Buckley-Zistel/Schäfer: Introduction. Memorials in Times of Transition (Intersentia)

MEMORIALS IN TIMES OF TRANSITION

Edited bySusanne Buckley-Zistel

Stefanie Schäfer

Cambridge – Antwerp – Portland

Memorials in Times of TransitionSusanne Buckley-Zistel and Stefanie Schäfer (eds.)

© 2014 Intersentia Cambridge – Antwerp – Portland www.intersentia.com | www.intersentia.co.uk

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Intersentia vii

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

Memorials in Times of TransitionSusanne Buckley-Zistel and Stefanie Schäfer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1. Social Memory, Memorials and Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32. Memorialisation, Memorials and Transitional Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73. Forms of Memorials in Times of Transition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144. Structure of the Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

I. CONNECTING TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE AND MEMORIALS

Chapter 1.Memorialisation in Post-confl ict Societies in Africa: Potentials and Challenges

Ereshnee Naidu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

1. Debates in the Field of Transitional Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312. Symbolic Reparations and Memorialisation in Post-confl ict Societies . . 323. Memorialisation: Fuelling Underlying Divisions? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Chapter 2.Refl ecting the Fractured Past: Memorialisation, Transitional Justice and the Role of Outsiders

Judy Barsalou . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

1. Defi ning Memorialisation: Forms, Timing, Initiators and Intentions . . . 482. Memorialisation and Types of Confl ict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

2.1. Dictatorships and Political Repression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 522.2. Ethnic Confl ict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532.3. Mass Killings and Genocide. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

3. Connecting Memorialisation to Transitional Justice and Reconciliation 55

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4. Getting Involved: Th e Role of Outsiders in Memorialisation . . . . . . . . . . . 595. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Chapter 3.Alétheia and the Making of the World: Inner and Outer Dimensions of Memorials in Rwanda

Julia Viebach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

1. Memorialisation in Rwanda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 722. Inside and Outside of Memorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

2.1. Making the World: Inside of Memorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 782.1.1. To the Beginnings: Th e Unmaking of the World . . . . . . . . . 802.1.2. Fragments of World Alteration: Th e Practice of Care-

taking and Human Remains as Collective Artefacts . . . . . . 812.2. Alétheia: Th e Outer Dimension of Memorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

2.2.1. Memory-Truth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 842.2.2. Memory-Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 862.2.3. Th e Unforgotten: Suff ering and Victimhood in the

Visuality and Materiality of Memorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 893. Juxtaposing Alétheia and Making the World or Juxtaposing Inner

and Outer Dimensions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

II. MEMORIAL SPACES AND REPRESENTATION

Chapter 4.Detained in the Memorial Hohenschönhausen: Heterotopias, Narratives and Transitions from the Stasi Past in Germany

Susanne Buckley-Zistel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

1. Th e Berlin-Hohenschönhausen Memorial Museum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 992. Analysing Memorial Museums . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1013. Of Other Spaces: Inside Hohenschön hausen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104

3.1. Th e Physical Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1053.2. Th e Guided Tours. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

4. Out of Other Spaces: Outside Hohen schön hausen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1124.1. Transitional Justice and Memory in Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1134.2. Competing Narratives and the ‘Auf arbei tungs kombinat’ . . . . . . . . 115

5. Th e Gap between Transition and Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

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Chapter 5.Stories of Beginnings and Endings: Settler Colonial Memorials in Australia

Elizabeth Strakosch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

1. Settler Colonialism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1282. Colonial Beginnings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1313. Colonial Endings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1334. Transitional Justice and Reconciliation Memorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1365. Reconciliation Place as Colonial Ending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1396. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Chapter 6.Manicured Nails but Shackled Hands? Th e Representation of Women in Northern Ireland’s Post-confl ict Memory

Kristian Brown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

1. Th e Northern Ireland Troubles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1502. Transitional Justice and Memorialisation in a Divided Society . . . . . . . . 1513. Women and Memory in Northern Ireland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

3.1. A Complex Gender Matrix: Nationalisms, Peace-making and ‘the Troubles’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

3.2. Gendered Memories of the Northern Ireland Confl ict: Marginalisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

4. Th e Representation of Women in Irish Republican Memorials . . . . . . . . 1574.1. Women and Historical Struggle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1594.2. Woman as Fighter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1604.3. Woman as Prisoner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1604.4. Woman as Victim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1624.5. Woman as Symbol of the Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1624.6. Woman as Resisting Citizen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1624.7. Woman as Icon or Martyr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1634.8. Woman as Mother . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163

5. Representations of Republican Women: Beyond Marginalisation? . . . . . 1646. Possible Futures in Representing the Past . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1667. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

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III. CONTESTATION AND POLITISATION OF MEMORIALS

Chapter 7.Th e Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial: Promoting (In)Justice?

Christian Braun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173

1. Th e Srebrenica Memorial as an Example for Memorials in Divided Societies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

2. Th e Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1772.1. Th e Form of the Srebrenica-Potočari Memorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1792.2. Exploring the Memorial: Th e Narratives of Commemorating

Genocide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1802.3. Narratives of Remembrance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1842.4. Conceiving and Construction of the Memorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188

2.4.1. Th e Serb Community: Denial and Obstruction . . . . . . . . . 1882.4.2. Th e International Community: Between Security

and Shame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1892.4.3. Th e Bosniaks: Mourning, Revenge and Political

Benefi ts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1912.5. Th e Memorial in the Mind of the Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

3. Transitional Justice in Divided Societies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196

Chapter 8.Memorials, Memorialisation and Social Action in Santiago de Chile

Katrien Klep . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199

1. Transitional Justice and Memorialisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2022. Th e Cemetery: Mourning and Demands of Justice at the Memorial

del Detenido Desaparecido y del Ejecutado Político . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2043. Th e City: Political Agency and Public Debate at Londres 38, Espacio

de Memorias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2084. Local and National Dynamics of Memorialisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218

Chapter 9.Commemorating the Famine as Genocide: Th e Contested Meanings of Holodomor Memorials in Ukraine

Tatiana Zhurzhenko . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221

1. Th e Holodomor as Genocide: National Memory in the Age of Globalisation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224

2. Memorialising the Holodomor as Genocide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228

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3. Th e ‘Candle of Memory’: Th e National Memorial to the Victims of the Holodomor in Kyiv . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231

4. Th e Holodomor Memorial in Kharkiv . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2365. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 243

Intersentia 1

MEMORIALS IN TIMES OF TRANSITION

Susanne Buckley-Zistel and Stefanie Schäfer

In January 2011, a small delegation of Rwandans travelled to Germany to meet with representatives and curators of the most signifi cant Holocaust memorial sites.1 Th e group, comprised of representatives of victim organisations, the Kigali Memorial Center, the Commission for the Fight against Genocide as well as peace initiatives, had ventured on this journey to learn about the German experience with remembrance and commemoration in order to draw lessons for their own memory work. For despite all diff erences, what both countries have in common is a past marked by extreme violence, by genocide. And both seek to redress the past by means of building or conserving physical structures as sites of memory: memorials.

