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The Power of Collective Memory

Martin J. Murray

in Commemorating and Forgetting: Challenges for the New South Africa

In this chapter, I investigate how commemorative practices have always been deeply invested in the shaping of political and national identities, and the recasting of new memory-markers provides us ... More

In this chapter, I investigate how commemorative practices have always been deeply invested in the shaping of political and national identities, and the recasting of new memory-markers provides us with significant clues as to the social stability of the ‘new South Africa’ after the end of apartheid and about the ways that the custodians of memory – both from the top down and from the bottom up – project its future. A close reading of the memorial landscapes that proliferated after the end of apartheid can reveal insights into the power of collective memory to shape national identity. Looking at the cultural politics of ‘nation-building’ through the lens of an assortment of mnemonic devices – such as monuments and memorials, museums, and autobiographical writing – enables us to grasp how the lingering, ghostly presence of the past, always contested and never stable, haunts the present. While the ‘new South Africa’ is located in the historical conjuncture that has been called “post-apartheid,” it must be recognized that the legacies and impositions of white minority rule are far from over, and that they have remained embedded and intertwined with, and imprinted upon, the here-and-now.Less

Collective Memory in Place: The Voortrekker Monument and the Hector Pieterson Memorial

Martin J. Murray

in Commemorating and Forgetting: Challenges for the New South Africa

Focusing particular attention on two sites of memory – the Voortrekker Monument and the Hector Pieterson Memorial – enables us to critically examine both the parallels and divergent trajectories in ... More

Focusing particular attention on two sites of memory – the Voortrekker Monument and the Hector Pieterson Memorial – enables us to critically examine both the parallels and divergent trajectories in these different modes of commemoration. The Voortrekker Monument marked the power of Afrikanerdom at the height of the political confidence in the National Party as the vehicle of (white) national identity. Once a messenger of power, it has become a symbol of the failed promise of white minority rule. Once a powerful marker of triumph, it has become symbol of hubris. In contrast, the Hector Pieterson Memorial is an exemplary expression of what Maria Tumarkin has called a traumascape, or a distinctive category of place that stands witness to terrible acts of tragedy, and as a result inadvertently becomes synonymous with the past events themselves. Much more than merely the physical setting for tragedy, traumascapes are cathartic locations, transformed psychically by suffering, grief, and loss. They have become essential parts of people’s experience of mourning, remembering, and making sense of the traumatic events that took place there.Less

Facing Backward, Looking Forward: The Politics of Remembering and Forgetting

Martin J. Murray

in Commemorating and Forgetting: Challenges for the New South Africa

With the collapse of white minority rule and the dismantling of apartheid, citizens of the ‘new South Africa’ are called upon to look two ways in time: back to the racially-divided past to confront ... More

With the collapse of white minority rule and the dismantling of apartheid, citizens of the ‘new South Africa’ are called upon to look two ways in time: back to the racially-divided past to confront painful memories born of discrimination and oppression, and forward to the future – with its attendant risks, uncertainties, and contingent possibilities. Looking backward, they hold onto the past by remembering and commemorating. Looking forward, they envision a radiant future unencumbered and unburdened by the sordid apartheid past. The central conundrum that arises from this Janus-faced, schizophrenic vision has to do with resolving the tension between the politics of remembering and the politics of forgetting. On the one hand, the collapse of apartheid has triggered an enthusiasm for the recovery of those aspects of the national past which white minority rule had tried to erase, suppress, and elide from collective memory. On the other hand, finding a common ground of shared values upon which to forge a unifying national identity requires moving beyond – escaping – the past that had divided the country along racial and ethnic, ‘tribal’ and linguistic lines.Less

A Collective ‘I’ and Its Contending Readings: Personal Memories in Sent-Down Youth

Jing Meng

in Fragmented Memories and Screening Nostalgia for the Cultural Revolution

Chapter 5 investigates the television serial drama Sent-Down Youth to discover how personal memories are used to provide pedagogical lessons and to build up a collective imagination of the past. The ... More

Chapter 5 investigates the television serial drama Sent-Down Youth to discover how personal memories are used to provide pedagogical lessons and to build up a collective imagination of the past. The television drama is presented as a critique of the Cultural Revolution against the backdrop of the rising fever for the ‘Red Culture’ campaign in Chongqing, but it also exalts the idealism and altruism of the Cultural Revolution generation and criticizes materialism in contemporary society. Socialism here is associated with idealism, collectivism, and passion. However, the audience may also apply their understandings of the political context and personal memories to decode the representation, producing diversified and contested readings of the television drama. Television—being state owned and the mouthpiece of the party-state—both limits and enables the proliferation of multiple personal memories and discourses about the past and the present.Less

