Talk:National trauma

the netherlands item is wrong
If you live in the netherlands and talk to the older people they will say that the clossest modern thing to a nationa ltrauma would be 1 the german ocupation  or 2 the lost world cup against germany in 1974. however the pim fortuyn murder is not a national trauma. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.207.89.19 (talk) 09:54, 4 March 2011‎ (UTC)


 * I (as a dutch person) totally agree. The assinations of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh were merely followed by a temporary shock, whereas the loss against germany had more long lasting effects. Therefore, I changed it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.224.221.231 (talk) 15:15, 11 June 2012 (UTC)


 * As a DutchmanI think the most closest wich fits the list is the fall of Srebrenica in wich The Netherlands was shown that you can not save people with ideology alone. The goverment of Wim Kok fell over the subject. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.151.227.46 (talk) 10:59, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

the spirit of a nation or ethnicity
This is a totally subjective concept, "nations" and "ethnicities" are social constructs and do not have "spirits". What is or isn't traumatic varies by individual. I just don't think this article has any value, nor does the supposed concept of a "national trauma" itself. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.224.122.150 (talk) 21:51, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

This is wrong. You must be living in a cave to say that. National sentiment is something that is especially apparent in the old world, it is a recurring theme in European and Asian politics as long as history has been recorded. LightningLighting (talk) 00:19, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Complete re-write
I've re-written this article to remove the lack of sourcing and to cite this term to current scholarship. The former list of examples was removed by in response to this discussion. All of these examples appear to have been added by individual editors based solely on their own appreciation of the term and show a heavy WP:RECENTISM bias. Such examples as November 2015 Paris attacks for France, every example formerly listed for India, Assassination of Pim Fortuyn and Assassination of Theo van Gogh for Netherlands, etc. etc. appear to have met no definition beyond, "somebody died and it was in the news a lot."

Because this article attracted such poor-quality examples previously, does anyone else think it would be profitable for an administrator or template editor create an appropriate edit notice for the "Examples of national traumas" section? Thanks. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 22:11, 1 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Or a hidden note? Doug Weller  talk 14:54, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Well, that would be the simpler place to start and then escalate to an edit notice if the changes become problematic. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 15:13, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
 * How about the kerfuffle, worldwide almost, after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales? -Roxy, Zalophus californianus. barcus 00:07, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
 * , thank you for the suggestion. I did look for citable sources that would substantiate the inclusion of that event and I don't see any significant references to Diana's death as a national trauma in either scholarly or popular publications.  There is one passing mention at the very end of this article by the BBC's royal correspondent.  His usage there, "...before she {Elizabeth II} realised the full scale of the national trauma." does not suggest to me that it should be included for the following reasons.


 * First of all, that usage, brief as it is, does not match the definitions found in the literature of something profoundly tragic that breaks the shared, unspoken rules of social life or that threatens the national identity. The reactions to Diana's death were couched in the language of personal tragedy, not societal upheaval.  One anthropologist talks about the response in terms of Christian martyrology and ritualized grieving a group of communication scientists talks about personal psychological identification and involvement in the grief response.  What these analyses share is the conclusion that Diana's death was treated as a personal psychological trauma by a very large group that felt a personal connection to her through mass media.  Essentially, Diana was something between a secular saint and a close friend (or both) to many, many people ans so those people experienced her death the same way they would experience the death of some-one they knew personally.


 * Secondly, the reaction to her death lacked the shattering of societal expectations that mark national traumas. After Pearl Harbor, almost all American isolationism evaporated literally overnight.  After 9/11, Americans heartily endorsed highly invasive government surveillance in ways that were unthinkable before. With the exception of some anti-paparazzi laws passed in (oddly enough) California, however, people did not feel the need to create new order out of chaos the way they did after the national traumas listed on the page currently.  Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 01:19, 7 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for all the work following what was almost a throwaway comment from me late in the night. I think your assessment is spot on. -Roxy, Zalophus californianus. barcus 07:54, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I live in the UK. For a lot of people it was just a sad event, but not particularly sadder than any other death. The Royal Family is popular but again not to a lot of people, and the same goes for Dianna. Doug Weller  talk 13:33, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
 * Hmmm. Why did I think you were Merkian? -Roxy, Zalophus californianus. barcus 17:51, 7 December 2017 (UTC)
 * More than a year later, but as a Brit, I agree with the above. The death of Diana was sad for many, but not a 'national trauma' which shook fundamentally held ideas of the nation. Better candidates for the UK might be: the Western Front in WWI; the Fall of Singapore in WWII; the Suez Crisis; and to some extent The Troubles in Northern Ireland. In economic history, there's the 1967 currency devaluation and 1976 loan from the IMF, the 1984 miners' strike, and the 2008 'credit crunch'. And while it would be POV commentary to say so, at the time of writing, the ongoing Brexit crisis doesn't feel too far off joining the list... Robofish (talk) 22:27, 29 March 2019 (UTC)

Linking other events
Am I allowed to link a National Catastrophe to another Wikipedia page (which obviously has neat citations and all that)? I'm new on the platform, so I don't know much other than linking people to other articles. Thanks. LightningLighting (talk) 00:22, 1 November 2020 (UTC)
 * , example traumas are limited to ones that there is a good, reliable source that clearly identifies the event as such. Ideally, these meet the definition of an event that inflicted such sever psychological trauma on a national consciousness that drastic measures were necessary in some way.  If you have another article that you feel meets this definition, then you can include it and also link the other article to this one.  You would do this simply by using square brackets around the linking article title:    If you want to use an alias then use the pipe character and then whatever text you want displayed: Foo argued that bar was " " and resulted in the dramatic change to baz and implementation of qux.  I hope that helps. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 02:58, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. I wanted to cite the Anatolian Catastrophe and Genocide for Greece, which saw massive refugee movements to Greece, the deaths of nearly a million and a great court decision that had some of the head Royalists considered responsible and killed, nowadays called "Η δική των έξι", "The trial of the (big) six". This made Greece change its policy from that of "Greater Greece" to a protectionist, having a profound effect on Greek culture after the Great War. It's also the uproar of that time that caused the political instability of Greece that would continue until WW2 and climax in the Greek civil war, another traumatic event. Does this qualify? There's already an article on it in Wikipedia. LightningLighting (talk) 22:30, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
 * , please remember that national trauma is a specific term that has a specific definition based on sociological effects of a historical event. It is not just a haunting part of history. There are a lot of negatively-remembered parts of history and things that enter folk memory of nations but unless they cause the community-wide socio-psychological effects described, then the literature does not support calling those national traumas.  If you can find sources that fit our definition of reliability that identify these events as national traumas, then, yes.  You could indeed include them and cite the sources.  I hope that helps. [[User:Eggishorn|Eggishorn ]] (talk) (contrib) 23:41, 18 November 2020 (UTC)