Th is is by no means an isolated scenario. Since the 1960–70s, we can see a worldwide upsurge of memorial projects that address the violent histories of recent wars, genocides and systematic human rights abuses. Th ey include the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Cambodia, the Escuela de Mecánica de la Armada (ESMA) in Argentina, the Robben Island Museum in South Africa, as well as many others some of which shall be investigated more closely in the context of this volume. Such interventions oft en employ a common architectural language and are informed by a set of political and ethical claims in regard to what role commemoration can and/or should play aft er large-scale violence: providing public sites of mourning, putting past wrongs right, holding perpetrators accountable, vindicating the dignity of victims-survivors and contributing to reconciliation.

Dealing with the legacy of the past is subject to transitional justice, a concept which has gained in popularity since it was fi rst coined in the 1990s and which refers to ways and means of providing justice for past abuses in times of transition from violence to, at its most basic, peaceful coexistence. Conventionally, it incorporates a number of mechanisms such as truth commissions, tribunals, lustrations, reparations and more recently also memory work – including memorials – in order to deal with past injustices. It is based on

1 Ziviler Friedensdienst, ‘Eine Reise in die Erinnerung’, (2001) www.ziviler-friedensdienst.org/de/node/318 (accessed 2 August 2013).


2 Intersentia

the assumption that any form of transition from violence to peaceful coexistence requires the disclosure of past events and the establishment of some form of justice for the victims in particular and the society in general.

Over the past decades, transitional justice has grown from the concern of a few human rights activists to a global norm, as for instance refl ected in the increasing importance attributed to criminal prosecution, culminating in the establishment of the International Criminal Court in 2002. Moreover, many peace accords signed in recent years entail a provision for the prosecution of the most heinous crimes and/or a truth commission. Within these settings, commemorating (specifi c kinds of) violence has become almost a refl ex, or at least an indispensible part of the regime governing political transitions.

Despite this general reliance on memorialisation within transitional justice, practitioners as well as scholars oft en share a rather sceptical outlook on the allegedly benefi cial impact of such interventions: ranging from fears that an open display of contested memories reignites dormant animosities to the defeatist beliefs that symbolic politics of far-away state institutions make little diff erence in war-torn communities. Overall, a comprehensive answer to this complex problem is amiss and, we believe, will remain so unless analysis aims at a more nuanced understanding of the complex ways in which memorials are employed by and function within transitional society. With this volume, we seek to make a contribution towards closing this research gap.

So what are the general roles of memorials in transitions to justice? Who uses (and opposes) memorials to which ends? How – and what – do they communicate to the constituencies aff ected both explicitly and implicitly? What architectural language do they employ? What ethical and political claims inform the global rush towards memorials of mass violence? Questions such as these have long been pursued within the growing fi eld of memory studies and provide valuable insights for researchers of transitional justice whose interests mostly focus on using memorials as a policy instrument in transitional societies. Th e goal of this volume is therefore to situate the analysis of transitional justice within memory studies’ broader critical understanding of the socio-political, aesthetic and ethical concerns which inform these memorial projects. Moreover, despite the overwhelming interest in social memory and memory politics, inquiries into how memorials are used in societies that try to come to terms with violence are so far reduced to case studies on either the aesthetic or the political aspects of memorials, i.e. either form or function. Th e objective of our volume is to combine the two by providing a transnational selection of single case-studies that emphasise the global dimension of memory culture while couching it in current debates in the fi eld of transitional justice. To this end in the following we shall fi rst outline our understanding of social memory and memoralisation to

Memorials in Times of Transition

Intersentia 3

then link it to the concept and practice of transitional justice. Th is shall be done without exploring the notion of transitional justice in greater detail since this is subject to the chapters of Ereshee Naidu and Judy Barsalou in this volume. Our analysis is then expanded by a detailed overview of the historical development of the aesthetic form of memorials and how this is intended to communicate meaning to onlookers. We close our introduction with a brief overview of the structure and the chapters of this volume.

Before proceeding a caveat is required, though. While the general aim of our volume is to explore the multiple ways in which memorials work in the context of transitional societies, this volume does not provide a comprehensive answer to the question if memorialisation serve as a useful policy instrument to advance transitional justice. In other words, it is not our intention to off er representative, ‘hard’ data about the eff ects of such installations on the communities concerned or lessons learnt for practitioners. Th is kind of research is yet missing – last but not least because of the various conceptual and methodological challenges by which such a project is accompanied. Our volume, by contrast, considers itself to be an indispensable stage which has to proceed any impact-oriented research project. Subsequently, the chapters pursue a qualitative, interpretative approach to either explore the fundamental characteristics of memorials, including inter alia the politics surrounding their creation, their usage by various stakeholders, as well as the aesthetic and performative tenets underlying memorial work. To this end, most chapters are based on substantial fi eld research using a variety of methodologies including ethnography, participatory observation and the spatial analysis of sites.

1. SOCIAL MEMORY, MEMORIALS AND MEANING

It is not our intention in this introduction to rehearse the central arguments of memory and cultural studies regarding the notion of social memory. Nevertheless, with view to the overarching theme of this volume – transitions from violence – we would like to introduce some underlying tenets of our approach. A focused introduction of particular but crucial insights from memory and cultural studies seems necessary in order to fl esh out conceptual continuities and linkages between this volume’s heterogeneous case studies and approaches. More importantly even, there seems to be a disciplinary disconnect between transitional justice research and the vast body of literature that has been produced over the last two decades with regard to social memory and memorials in general. It is one of our key concerns to harness the insights of each fi eld for the other.

One of the cornerstones of memory studies is to sever the conceptual ties that equate our understanding of the past with a positivistic notion of ‘history’. Instead, the past as ‘memory’, in its collective and individual dimensions, is only


4 Intersentia

made available and rendered meaningful through social mediation, i.e. individual memory, too, is a product of social interaction and collective symbolic framing.2 All chapters in this volume refl ect this concern by directly focusing on or at least taking into account the social processes that shape the formation of memory. Furthermore, since all injustices addressed in this book have been committed against groups the articles focus on how these groups, and not the individual members who comprise them, deal with the legacy.

Fixation and storage of memories through memorials become the basis for disseminating and/or accessing these memories. Outsiders can learn about particular narratives and their communities, while members of the community can reassert their memories and crucial memories can be handed down beyond the generational divide. Furthermore, as a public physical site and collective fi xation, the memorial provides a visual that condenses a complex narrative into simple symbol which can then be reused in various contexts.

At the same time, the attempt to fi xate memory within the public discourse always entails pathways for contestation and change, as Kris Brown points out in this volume with regard to the malleability of memorial language. In fact, the assertion that memory is per se socially – and one might subsequently add historically – contingent necessarily entails that memory is never a one-to-one static replica of the past but simply a representation subjected to constant fl ux and change, i.e. to interpretation and re-interpretation. All articles throughout this volume are therefore concerned with how memorials refl ect that the object of commemoration, its interpretation and the way it is remembered are always fl uid and cannot be fi xed. Moreover, the events that are being discussed in this volume illustrate vividly that various collectives not only diff er widely regarding this interpretation but that the contestations over memory oft en take on fi erce, at times violent form.

