in memorialisation particularly in the form of numerous commemorative murals. Kris Brown (2009) observed that in the ‘Greatest Belfast’, area alone, there were 91 Loyalist and 102 Republican memory sites. But while the number of civilian casualties of the conflict is higher than that of combatants (2074 civilians in comparison with 396 republican and 166 loyalist paramilitary) the vast majority of the commemorative materials are dedicated to male combatants. Most importantly, the commemorative landscapes in Northern Ireland privileges a male interpretation of the past and generally conveys gender stereotyped representations of women silencing their narratives of the conflict. 13 Loyalist commemorative murals Unionist began painting murals in 1908 but, since the major ceasefire in 1994, murals acquired an extra importance with Loyalist paramilitary groups such as the Ulster Volunteer Force and the Ulster Defence Association embarking on an aggressive campaign to commemorate their own narratives of the past across Belfast, Portadown and Londonderry. Loyalist street murals are typically overtly militaristic, and masculinised generally displaying masked men with guns and weaponry. In keeping with the conservative patriarchal values of British Unionism, Loyalist murals and memorials do not depict women. For instance, the Ulster Defence Association and the Ulster Freedom Fighters organisations (UDA/UFF) have decided on 19 August 2000 to paint thirteen new murals as a ‘celebration of Loyalist culture’ in the Lower Shankill area of Belfast (Rolston 2003: 3). These included a number of loyalist paramilitaries killed throughout the Troubles and some historical controversial figures such as the Protestant King William III- who defeated the Catholic King James II in 1690 in the Battle of the Boyne-, and Oliver Cromwell whose controversial military campaign in Ireland during 1649 led to the dispossession of Catholic landowners and the massacre of Drogheda’s Royalist Garrison (Rolston 2010). Only one of these thirteen murals attempted to pay tribute to women by including a portrait of Princess Diana. Such portrait epitomizes the gendered dimensions of the Loyalist commemoration activities and only amounts to a tokenistic gesture aimed at “keeping the women happy” (McDowell 2008: 341) rather than a real attempt to allow a space for loyalist women within the commemorative landscape in postconflict Northern Ireland. An explained earlier, Northern Ireland as a post-conflict society is marked and shaped by nationalism. An important aspect of nationalism is its boundarymarking of appropriate behaviour for women and men in the nationalist project. This is 14 particularly the case of Unionism. In Unionist symbolism both Ulster and Britain are referred to as the maiden city and the nation that the “sons of Ulster” have to fight for her. Rachel Ward (2004: 502) observed that Unionist and Loyalist culture is gendered with male active and female passive and noted the absence of any significant positive female imagery therein. Similarly, Mary K Meyer (2000: 120) argued that “the Unionist Loyalist identity draws heavily on the masculine/ warrior symbols with virtually no room for feminine symbols and thus reflecting the staunchly patriarchal values of Unionism, its preoccupation with allegiance to the British state, and its exclusion of women from political leadership”. Women in the loyalist commemorative efforts are not only excluded from the narratives of the past but also from the decision making on memorialisation. Women are hardly consulted on decisions about how and whether to commemorate their loved ones. Many of the mothers and widows of the Loyalist paramilitary men painted in the murals disagree with the militaristic and aggressive representations of their sons and husbands with nothing to represent the suffering of the women left behind (McDowell 2008). Republican commemorative Murals Since the hunger strike in 1981, Republicans have engaged in painting murals to commemorate their culture and struggle against Unionism (Roslton 2003: 9). Unlike the loyalist murals, Republican murals are populated with figures and the faces of men and women, boys and girls, famous leaders and ordinary people and not just limited to hooded combatants with weaponry. Yet, similar to Loyalism, Republican Nationalist identity is also gendered albeit in different ways. The catholic Nationalist Republican identity while it draws on masculine and 15 occasionally militaristic symbols still leaves a room for few powerful feminine icons and thus creating more space for women to participate in the nationalist struggle. This reality is reflected in Northern Ireland Commemorative landscape. Mary Meyer (2000) observed that Republican folk traditions, mythological heritage and narratives of the past include a place for strong fighting women such as the ancient Celtic Queen Medb1, Gracey O’Malley2 and the countess Constance Markievcz3. Republican murals also often refer to the Virgin Mary as a religious icon. In a mural about the hunger striker Bobby Sands the Virgin Mary is depicted as watching over him while he himself was depicted as Christ. Republicans have also painted secular murals for real Republican women. One famous mural in the city of Derry is that of Bernadette Devlin McAliskey holding a megaphone as youths, surrounded by smoke, throw stones while another young woman prepare for street battle holding a bin lid. This mural celebrates and memorialise Devlin’s leading role in encouraging residents to defend free Derry during the battle of the Bogside in 1969. But while Republican murals frequently paid tribute to women, men remain the predominant figure in the memorials with attempts to sometime ignore women’s contribution when it does not suit the Republican policies. For instance while Republican women inmates have embarked a similar hunger strike to the one held by the male Republicans in the Maze prison, murals memorialising the hunger strikers did not include any references to women. The memorialisation of women within Republicanism has also been also very selective suggesting a support for a certain conservative narratives of femininity. Women representations are often used as symbols and icons of nationhood, and the motherland that needs to be defended and protected against the enemy. Ireland and the Irish nation in the murals are typically represented by a woman. In one republican mural 16 depicted the Orange Order men marching in a parade and about to crush a woman in a green jacket and a long red as she kneels in the middle of the road pleading the marcher to stop (Meyer 2000: 140). This woman clearly represented Ireland. The mural imagery is clearly gendered and highly sexualised, almost insinuating a sexual assault against the