Haunted Heritage: Visual Display at District Six and Robben Island

Martin J. Murray

in Commemorating and Forgetting: Challenges for the New South Africa

“Haunting” is a useful metaphorical device for calling attention to how it is that certain places instill a sense of possession, absence, and loss in the urban landscape. The sense of the spectral ... More

“Haunting” is a useful metaphorical device for calling attention to how it is that certain places instill a sense of possession, absence, and loss in the urban landscape. The sense of the spectral presence of those who are not physically there is a ubiquitous feature of the phenomenology of place. This chapter uses the examples of the District Six Museum (Cape Town) and Robben Island Museum to explore how the spectral presence of the past haunts the present.Less

Memory Deviants: Breaking the Collective

Robyn Autry

in Desegregating the Past: The Public Life of Memory in the United States and South Africa

Chapter 4 asks, “What can deviant forms of remembering tell us about the normative project of collective remembrance?” This chapter draws on newspaper articles, blogs, and interviews to explore the ... More

Chapter 4 asks, “What can deviant forms of remembering tell us about the normative project of collective remembrance?” This chapter draws on newspaper articles, blogs, and interviews to explore the world of “memory deviants” who refuse to engage in ‘socially responsible” forms of remembering and the identity constructions implicit in them. This chapter investigates the limits of constructing a consensus-driven collective memory through the lens of dissenting voices, particularly those of the people meant to identify with revised collective narratives.Less

Introduction: Memory and Amnesia after Apartheid

Martin J. Murray

in Commemorating and Forgetting: Challenges for the New South Africa

The Introduction contextualizes apartheid, while discussing the making and meaning of collective memory.

The Curated Past: Remembering the Collective

Robyn Autry

in Desegregating the Past: The Public Life of Memory in the United States and South Africa

In Chapter 2, I examine how violent histories are recounted through the lens of group identity formation in exhibitions. I discuss how relying on the conventions of collective storytelling—the rules ... More

In Chapter 2, I examine how violent histories are recounted through the lens of group identity formation in exhibitions. I discuss how relying on the conventions of collective storytelling—the rules and norms around both plot and structure—blunts the sharp edges of history. This chapter analyzes the visual and discursive turns used to construct a metanarrative of group identity forged through collective trauma. In South Africa, this collective experience is articulated as a national one, whereas in the United States interrogation of the society’s racist past is the purview of so-called ethnic or black museums.Less

Rivesaltes

Susan Ireland

in Postcolonial Realms of Memory: Sites and Symbols in Modern France

The Camp Joffre, otherwise known as the Camp de Rivesaltes, played a role in many of the major conflicts of the twentieth century, including the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the Algerian war ... More

The Camp Joffre, otherwise known as the Camp de Rivesaltes, played a role in many of the major conflicts of the twentieth century, including the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the Algerian war of independence. Originally designed as a military base, the camp was frequently reconfigured and was used for diverse purposes, often serving as an internment centre. The memorial museum, which was opened in October 2015, bears witness to the camp’s multifaceted history. As a postcolonial site of memory, Rivesaltes is primarily associated with the harkis, the Algerians who worked for the French during the war of independence and who found themselves isolated in temporary housing camps when they were repatriated to France at the end of the conflict. Emblematic of the housing camps in general, Rivesaltes figures prominently in the community’s collective memories as a symbol of their marginalization and of France’s failure to protect them.Less

White Lies: Mythmaking and Social Memory in the Service of White Minority Rule

Martin J. Murray

in Commemorating and Forgetting: Challenges for the New South Africa

This chapter addresses a range of questions that investigate the origins of memory-making under white minority rule and how these discredited mnemonic devices linger in the present. What becomes of ... More

This chapter addresses a range of questions that investigate the origins of memory-making under white minority rule and how these discredited mnemonic devices linger in the present. What becomes of social memories of settler colonialism and white minority rule when the myth-laden, socio-cultural world of their making lies in ruins? The end of apartheid and the transition to parliamentary democracy triggered what amounted to a crisis of collective memory that left citizens of the ‘new South Africa’ without the stable reference points necessary for building a shared sense of national identity. What should be remembered and how? Where do old-fashioned monuments and memorials that extolled the virtues of white minority rule fit into the new national narrative of political stability, economic progress, and racial reconciliation? These are the kinds of questions that immediately provoked widespread debate and controversy.Less

Managing Collective Representations

Robyn Autry

in Desegregating the Past: The Public Life of Memory in the United States and South Africa

Chapter 3 treats the museum not only as a site of memory, but also as a site of employment. It considers how the collective representations require management over time, focusing on some of the banal ... More

Chapter 3 treats the museum not only as a site of memory, but also as a site of employment. It considers how the collective representations require management over time, focusing on some of the banal or profane dimensions of memory work: the budgets, the political wrangling, staff composition and training, and construction costs and woes. Museum curators and directors must contend with a cluster of political-economic and institutional factors that deeply determine their capacity to represent the past. I found that all the museums I studied faced related concerns about funding, attendance, membership development, and exhibition design.Less