Th is implies that the past cannot be separated from the present and the future. As stated above, the past is continuingly reinterpreted and only made available through the present. At the same time, narratives of the past serve as templates for making sense of the present and hence as guidelines for social interaction, and they also implicitly or explicitly convey a vision of the future to which a group aspires. On a basic level, this relation is commonsensical since social memory is a form of learning by which society justifi es and rationalises its values and structures. Human beings commemorate particular narratives of the past in order to derive a model for interaction and to ensure order within and belonging to a specifi c group.3 Th e future-driven dynamics of social memory and the

2 M. Sturken, Tangled Memories: Th e Vietnam War, the AIDS Epidemic, and the Politics of Remembering, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1997.

3 H. Welzer, Das soziale Gedächtnis. Geschichte, Erinnerung, Tradierung, HIS Verlag, Hamburg, 2001.


Intersentia 5

potentially positive eff ects of memorials on various constituencies are, of course, the reason why memorialisation is being discussed within the framework of transitional justice in the fi rst place. Considering the past through memorials in processes of transition requires not simply looking back but also looking forward towards the future for it is here were change is anticipated.4 Th e performative function of memorials thus actualises the linkage between past and future. Th e articles in this volume refl ect this conceptual concern not only by discussing how the past is reinterpreted through the present and how diff erent memories pertain to diverging hopes for the future. Rather, some contributions also dissect how memorialisation produces diff erent temporalities, i.e. the cultural making of time itself, such as ‘closure’, sequencing and so forth.

On a general level, memorials must be considered as one among other means for storing and fi xating information. As the oft en quoted anecdote of Simonides of Keos shows, pinning information to a particular site is a useful and long known mnemonic device that helps memory on an individual and societal level. Even though localisation is an important aspect of storing, it is not only the site’s specifi city that helps storage, but the memorial furthermore provides a material container or medium that is crucial for storing or accessing. Similar to books, paintings and other well-known mnemonic media, the materiality of the memorial itself, i.e. its engravings, plaques and frescos, promise to guarantee the permanent and unalterable transmission of a particular memory and is thus be given particular attention in this volume.5

Although memorials of violence and beyond present an attempt to fi xate an otherwise fl uid and elusive strain of memory, they can neither guarantee the continuity and supremacy of a particular narrative nor can they prevent the event from being subjected to reinterpretations, leading to competing narratives about victims or victors. As a socially contingent, meaning in general – and memory in particular – cannot be conceptualised without its discursive fi elds, without social practice and interaction. Th is becomes of crucial importance

4 Y. Gutman, A. Brown and A. Sodaro, ‘Introduction’, in Y. Gutman, A. Brown and A. Sodaro (eds.), Memory and the Future. Transnational Politics, Ethics and Society, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2010, 1–14, at 5.

5 Th e emergence of the internet and digital storage has triggered a critical re-examination of how collective memory works. Quasi-infi nite reproductions and unlimited storage have fuelled the idea among doomsayers that today’s digital memory heralds the end of conventional collective memory (bonds). However, recent scholarship on digital memory insinuates that although the changes brought forth by the digital revolution are in fact far-reaching, they build on and incorporate older memory techniques and practices (J. Garde-Hansen, A. Hoskins and A. Reading (eds.), Save As… Digital Memories, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2009). In addition, the digital world has not led to a decrease in memorial sites. On the contrary, the proliferation of the internet has been accompanied by a world-wide memory boom – although whether this is a mere co-concurrence or whether there exists a causality in-between these phenomena needs to be explored.


6 Intersentia

when discussing memorial sites that provide a platform for such practices and interactions. In fact, the provision of physical sites where people can meet, speak out, commemorate and so forth is not an addendum to the logics of memorials but constitutive to their existence.6 Memorial meaning, therefore, is not a ‘thing’ that is handed over to the viewer of the memorial. Memorials are “eff ective less because they communicate meaning (though this is also important) than because, through performance, meanings are formulated in a social rather than cognitive space.”7 Onlookers are not so much informed as ‘knowers’ as they are engaged in an interactional creation of a reality or truth about past injustices. Hence, memorials have a performative function through which collective identities and social relations are being produced. Th ey stimulate a discourse which shapes how the onlookers understand themselves as well as the atrocities portrayed. Most chapters in this volume thus suggest that the erection of a memorial has an eff ect on the people concerned, be they victims, perpetrators, bystanders, or simply tourists. Th ey consider memory not simply as being susceptive to change but as being an agent of change in and of itself.8

Hence, communal fi xing of memories that pertain to the group as such is intended to serve as a means for constructing a common identity. Th e stories that are (re)told by the monument constitute an anchor for social cohesion and belonging. Th is can also be achieved through, for example, reproducing particular memories in everyday conversations, festive rituals and so forth. What makes the memorial particularly salient is that it presents a physical site where these interactions can take place. In simple terms, this means that memorials are meant to be visited. On a grander scale, they oft en become the site for highly regularised commemorative services, spontaneous demonstrations and so forth. As such the memorial – even if not sacred per se – usually stands outside the realm of the common. Everyday practices also occur in these sites and to a degree shape the meaning of the place, e.g. street-paddlers living in a Peace Park and newly-weds taking their picture in front of a war memorial. However, the memories that stand at the centre of these sites are perceived and presented as beyond the everyday. Th ey thereby gain an extraordinary quality that marks their importance as a defi ning moment of a group identity. In the case of memorials to violence, both their usage and symbolism is highly related to that of graveyards and burial grounds where death receives its space outside normality.

6 J. Winter, Sites of Memory, Sites of Mourning: Th e Great War in European Cultural History, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995.

7 N. Argenti, ‘Ephemeral Monuments, Memory and Royal Sempiternity in a Grassfi eld Kingdom’, in A. Forty and S. Kuchler (eds.), Th e Art of Forgetting, Berg Publisher, Oxford, 2001, 21–52, at 23.

8 A. Assmann and L. Shortt, ‘Memory and Political Change: Introduction’, in A. Assmann and L. Shortt (eds.), Memory and Political Change, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2012, 1–16.


Intersentia 7

Th is likeliness reveals the strong authoritative stand-point from which the memorial qua memorial presents particular narratives of the past to the public, it refl ects that a memorial presents the attempt to situate memories at particular powerful and prominent places within societal discourse. Th is attempt may foster existing mnemonic discourse, introduce new side-stories or present a radical thrust against the pervasive memory hegemony. Whereas memory studies in most parts explore the workings of social memory on a more general level, there has also been a long debate in regard to memories of violence. Scholarship mostly on Holocaust survivors and memories of the Shoah has become the starting point for exploring this particular troubled form of commemoration. Th e chapters of this volume refl ect a wide range of such memories, including genocides, political motivated torture, disappearances, and imprisonment. Th e events themselves vary greatly in terms of numbers of those killed and injured, of the scale and kind of violence and so forth. As Judy Barsalou rightfully points out in her chapter, the kinds of violence infl uence later commemorative initiatives, their content and form. In order to explore the intricate relationship between memorialisation and transitional settings, it seemed, however, imprudent to use a narrowly defi ned type of violence as the basis for inquiry. Th e heterogeneity of confl icts throughout this volume rather helps us to understand the various aspects and factors that come into play within the transitional justice setting.

