CEO talks conflict and war

On Thursday, Oct. 13, Simon Adams discussed “The Intersection between Mental Health, Recovery and International Justice,” as part of the Global Awareness Lecture Series.

Adams is currently the President and CEO of Center for Victims of Torture and has also worked for The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect as the executive director. Adams has worked directly with the United Nations and other international governments as well as survivors of torture from multiple conflict zones.

The Global Awareness Lecture Series started in 1983 and is in its 39th year. The lecture series was started by Gary Prevost, Ernie Dietrich and Marc Catudal and involves speakers on international relations topics who come from a variety of different backgrounds. All speakers give a public lecture and may occasionally speak directly in a class. Adams discussed numerous topics, including his personal experiences growing up around conflict in Belfast, Northern Ireland, his experiences in South Africa and his experiences in South Africa and Rwanda and overall work with human rights including working for The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect and his current work at the Center for Victims of Torture. Adams recalled the experience of conflict he had while growing up in Northern Ireland.

“I grew up always being acutely aware that my family had come from this place in conflict…. The conflict had been very costly to my family,” Adams said.

He described how growing up surrounded by conflict and his family’s background sparked his interest in what causes conflict and why people hate one another. Another topic Adams discussed was his time living in South Africa, joining the anti-apartheid party and seeing firsthand a society recover from conflict. Adams recalled seeing this rebuilding of a new democratic government take place in South Africa and ultimately led him to become more involved in politics.

“That became kind of a defining time of who I became as a person and really shaped my life…. There was always kind of this pull of the human rights work and so forth,” Adams said.

It also gave him the experience for his future work with helping people who have experienced conflict and trauma. His experiences in South Africa led him to become interested in mass atrocities and eventually led him to Rwanda. There he worked directly with survivors and learned how to deal with victims of trauma, focusing on the main goal of helping them.

“The Center for Victims of Torture works with people who some kind of malignant authority has tried to bury in the darkness and who are in the process of healing and finding hope in themselves, in life and in other human beings.” Adams said.

When asked about how he and his staff deal with seeing horrible conflict and listening to victims of trauma, Adams mentioned multiple answers depending upon each person.

“This is not about you, it’s about the people you are trying to help,” he said.

Adams discussed the importance of working for change, justice and honesty and the importance of human rights. His experiences working in multiple different areas have shown the importance of building back from conflicts and working to make a difference.

“It’s all part of just deciding that you’re going to be somebody who’s going to try and make a difference in whatever way you can in the world or being someone who’s going to be a spectator,” Adams said.

Political science professor Colin Hannigan said his key takeaway was the importance of the work Adams does.

“Even though it seems like there’s nothing that ever happens that’s good in the international system, some things that do happen are good, and it’s because of folks like Simon,” Hannigan said.

Hannigan also discussed the importance of the event and why it is relevant to students and student life at CSB+SJU.

“Students have a lot of individual and collective power that they don’t necessarily think that they have. Their voices matter, especially when they band together to project their voices and call attention to big serious international problems and concerns,” Hannigan said.