Not a Story to Pass On | The Frontline Newsletter

Dear reader,

Let me tell you about trauma.

The final lines of Toni Morrison’s novel, Beloved, an agonisingly beautiful work that I revisit at regular intervals, include this seemingly embarrassing, self-flagellating line: “It was not a story to pass on.” Beloved, as you probably know, is a disturbing thesis on memory, trauma, and the struggle to reconcile with the past.

On the one hand, the young woman named Beloved and Morrison tell us stories that are too painful and too traumatic to be retold. They tell us that remembering and reliving such experiences can be damaging, that forgetting might be a form of self-preservation. This syncs with the idea that the community chooses to “disremember” Beloved, to push her and the horrors she represents into the past.

But the fact that Morrison is telling this story, that she’s forcing us to confront these difficult truths, suggests the opposite. That these stories must be told, that remembering is essential for healing, for understanding, for preventing such atrocities from happening again.

It’s this tension between remembering and forgetting that makes the ending of Beloved so powerful and thought-provoking. Morrison doesn’t offer easy answers, but leaves us instead with an unresolved question: What do we do with the stories that haunt us?

Let us revisit 1986.

On April 26 that year, Reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded. It released radiation 400 times greater than the Hiroshima atom bomb, immediately killing around 30 people. Thousands were displaced, entire towns abandoned, and generations burdened by a silent, invisible enemy—radiation poisoning. In 2005, the UN put the death count at 4,000. Greenpeace International says it’s about 90,000.

The disaster was not just an environmental catastrophe but a deep psychological scar left on the people of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. Today, even as the physical remnants of Chernobyl fade, the psychological impact lingers, passed down through generations. Like Auschwitz, the Rwandan Genocide, the Killing Fields, and the Trail of Tears, such traumas transcend individual suffering, embedding themselves into collective memory and identity.

This is the nature of collective trauma. Interestingly, it is a little different from personal scars. It does not merely end with an individual’s death. It mutates, embedding itself into cultural memory. It then starts moulding identities, policies, and perceptions.

Psychologists are now looking at collective trauma more keenly than ever. Broadly defined, collective trauma refers to psychological distress that affects a group, community, or entire society following a devastating event. Wars, famines, colonisation, genocide, and pandemics have all inflicted wounds that outstrip individual suffering.

The concept gained academic recognition in the 20th century. Sigmund Freud’s early work on trauma laid the foundation, but it was the Holocaust that called for a deeper examination of the phenomenon. German-American psychiatrist William Niederland introduced the term “survivor syndrome” to describe the constant psychological suffering of Holocaust survivors, including anxiety, nightmares, and identity crises. The sociologist Kai Erikson expanded on the idea. The term “collective trauma” was first introduced by Erikson in his book Everything in Its Path (1976). He studied the Buffalo Creek Disaster (a 1972 mining disaster in the US town of West Virginia) and showed how trauma can affect an entire community rather than just individuals.

Neuroscience and psychology have provided strong evidence that trauma is not only experienced but also inherited. Recently, Rachel Yehuda’s research on Holocaust survivors and their descendants talked about altered stress hormone levels, proving that trauma can be biologically transmitted. Similarly, studies on the descendants of enslaved Africans in America have shown increased susceptibility to post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and cardiovascular disease.

This means essentially that your trauma—which you suffer now—is what your sons and daughters will helplessly inherit.

Equally, cultural transmission plays a pivotal role. Stories, rituals, and even silences function as vessels for collective memory. In South Africa, memories of apartheid continue to influence socio-economic conditions. In Rwanda, the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi left scars that reconciliation efforts still attempt to mend. Much like the wounds of the caste system in India, which continue to fester.

Why is it so difficult to treat the wounds of collective trauma?

One reason is that trauma is often reinforced by ongoing structural issues. For instance, the history of colonialism in Africa and South Asia continues to influence economic disparities, political instability, and social unrest.

Then there is the worry of history used as a weapon. Governments and extremist groups manipulate collective trauma to suit their nationalistic, jingoistic agendas. In post-World War I Germany, the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles triggered a kind of nationalist indignation that ultimately paved the way for Hitler’s rise. Today, in regions like the Balkans, ethnic divisions are reinforced through “selective histories”, perpetuating cycles of violence and mistrust.

History cannot be undone. But the future remains unwritten. Addressing collective trauma requires a lot of concerted effort. The psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk writes in The Body Keeps the Score (2014) that “trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body”. So, to truly heal, societies must address these imprints—both psychologically and structurally—ensuring that the past does not dictate the future.

Acknowledging historical injustices through education helps keep the lessons alive for the public good and fosters empathy. Many countries that integrate difficult histories into their curricula help future generations understand and process inherited trauma. But in contemporary India, we see a disturbing trend in the opposite direction.

Economic reparations, providing enough mental health infrastructure, and judicial reforms can help rectify systemic issues stemming from trauma. Affirmative action, called reservation in India, is another step. Community-led healing is another solution. Finally, a global collaboration towards addressing collective trauma is a must because crises are becoming increasingly international now, and so too must solutions.

Toni Morrison was right when she said that this is not a story to pass on. Yet, paradoxically, the act of remembering is vital. Collective trauma is not merely a relic of history; it is a force that powers the present and the future. Understanding it helps societies to break the cycle of pain and chart a path toward healing.

From Germany’s confrontation with the Holocaust to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission to how members from dominant castes in India are trying to abandon their privileges and reconnect with the oppressed, there are emerging positives.

Pankaj Mishra, one of the most authentic thinkers of our time, in his new book The World After Gaza, draws attention to how Zionism has dealt with memory and how its choices haunt the world today. Mishra’s interview with Tabish Khair is a must-read if we wish to understand trauma, remembering, and forgetting.

Don’t miss it; it’s free to read for the readers of this newsletter. And, as always, write back with your comments.

Have a week filled with good memories,

Jinoy Jose P.

Digital Editor, Frontline

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