2. MEMORIALISATION, MEMORIALS AND TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE

Memorialisation and transitional justice are closely connected. Dealing with past injustices always requires some kind of ‘return’ to them, be it via the notion of truth-telling, the collection of testimonies, or the establishment of historical evidence in the context of a court room. Moreover, from a normative perspective, a “new, future-oriented paradigm of commemoration that seeks to use knowledge of the past – especially its trauma and violence – to create a better present and future” is emerging.9 Even though the connections between transitional justice and memorialisation have been articulated more clearly recently, the link to memorials has yet to be strengthened.10

9 L. Bickford and A. Sodaro, ‘Remembering Yesterday to Protect Tomorrow: How the Current Paradigm of Memorialization Relies on Assumptions about the Relationship between Past and Future’, in Y. Gutman, A. Brown and A. Sodaro (eds.), Memory and the Future. Transnational Politics, Ethics and Society, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2010, 66–88, at 67.

10 For the present state of the art see Bickford and Sodaro, supra note 9; E. Naidu, ‘Th e Ties that Bind: Strengthening the Link between Memorialisation and Transitional Justice’, (2006) TJP Research Brief, Th e Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, www.csvr.org.za/


8 Intersentia

One point of connection of memorials and transitional justice relates to their increasing emphasis on victims. Regarding memorials, the current interest, frequently referred to as “memory boom”, dates back to the 1970s and 1980s when with reference to World War II and the Holocaust commemoration gained signifi cance.11 Ever since, Daniel Levy suggests, there has been a memory imperative which “marshals a set of political and normative expectations for the handling of past injustices”.12 Th is included a change in focus regarding what, and who, should be remembered. While earlier (war) memorials gave testimony to a nation’s invincibility and the heroic acts of fallen soldiers a growing consensus emerged that “memory was moral in character, and that the chief carriers of that message were the victims”13 – here understood not as combatants who died on the battle fi elds but as civilians. As a consequence, a new group of people aff ected by violence emerged: witnesses, most of them also victims and survivors. Th is is for instance expressed in the relatively new emphasis on naming individual civilian victims on memorial sites such as in Srebrenica or at Villa Grimaldi, Santiago de Chile.14 Th rough this shift , moreover, the dichotomy of victims and perpetrators has been displaced and extended by a third epistemological vantage point represented by the bystander and visitors (e.g. tourists) to the site.15

Th is development regarding victims in memorialisation processes occurred parallel to the emergence of the fi eld of transitional justice. Here, too, the legacy of World War II led to fi rst initiatives, most notably the Nuremberg Trials from 1945 to 1949, followed by the fi rst truth commissions in response to dictatorship and repression in Latin American in the 1980s and later in Sub-Sahara Africa, Asia, Europe, and now also the Arab World. In these contexts, too, there is a shift from focusing on perpetrators and the re-establishment of order, as oft en the case in the context of tribunals, to victims, as for instance expressed in the recently released Basic Principles and

docs/livingmemory/tiesthatbind.pdf (accessed on 2 August 2013); B. Hamber, L. Sevcenko and E. Naidu, ‘Utopian Dreams or Practical Possibilities? Th e Challenges of Evaluating the Impact of Memorialization in Societies in Transition’ (2010) 4 3 International Journal of Transitional Justice, 397–420; J.M. Barsalou and V. Baxter, Th e Urge to Remember: Th e Role of Memorials in Social Reconstruction and Transitional Justice, United States Institute of Peace, Washington DC, 2007.

11 J. Winter, ‘Notes on the Memory Boom: War, Remembrance and the Uses of the Past’, in D. Bell (ed.) Memory, Trauma and World Politics: Refl ections on the Relationship Between Past and Present, Palgrave, Basingstoke, 2006, 54–73, at 61.

12 D. Levy, ‘Changing Temporalities and the Internationalization of Memory Culture’, in Y. Gutman, A. Brown and A. Sodaro (eds.), Memory and the Future. Transnational Politics, Ethics and Society, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2010, at 18.

13 Winter 2006, supra note 11, at 62.14 Bickford and Sodaro, supra note 9, at 73; see also the respective case studies in this volume.15 Levy, supra note 12, at 18.


Intersentia 9

Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law (2005).16 In many transitional justice initiatives there is thus an increasingly strong emphasis on the needs and concerns of victims, defi ning them as one of the main target groups of the process.17 Th is is also expressed by an increasing occupation with memorialisation by means of memorials as a mechanism in the transitional justice ‘tool-kit’, supplementing truth commissions, tribunals, lustration processes and the like18 where it is mostly couched under the rubric of symbolic reparations to victims of injustices.19 As the cases in the following chapters and beyond indicate, it is increasingly called for in recommendations of truth commissions, by victims’ organisations or by transitional justice entrepreneurs such as international think-tanks and consultants.

Th e contributions to this volume point to a highly diverse and at times ambivalent nexus between memorialisation, memorials and transitional justice by discussing cross-cutting themes such as their potentials and challenges regarding their social and political eff ects as well as the extent to which design and form of memorials are conditioned by the type of confl ict (see Chapters 1 and 2 in particular). Th is macro perspective is complemented by single case studies – all based on substantial fi eld research – which draw out the nuances of this nexus with view to their intended role and performative function as well as the aesthetic representation of memorials in times of transition. Couched in particular social and political settings they off er a number of insights that are of wider relevance regarding the role of memorials, including – but not limited to – vindicating the dignity of victims; stimulating open debates amongst past injustices; contributing to confl ict transformation; strengthening resistance against the dominating narrative about the past and/or forgetting thereof; aiding in building a new and cohesive nation on the ruins of the past; and providing a place for private refl ection and mourning. Th e following shall consider each aspect in more detail.

16 UN DOC., A/RES/60/147, (2006) www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4721cb942.html (accessed on 2 August 2013); see also the chapter of Naidu in this volume.

17 For an overview see T. Bonacker, ‘Globale Opferschaft : Zum Charisma des Opfers in Transitional Justice-Prozessen’ (2012) 19 1 Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen 5–36.

18 Bickford and Sodaro, supra note 9, at 69.19 See also E. Naidu, ‘Symbolic Reparations. A Fractured Opportunity’, (2004) CSRV Research

Brief, www.csvr.org.za/docs/livingmemory/symbolicreparations.pdf (accessed on 2 August 2013).


10 Intersentia

Picture 1. Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Berlin/Germany (picture taken by S. Schäfer)

First, as mentioned above, memorials are oft en referred to as symbolic reparations to the victims of injustice in order to give them back their dignity (if this is ever possible) and to make them realise that they are respected and legitimate members of society. Oft en, albeit not always, it is assumed that memorials as symbolic reparations serve as a gesture towards the victims, in particular if erected by the perpetrators of the violence or in case of state-led violence by the succeeding regime. Th is is based on the assumption that memorials to past injustices constitute a ‘civil ritual of recognition’20 for the suff ering of victims and as such may serve as a fi rst step in the rapprochement – if not to say reconciliation – between the oppressed and the oppressor. In particular, in cases where violence was addressed against a group on the basis of a feature of their collective identity – such as faith, origin, sexual orientation, status, to name but a few – public recognition of suff ering has the potential to highlight that part of their collective identity that was subject to the attacks, singling it out as something to be valued and appreciated. Many memorials thus carry the name of the group that was persecuted, such as Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (Picture 1) or the

20 S. Feuchtwang, ‘Memorials to Injustice’, in D. Bell (ed.), Memory, Trauma and World Politics: Refl ections on the Relationship Between Past and Present, Palgrave, Basingstoke, 2006, 176–194.