The Armenian Genocide: Forensic Intervention, Narrative, and the Historical Record

Roxana Ferllini

in Excavating Memory: Sites of Remembering and Forgetting

Today, Armenians across the globe honor the cultural remembrance of the Armenian genocide. This is significant given that the victims of this historical event remain largely forgotten by the ... More

Today, Armenians across the globe honor the cultural remembrance of the Armenian genocide. This is significant given that the victims of this historical event remain largely forgotten by the international community, including the media and political establishments. Seeking to achieve transitional justice, the Armenian community maintains a policy of formal recognition of the genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire in the early twentieth century. As this chapter shows, the framework of a collective Armenian memory has provided structure and focus for the forensic anthropological work conducted at Ras al-Ain in Syria in 2007. While investigations focused on the exhumations of human remains of those who had perished due to forced deportation, collaboration with the Armenian community proved invaluable. Community members shared their recollections of the events that had transpired at the site, and the forensic evidence in turn provided a sense of closure to the community.Less

INTRODUCTION: Counterinsurgency and the Uses of History

David Fitzgerald

in Learning to Forget: US Army Counterinsurgency Doctrine and Practice from Vietnam to Iraq

This introduction examines the literature on the complicated relationship between the US Army and counterinsurgency before seeking an explanation for that relationship in the broader field on US ... More

This introduction examines the literature on the complicated relationship between the US Army and counterinsurgency before seeking an explanation for that relationship in the broader field on US strategic culture and the more general concept of strategic and organizational culture. The chapter also outlines the broad debate on the lessons of Vietnam before considering the theoretical literature on the ‘lessons of history’ and the social construction of history. It argues that the Army’s relationship with counterinsurgency and its lessons of Vietnam cannot be understood without reference to the literature on strategic culture and collective memory.Less

Conclusion: Museumification of Memory

Robyn Autry

in Desegregating the Past: The Public Life of Memory in the United States and South Africa

Finally, in the conclusion, I revisit the puzzle of collective memory and the politics of representation or the “museumification of memory.” This chapter argues that memory and identity become ... More

Finally, in the conclusion, I revisit the puzzle of collective memory and the politics of representation or the “museumification of memory.” This chapter argues that memory and identity become artifacts in the interest of reconstituting the collective in the aftermath of prolonged and intense conflict. It also questions the motivations for and implications of the construction and production of consensus-driven narratives as the basis of collective memory. Ultimately, this chapter considers the extent to which museum practices can transcend the familiar visual and discursive language of racial and national identities that is itself rooted in histories of oppression and exclusion.Less

Sites of Memory of the 1980 Military Coup in Turkey

Derya Firat

in Excavating Memory: Sites of Remembering and Forgetting

The 1980 military coup is a milestone in Turkish history. While more than thirty years have passed since the event, a review of contemporary debates on the subject reveals an urgent need to confront ... More

The 1980 military coup is a milestone in Turkish history. While more than thirty years have passed since the event, a review of contemporary debates on the subject reveals an urgent need to confront the memories associated with Turkey's unspoken past. In order to meet this need, this chapter discusses the physical sites of memory that emerged with the military coup. It focuses on three sites associated with urban public protest: the street, Istanbul's Taksim Square, and Diyarbakır Prison. While the first operates at the scale of the whole Turkish society, the second concerns the Turkish Left, and the third is a site of memory for the Kurdish people. In approaching these three spaces, Fırat ventures into different topographies of memory, exploring in particular how Pierre Nora's 'sites of memory' and Maurice Halbwachs’ “collective memory” articulate with the Turkish case.Less

America’s Iconic Bald Eagle

Barbara K. Jones

in Wild Capital: Nature's Economic and Ecological Wealth

Bald eagles have returned from the brink of extinction and today serve as a reminder to our collective memory of not only what we can do to destroy a species, but what we can learn from its near ... More

Bald eagles have returned from the brink of extinction and today serve as a reminder to our collective memory of not only what we can do to destroy a species, but what we can learn from its near loss. In our environmental ignorance, we almost lost the symbol of our identity as Americans and replaced it with a value system that saw our dominion over nature as a legitimate and proper role for mankind. Today, we more readily appreciate that our well-being is closely tied to that of nature and without intact ecosystems we all lose. Our willingness to pay to maintain populations of bald eagles is an important tool for assigning this charismatic bird value. Bald eagles now soar in places as varied as the rivers of Alaska to the highly developed coastline of the Chesapeake Bay, but in both locations, their presence reminds us of what we could have lost if we allowed the bald eagle to “blink out” and what we have gained from their conservation success.Less