nationalist community by the faceless Orange Order men. Another example of the selective representation comes through the intensive memorialisation of Nora McCabe, a civilian mother of three killed by the British army, who was commemorated in more than one memorial by the Republican movement. McCabe represents the traditional image of an innocent mother and a victim; this gender stereotyped role has a specific place in the Irish Republican values. McCabe’s role as a mother was magnified by the Republicans in memorials to condemn the lack of moral values of the British state. Yet, such commemorative efforts did not pay tributes to any of the other mothers killed by the Irish Republican Army paramilitary such as Jean McConville (McDowell 2008). It could be also argued that the depiction of women in the Republican murals could have been pursued for political aims, to reach out to female voters rather than for the sake of gender equal representation in the memorialisation process. This is particularly true when considering the stark opposition between the Republican Army’s ill-treatment of women who were thought to have stepped over the line and their various efforts to pay homage to Republican women. It must be noted as well, that women have been also sidelined and not consulted by the Republican paramilitary groups when it comes to decisions on the commemoration of their loved ones. Memorialisation, when pursued without consultation, can rob the victims of their ownership over their own memories and grief. Sara McDowell (2008: 345) in an interview with a woman whose son was killed by a bomb at the age of 17 reported how the 17 woman and her family did not know that their son was a member of the IRA until the paramilitaries turned up at the funeral trying to impose their Republican Army burial rituals. The woman recalled how her grief was reignited when an IRA memorial commemorating her son was erected not far from her home without her consent. The effect of such act of commemoration was devastating for her and her family. The sight of her son alongside those she blamed for his death was too unbearable that she fell into deep depression. Conclusion This chapter studied the gender aspect of memorialisation processes. The chapter started by placing memorialisation within the context of transitional justice arguing that this later is as an integral component of transitional justice that should pursued in the aim of fulfilling the right of victims to reparation. Despite, being a requirement of transitional justice, the author argued that memorialisation efforts typically overlook women as victims and elide or misrepresent their narratives of the past. The memorialisation landscapes, around the world, continue to largely document men’s experiences of the conflict at the expense of those of women. Memorials dedicated to women remain numerically fewer and typically gender stereotyped. Women are remembered in collective memorials and depicted in their roles as mothers and victims. Even the size and shape and the type of material chosen for women’s memorials are frequently less significant and cheaper than those used for memorials dedicated to men. The marginalisation of women in memorialisation processes is linked to the construction of nationalism in post-conflict societies. Nationalistic discourses sustain the identity of men as the protector of the nation and glorify those killed as national heroes and cultural legends. Women on the other hand are only valued for their 18 reproductive roles as mothers. Hence, memorialisation pursued in post-conflict contexts reproduces these stereotypical roles of men and women. The chapter examined memorialisation in Northern Ireland viewed through the Loyalist and Republican murals. In Northern Ireland the murals make up a significant part of the commemorative landscape. Overtimes murals are repainted and replenished by the paramilitaries, who have exclusive control over these sites, to tell a new story or to commemorate the recent fallen in the battles. The government in Northern has pursued a piecemeal approach to transitional justice, avoiding the establishment of a national mechanism for dealing with the past similar to those established in other transitional societies. The absence of an agreement on the truth about the past and the parties’ respective responsibilities for the conflict have transformed memorialisation processes in Northern Ireland into space where the parties continue to struggle to impose their own narratives. In this war by other means women’s narratives are left out. Loyalist murals in particular do not include women compounding the myth that they either did not contribute to the Unionist struggle or that their contributions are not significant. While Republican murals do include portrait and imagery of women, many of these remain gender stereotyped and misguided. There is also the fear that women’s murals may have been simply used by the parties to keep the women’s happy and appeal for their votes. The Northern Irish case study has also shown that the marginalisation of women in memorialisation goes beyond the silence and misrepresentation, to the lack of consultation and access to decision making about how and whether to memorialise their loved ones. The families of the victims can feel re-victimised when they are excluded from the memorialisation process and denied control over their memories and the right to grieve privately. 19 As a way of conclusion, one must note that women make up half of the population in any country and that the marginalisation of women in memorialisation efforts can impede the process of national reconciliation. Hence, it is important to emphasise the need to adequately pay tribute to women and to recognise their contributions and suffering in the memorialisation processes undertaken in the aftermath of conflicts. Women should be properly represented in the decision making on memorialisation and should be consulted about memorialisation efforts targeting their loved ones. Decisions on erecting memorials for women should avoid gender stereotyped representation and tokenistic attitudes to women’s memorialisation. It is only this way that memorialisation can truly contribute to national reconciliation and healing. Notes 1 In the Aloeboetoe case, the Inter-American Court has ordered the Surinamese government to name a park, streets and a square in prominent areas after the victims and their tribe. In the case of street children involving a systematic pattern of violations by the security forces against children the Inter-American court ordered the government to name an educational centre after the victims and to erect a memorial plate in recognition of their suffering. 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