Intersentia 11

Memorial to the Homosexuals Persecuted under National Socialist Regime in Berlin.21 Th at these forms of symbolic reparations are fi rmly situated within the interest and strategies of the various actors is for instance apparent in the conception of the memorial to commemorate the Srebrenica massacres, as elaborated in Chapter 7 by Christian Braun.

Regarding memorials as sites for stimulating open debates, second, it is oft en hoped that memorials will not only encourage remembering injustices endured by victims but also to think critically about how the abuses came about and what forces within one’s own society allowed (and continue to allow) for discrimination, oppression and hatred to fester.22 In this sense, memorials serve as a site for refl ection as well as open discussions about the future (the transition) of the country. Th ey can become ‘sites of conscience’, i.e. sites of civic engagement where new ties amongst the various constituents of a society are being forged:

Sites of Conscience share the goal of “Never Again”: of preventing past abuses from recurring. Th ey also recognize that simply creating a public memorial to that past abuse in no way guarantees that it will not reoccur. Instead they work from the premise that the best bulwark against human rights abuse is an active, engaged citizenry with the awareness, freedom, and inspiration to stop abuse before it starts.23

As illustrated in the chapters of Naidu and Barsalou, this may be a very important driver in a society in transition.

In a similar vein, third, from the perspective of confl ict transformation it is hoped that developing and erecting a memorial by involving all parties to the confl ict creates an atmosphere of mutual understanding and respect, contributing to an improvement of the relation between the parties to the confl ict. Here, then, memorials are designed to narrate the past in a way which allows for a particular future to be envisaged, a future which entails an element of transformation away from the structures which led to the violence to a socio-

21 Th ese two monuments, only a stone-throw apart from each other, also serve as an example for the importance of the social and political opportunity structures of the persons or institutions initiating the memorial. While the erection of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews (inaugurated 2005) was led by politicians, experts and lobby groups with great public support the Memorial to the Homosexuals (inaugurated 2008) – victims of the same regime – was met with much controversy by large parts of the public in this sense delivering only little public recognition of the crimes committed against gay men and women during National Socialism. For a discussion of diff erent opportunity structures see A. von Wahl, ‘How Sexuality Changes Agency: Gay Men, Jews, and Transitional Justice’, in S. Buckley-Zistel and R. Stanley (eds.), Gender in Transitional Justice, Palgrave, Basingstoke, 2012, 191–222.

22 S. Brett, L. Sevcenko, M. Rio and L. Bickford, Memorialization and Democracy: State Policy and Civic Action, International Center for Transitional Justice, New York, 2007.

23 Ibid., at 7.


12 Intersentia

political context that is more just and fair. Th is ties in with eff orts to create a more inclusive identity in lieu of division.

In this sense, fourth, (re-)building a nation aft er the rupture of violence is frequently a vital intention behind constructing memorials. Th e political function of memorials on the national level thus includes practices bound up with rituals of national identifi cation and forms a key element in the symbolic repertoire available to the nation-state for binding its citizens into a collective national identity.24 And yet, that the way the past is envisaged and the future anticipated is open to manipulation and abuses goes without saying. In the case of Ukraine, as Tatiana Zhurzhenko argues in this volume, it may lead to interpreting the past in a particular way – here a famine as genocide – in order to create some distance from old ties with its powerful neighbour Russia. Elizabeth Strakosch’s discussion in Chapter 5 mirrors this tendency when she discusses Australian memorials which seek to frame the past of the country through the lens of settlers, excluding the indigenous population which they conquered. Th is politicisation of the past, its use in power struggles, is less focused on the victims of injustice than on the nation as a whole which should be (re-)build into a certain shape.

So far the potentials of memorials to enhance transitional justice processes have been rather positive, relying on all parties working together towards a greater good: some form of justice and the prevention of the reoccurrence of violence. What, however, if the grievances of victims are not publicly recognised but ignored or suppressed? What if a meta-narrative about the past dominates the public discourse to the exclusion of alternative accounts? Th en, fi ft h, memorials may be erected as means of resistance by publicly displaying alternative accounts. Th ey may act as signposts for an interpretation of the past which runs counter the dominant discourse. As illustrated by Katrien Klep and Elizabeth Strakosch in this volume this oft en requires much strength and stamina by lobbying groups and associations. Nevertheless, these counter-memorials are important testimonies in the memoryscape since they highlight the danger of uniform interpretations more generally. For victims, they become moments of assertion of their rights – of which they were deprived in the past – giving them back at least some form of agency. For many, having their voices heard may be an important element of justice in the phase of transition.

Th ese aspects all point to the social and political meaning of memorials. Th ey bear, however, the risk of essentialising memorials as political artefacts construed to transform collective identities, societies or nations. Th ey obstruct,

24 T.G. Ashplant, G. Dawson and M. Roper (eds.), Th e Politics of War Memory and Commemoration, Routledge, London, 2000, at 7.


Intersentia 13

as Winter has pointed out,25 that memorials also serve the very private purpose of individual and collective mourning, as central to the chapter of Viebach in this volume. Beyond politics, populism and aesthetics they serve as refuges for individuals and groups who seek to be close to their loved ones. It is here where memorials resemble cemeteries, that is sites of personal refl ection and of care for those lost. For instance, as illustrated by Viebach, cleaning bones of genocide victims displayed in a memorial may become a signifi cant undertaking for those who survived violence, such as the Rwandan genocide.

Th e picture of memorials in the context of transitional justice painted so far is rather positive, emphasising hopes and aspirations of people concerned with establishing sites of remembrance, be they victims, politicians, NGOs or transitional justice entrepreneurs. However, as highlighted in Naidu’s chapter and subject to many others in this volume, memorials are a mixed blessing. Th e past they seek to refer to, the meaning they seek to establish and the social change they seek to introduce are not beyond contestation and frequently give rise to struggles over the right interpretation of the past. It has thus been argued that “[c]ommemoration silences the contrary interpretations of the past.”26 It introduces a sense of closure which does not allow for re-interpreting an event. Here, the initiators of the memorial claim a sense of ownership, and authority, over more plural interpretations of the past, as refl ected in the chapter by Susanne Buckley-Zistel in this volume.

Memorials are therefore oft en sites of contestation. In particular, if a memorial mainly portrays the view of one side – albeit for understandable reasons such as the suppression of knowledge about injustices in the past as illustrated by Katrien Klep in this volume – discord in the society may follow suit. Th is may manifest itself, as illustrated by Christian Braun with reference to James Young, at three interrelated stages: the memorials “literal conceiving and construction; its fi nished form as public memorial; and its life in the mind of its community and people over time.”27 As Braun shows, each moment is highly political and politicised, potentially leading to disagreement and discord, rather than rapprochement and reconciliation, amongst the parties to the confl ict. Here, then, memorials may have a negative eff ect on the transition from violence to peaceful coexistence, producing and re-producing enmity amongst the parties to the confl ict.

