Becoming a Witness

Charles Strozier at the NY Academy of Medicine.

One of the plenary presentations at the Bystanders No More conference was by Charles B. Strozier. He had interviewed survivors and bystanders of 9/11. On the large screen behind the podium he projected images of what happened that day and in the days thereafter - images most people had only seen on their small TV screens. Some were familiar to me, others not - I didn't have a TV in those days. The photograph that stood out for me more than any other, was one taken outside the nearest hospital to the World Trade Centre. It showed a big clutch of green-coated doctors and nurses just waiting. They waited all day apparently - no-one came. There were almost no casualties of 9/11. Only the dead and the survivors. For the first time ever, this became a real event to me -

Why "Bystanders No More"?

An astonishing story lies behind the conference I attended in New York in May this year. Its a story about a largely hidden genocide of 100 years ago and the effect of its horrors on the silenced and unacknowledged survivors. A story of how this history was put centre stage by a second-generation survivor and what her colleagues then did about it. A story also of healing, generosity of spirit and reconciliation.

So, what happened?
The last International Self Psychology Conference was held in Turkey in October 2010. Present at the previous US conference in 2009, where the next venue was announced, was an analyst, the daughter of a survivor of the Armenian genocide in Turkey in 1915-23.

Back Home!

Apologies to readers out there for my silence. I had no idea beforehand how important a peaceful Friday is to my blogging career. And there were none of those while I was travelling. Consequently I have many topics to post because it was a very stimulating trip.

Not least the TRISP Conference in New York where I started. Before I get into it - and I think there will probably be about 4 postings on that alone - perhaps travellers to JFK might like to know that the queue at the border was 2 hours long in early May. They fingerprint both hands and take a picture of every entrant. They probably didn't realise that my fingertips are so worn down I don't have any fingerprints left - something I discovered when trying to renew my driver's licence recently.  Thus began my life of crime. (Someone should warn the police to watch out for aging criminals!) I took an illegal picture while waiting in the queue on my new Blackberry before an official came to tell me off. I will post it when I figure out how to transfer the photo.