25 Winter 1995, supra note 6.26 D. Middleton and D. Edwards, ‘Introduction’, in D. Middleton and D. Edwards (eds.),

Collective Remembering, Sage, London, Newbury Park & New Delhi, 1990, 1–23, at 8.27 J.E. Young, ‘Aft er the Holocaust: Natural Attitudes to Jews: Th e Texture of Memory:

Holocaust Memorials and Meanings’, (1989) 4 1 Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 63–76, at 67.


14 Intersentia

On a more general note, an important caveat is the cultural placement of memorials. Many post-confl ict societies have a strong presence of bilateral and multilateral donors who rank transitional justice high on their peace-building agenda. Th e global diff usion of the norm has led to the fact that many donors push for the establishment of some kind of mechanisms for dealing with the past aft er the end of violence, increasingly including memorials. However, it is important to recognise that the use and style of memorials is not beyond cultural contestation. Remembrance, if not an obsession with history and the past, is deeply rooted in modern, Western thought and may not be suitable elsewhere, or at least anywhere. In fact, many cultures have no tradition of erecting and visiting sites of remembrance and commemoration. What, then, are we to make of eff orts to encourage the construction of memorials in post-confl ict countries as diverse as Sierra Leone and Germany, Chile and Rwanda?

3. FORMS OF MEMORIALS IN TIMES OF TRANSITION

While this volume emphasises the analysis of the social and political intentions behind memorials in post-confl ict societies the form of this particular commemorative device, too, is an overarching crucial concern to all chapters. By form, we do not only mean the performative aspects of memorial sites as mentioned above but the form in its most literal meaning: the architecture of the memorial, its symbolic language, design components and décor as well as its staging within the respective terrain. A detailed analysis of memorial architecture is a somewhat side-stepped albeit crucial aspect of memorialisation for a number of reasons. Firstly, analysing the architectural language of memorials opens an avenue for explaining the various aesthetic, political, and ethic concepts and intentions, as well as didactic approaches underpinning contemporary memorial projects. Th is can be seen across such diverse contributions as Viebach’s chapter on displaying human remains of the Rwandan genocide or Strakosch’s investigation into the usage of contemporary abstract public art design in the case of the Reconciliation Place memorial in Canberra. Secondly, such an analysis provides the analytical framework to understanding the complexities of memorial messaging as well as their malleabilities. Much of transitional justice research and practice that is unaware of the analysis of these forms and their history risks to oversimplify memorial meaning and to disregard its historical legacy to a degree that may even underestimate the respective constituencies’ more nuanced and constantly shift ing readings of memorial work. Finally, close attention to architectural


Intersentia 15

language provides a point of reference to recognise that what at fi rst sight seems to be unrelated case studies comprises what might be called a globalised – although not all-embracing – memorial language.28

At fi rst sight, memorials to violence are extremely diverse and do not resort to one unifi ed architectural language. Th e variety of styles, purposes, and cultural backgrounds as well as modern art’s tendency to defy any kind of canon make it diffi cult, if not impossible, to come up with categories that aptly capture the memorials at hand. Most commonly, public memorials have been described along the dichotomy of traditional versus modern monuments. And yet, this opposition obfuscates, as Jay Winter observes, that there were many overlaps between these styles and that modern art neither was as iconoclastic nor as abstract as supposed.29 In the end, however, Winter himself frequently returns to these well-established concepts in order to draw out the various aesthetic, political, and psychological motivations informing memorial projects. Th roughout this volume, we have therefore maintained this framework while being acutely aware of and discussing its short-comings and contradictions.

‘Traditional’ memorials – Young prefers the term ‘monumental style’ albeit referring to a similar set of aesthetic, historic, political design30 – are usually made of solid materials, such as marble, granite and concrete. Th is solidness suggests that whatever is commemorated here shall be fi xed for eternity. Th e valuable material can underline the importance of the memorial message and allude to the national monumental styles. Concrete, in contrast, evokes a sense of aesthetic modern-ness that is oft en part and parcel of public art projects and enhance public attention and prestige.

Th rough fi gurative imagery, realistic engravings, allegories and plaques, the memorial message is spelt out as straightforward as possible, leaving little space for interpretive manoeuvring. Th e symbolic borrows from religious and national memorial practice by directly incorporating symbols, such as the cross and the wreath, explicitly referring to the divine and fatherland, and by building commemorative rituals into the memorial design, e.g. places for candles and guards of honour. In his analysis of commemorative culture aft er the Northern Ireland Troubles in this volume, Kristian Brown shows for example, how the pietà serves as the Catholic vernacular model on which memorials base their

28 A. Assmann, and S. Conrad (eds.), Memory in a Global Age: Discourses, Practices and Trajectories, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2010; A. Huyssen, Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests, and the Politics of Memory, Stanford University Press, Stanford, 2003; P. Williams, Memorial Museum: Th e Global Rush to Commemorate Atrocities, Berg, Oxford, 2007.

29 Winter 1995, supra note 6, at 3.30 J.E. Young, ‘Th e Counter-Monument: Memory against Itself in Germany Today’ (1992) 18 2

Critical Inquiry, 267–299.


16 Intersentia

representation of women as the loving mourners of those who died in combat. Th ereby, memorials to violence latch on to their constituencies’ well-established practices of mourning, thereby frequently honouring and legitimising the dead as sacrifi ce to a worthier cause. As the memory work is oft en highly contested and put into question, many supporters of such memorials prefer this outspoken, socially established style.

Similar to national monuments, large scale columns, obelisks and slabs are being used to call attention to the memorial. Th is gesture is underlining symmetric arrangements which feature as a prominent centrepiece, as well as by alleyways and smaller design elements that lead the visitor to the core of the memorial, such as described by Viebach in this volume. Furthermore, situating the memorial onto empty spaces enhances the visibility and impact of the memorial while at the same time providing a place for commemorative services and demonstrations. In doing so, they also create a commemorative space that is simultaneously set apart and set above the sphere of the living. Th is architecturally emphasised hierarchy produces a particular authority in which the mnemonic narrative is embedded.

Despite their obvious religious leanings and roots, the monumental style was mostly developed within 19th century nation-building as well as within the political ideologies of the 20th century. In the context of nationalism and totalitarianism, this style has been correctly interpreted as the state-sponsored, self-aggrandising affi rmation of national history and identity that oft en justifi es and glorifi es violence by the state. Th ese narratives – and their architectural style by proxy – are sometimes seen to confl ict with those memories that we discuss in this volume last but not least because nationalism and state (violence) are oft en considered reasons why these events occurred in the fi rst place. Nevertheless, memorials to violence oft en resort to this style. Th e above outline of the memorial style and its tenets easily explains why: supporters of these memorials seek public acknowledgment for mostly contested and endangered memories. Th e grand gestures of this style eff ectively stage their message and urge the viewer to accept it. In addition, the clear-cut message here promises to be less vulnerable to intentional misinterpretations as well as unintentional misreading. At the same time, mourners in times of despair resort to this style precisely because it provides a long-standing well-probed frame for situations of dealing with grief and loss.31 For supporters of the memorials, the greater problem seems to be that, unlike state-sponsored monuments and those that embrace the social master narrative, marginal or contested memorials to

31 See chapter by Brown in this volume; see also Winter 1995, supra note 6; J.E. Young, Th e Texture of Memory: Holocaust Memorials and Meaning, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1993.


Intersentia 17

violence oft en encounter diffi culties in realising their vision both in terms of scale and of a prestigious location.32

Nevertheless, memorials to violence within the second half of the 20th century have increasingly departed from these approaches. As pieces of public art, they have internalised contemporary artistic discourses and have therefore – like other memorials for that matter – become increasingly abstract. From a political perspective, this aesthetic departure within memorials to violence also represents the attempt to overcome the above mentioned complicity between conventional memorials and the ideologies underlying political and ethnic violence. Over the last decades, artists have tried to come up with a new architectural language befi tting their commemorative object, refl ecting a memory discourse that focuses increasingly on civilian casualties and takes a growingly sceptical stance towards the legitimacy of violence as such. It is the attempt to turn a traditional institution of state-glorifi cation into a tool of critical intervention. Th is ex negativo approach has led to a number of fi gures around which this style plays.

One crucial idea is that life aft er the event is fragmentary and broken. Th is refers to the painful hole that the disappearance or death of the victim left among family, friends and society. For the survivor, on the other hand, life is fragmented insofar the traumatic experience has left life unintelligible and potentially irreversibly broken. On a societal level, the idea of civilisation itself may be shattered. Stone slabs with cracks, jagged walls, broken columns and fragments of plaques and stones represent this brokenness within the memorial design. Th e notion of the lost life or community is also apparent in how memorials make wide use of emptiness, as for instance exemplifi ed in the chapter of Strakosch in this volume. Instead of a grand columns and arches, we fi nd empty spaces, open patios, voids, holes in the ground or in walls that point the viewer to what is missing. In the case of the Aschrott-fountain in Kassel, for example, a complete monument was built in its absence, i.e. as a negative in the ground.33

Furthermore, memorials have increasingly enlisted authentic objects as part of their design. Sites of death have always spurred the erection of memorials commemorating what had happened at these sites. Th e same is true for memorials of violence that are oft en placed in former detention centres, death camps and torture prisons. Examples included in this volume are the former Stasi remand prison in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, the factory remains in Potocari, Srebrenica, the various sites in Rwanda and the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Cambodia. Memorials that are being erected in other sites also frequently use authentic objects as part of their memorial design such as in the

32 See the chapter of Klep in this volume but also Young 1993, supra note 32.33 Young 1993, supra note 32.


18 Intersentia

Killing Fields again of Cambodia (Picture 2). Th e notion of authenticity has gained prominence on diff erent accounts. Firstly, authentic objects give proof in cases in which the memory remains challenged. In addition, whenever the body could not be retrieved, e.g. disappearances, mass graves, and cremation, belongings of the victim provide a substitute for the bereaved and symbolically reinstate what has been attempted to obscure completely. Th e authentic object or site is seen as a fragment of what is lost.

Picture 2. Killing Fields, Cambodia(picture taken by S. Buckley-Zistel)

A similar point is stressed by elements that underline ideas of elusiveness both with regard to the lives that are lost as well as to the ever changing nature of memory. Although memorials still are regarded as attempts to fi xate and eternalise memory, many of them are pervaded by the idea that this attempt is futile as portrayed by pools, running water, sound and movement, writable and withering surfaces, materials that change through light and interaction. Memory work has hence become increasingly preoccupied with refl ections on how memory works.

Th is self-referentiality expresses itself also through the changed relation between memorial meaning and the viewer. It would be false to simply say that these new memorials are more preoccupied with present and future, memorials have always had this impetus. What is diff erent is that the viewers are sometimes


Intersentia 19

denied an explicit meaning but it is left to them to fi gure out what the memorial can mean. Th is refl ects contemporary conceptualizations of meaning-making as well as a fundamental criticism of the hierarchical authoritative voice that many memorials present. New memorials attempt to break with the underlying clear-cut hierarchy in which the visitor to the monument is forced into the role of the reverent spectator to which the monumental message is being handed down. Th is also expresses the conviction that an eff ective change within the behaviour of people needs to involve them. On an architectural level, these ideas emerge for example through decentralising memorials. Instead of symmetry and climax that draw a spatial line between monument and visitor, memorials have become accessible. Th e visitor can enter them or interact with them, e.g. by touching and writing. Light sensors react to movements, people can wander between trees and stelas, mirrors and glass refl ect the visitor (Picture 1). Th e memorial is extended into the visitor with the hope that the people continue to remember when the memorial is gone.

Th e epitome of this ‘new’ memorial type is described by Young’s ‘counter-monument’.34 As an avant-garde movement that merges artistic and political agendas, the counter-monuments emerged in the West German 1980s against mainstream memory culture that – to put it caustically – turned the memorial into a graveyard into which (unwelcomed) memories of the Holocaust were discarded and forgotten. Based on a shared sense of the urgency to keep Holocaust memory alive, the minds behind the counter-monument searched for a new commemorative practice that highlights the necessity that the living themselves commemorate and are confronted with the implications of memory work for their present lives. As such, it presents a rather unique setting in which the perpetrator society remembers its deeds. Nevertheless, ideas such as the fear of fading memories and scepticism towards authoritative memorial messaging have resonated widely and gained global currency over the course of time.

Young’s analysis, however, covers only one aspect of current memorial culture and was in its original paper not designed as a concept that was exportable beyond the confi nes of his West German case studies. In fact, the term avant-garde itself suggests that even in Germany this type of memorial remains the exception rather than the rule. Many memorials to state and mass violence still resort to ’traditional’ architectural language. It would, however, be fatal to assume that groups that remember similar events or pursue similar goals necessarily should or do resort to the ‘counter-monument’ style. Its abstractness, its self-referentiality, its detachedness from those who suff ered the loss, and so forth oft en do not answer to the needs of the constituencies and their surroundings as the chapters in this volume show. In fact, the pain and

34 Young 1992, supra note 31.


20 Intersentia

unresolved political issues involved make more explicit, grand architectural gestures more attractive in order to establish a memory claim.

Picture 3. Wall of Names, Srebrenica/Bosnia and Herzegovina (picture taken by S. Buckley-Zistel)

Whereas these tendencies, such as ‘monumental style’, ‘counter-monument’ and so forth, help analysing the memorial language in historical context, they make also clear that there is no holistic categorisation and one-on-one scheme for analysing memorial messages. Th e context has always to be taken into account. One important example here is the maybe most prominent part of the architectural repertoire: the naming of the victims as discussed above. Most commonly, the names are listed on stone walls or stela, as can be seen on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington or in Srebrenica (Picture 3). While this practice has already been used in regard to commemorating the soldiers who were killed during World War I, over time the practice has been transferred to civilian victims and new forms of naming were developed. For example in the Hall of Names in Yad Vashem, the names are being read out aloud. Here as well as in many other places, such as the Kigali Memorial Center in Rwanda or the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum in Cambodia (Picture 4), photographs of the victims are being displayed alongside or instead of the plain names. Both devices, the name lists and the pictures, aim at personalising what otherwise would be an abstract number of those who died or disappeared. In cases in which the victims were either disfi gured or in which no body can be found, this commemorative practice seeks to regain the dead as a human being and to some


Intersentia 21

extent symbolically undo the dehumanisation by the perpetrator. In addition, memorial projects that address disputed or denied incidents of violence naming functions as a means of proving the truthfulness of the commemorated event itself. Naming as a long-standing feature of funerary memorial culture has been transplanted from a setting that affi rmed the right of the state to lead war into a new discourse on the abysses of state-led violence.

Picture 4. Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, Phnom Penh/Cambodia (picture taken by S. Buckley-Zistel)

4. STRUCTURE OF THE VOLUME

Th e volume is structured along three axes which we hold crucial for understanding the usages and eff ects of memorials within post-confl ict societies: the question of potentially positive outcomes of memorials in transitional justice, the political (ab-)use of and struggle over memorial sites, and the issue of representational concepts and spatiality in memorials. To varying degrees, these topics cut through every chapter of this volume thereby providing important linkages, points of comparison, and cohesion.

Th e fi rst part of the book asks in how far memorials can serve as a facilitator within transitional justice processes. As a starting point, Ereshnee Naidu provides an important overview of current research and its basic tenets with regard to the increasing deployment of memorialisation as part and parcel of the transitional justice tool-kit. Based on her fi eldwork in South Africa, Sierra Leone,


22 Intersentia

Liberia and Kenya, Naidu asserts that memorialisation holds many potentially unwanted and unexpected outcomes that urge us to question all too optimistic notions of memorial projects to violence. Th ese fi ndings are contrasted to some extend by Judy Barsalou who rolls out the fi eld of memorialisation from a practitioner’s perspective. In her chapter, Barsalou delineates various forms of memorial projects, identifi es key actors, agendas and outcomes, as well as draws out the connection between specifi c types of confl ict and the nature of subsequent memorial initiatives. As someone who has been working for governmental and non-governmental organisations in this fi eld, Barsalou sustains that international or outside actors play an increasingly important yet complicated role within this fi eld. As a departure from Naidu’s and Barsalou’s emphasis on the macro-societal and political dimension of memorialisation, Julia Viebach connects these as she calls them ‘outer layers’ of memorialisation to the personal ‘inner layers’, such as mourning, working through traumatic experience, and fulfi lling one’s duty to the deceased. Her in-depth analysis of post-confl ict Rwanda reasserts the necessity to understand memorialisation in its complexity that goes beyond questions of social reconciliation and peace-building.

Following these considerations of the political and social environments in which memorials to violence are situated, the second part of this volume focuses on the architectural and spatial underpinnings of memorial sites. According to Susanne Buckley-Zistel, Foucault’s notion of heterotopia provides a rich conceptual tool for analysing not only museum space as he did but more specifi cally memorial sites to violence. Based on the former East German remand prison at Hohenschönhausen, Buckley-Zistel dissects the make-up of this site and the agendas embedded therein through the prism of ‘heterotopia’ as a place that at the same time constitutes a reversal and a mirror image of hegemonic discourse. In a similar vein, Elizabeth Strakosch puts into question in how far memorial architecture has the potential to challenge hegemonic collective memory. In an attempt to develop a public art form that can lend a voice to marginalised memories and that can perpetually unsettle the public’s tendency to smooth out uncomfortable recollections, James Young’s ‘counter-monument’ has become the gold standard for artisans, scholars and public intellectuals alike. Strakosch’s analysis of the central memorial to the Aborigines in Canberra, however, shows how this form can be used to obfuscate Aborigines suff ering and to defl ect their grievances and demands. Contrary to this, the rather literal, vernacular commemorative language employed to commemorate partisan experience of the Northern Ireland troubles has the power and malleability to accommodate the multiple agendas of the respective constituencies, as Kristian Brown shows in his chapter. Th rough a detailed analysis of the gendered experience of the Troubles and the subsequent representation thereof, Brown argues that, despite prevailing male-dominated memory narratives, commemoration has the potential to accommodate very nuanced experiences, such as female experience of the Troubles. In opposition to


Intersentia 23

other authors in this volume, Brown regards the partisan nature of memorials to violence in post-confl ict societies as helpful in channelling and absorbing particular grievances that might otherwise remain unaddressed.

Having provided a multi-dimensional, critical picture of the various outcomes and eff ects of memorialisation in transitional justice, the last part of the volume explores the continuant politicisation and contestation of these projects that present an inevitable and dominant factor in shaping memorials to violence. Based on the central memorial to the Srebrenica massacre as his case study, Christian Braun shows how memorials to violence are highly contested sites. Th e various local, national, and international actors use the memorial to legitimise and articulate their specifi c political agendas thereby extending or manifesting religious and ethnic cleavages well aft er the event itself. In a similar vein, Katrien Klep explores how struggle over memorialisation gradually infl uences and shift s the large social memoryscape. On the one hand, as she notes, we have to take into account the diff erent nature and temporality of memorial project with regard to their makers, constituencies, and agendas. On the other hand, memorials must be seen within the wider fi eld of memory work, such as truth commissions and museums. In the case of post-Pinochet Chile, small-scale grassroots initiatives opened pathways for survivors to publicly address their grievances which later on led to larger state-sponsored projects. Th e last chapter in this part reads the idea of memorials in transitional justice against the grain: in her chapter, Tatiana Zhurzhenko explores how Ukrainian politics have recently developed the Holodomor into a forceful memory trope as a device for fostering nationalistic politics and independence from Russia. Within the context of this volume, the chapter is crucial in showing that ‘genocide memory’ is socially and politically constructed and that the public declaration of an event as ‘genocide’ provides an important rhetoric tool in power politics and nurturing ethno-nationalist resentment.

Th is volume was motivated by providing analyses on memorials of violence in order to close the gap between memory studies and transitional justice scholarship. In addition to stimulating academic debates we hope that merging the fi elds bears some insights for a more practical engagement with conceiving and erecting memorials in times of transitions as well. Th at this might be a lengthy and stony process goes without saying. As we draw this introduction to a close in October 2012, the Memorial to the Murdered Sinti and Roma of Europe Murdered under the National Socialist Regime (Picture 5) to remember their prosecution and annihilation during National Socialism was fi nally inaugurated in Berlin. A commemoration project which took 20 years to materialise.


24 Intersentia

Picture 5. Memorial to the Murdered Sinti and Roma of Europe Murdered under the National Socialist Regime, Berlin/Germany (picture taken by S. Schäfer)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Argenti, N. ‘Ephemeral Monuments, Memory and Royal Sempiternity in a Grassfi eld Kingdom’, in A. Forty and S. Kuchler (eds.), Th e Art of Forgetting, Berg Publisher, Oxford, 2001, 21–52.

Ashplant, T.G., Dawson, G. and Roper, M. (eds.), Th e Politics of War Memory and Commemoration, Routledge, New York & London, 2000.

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Assmann, A. and Shortt, L. ‘Memory and Political Change: Introduction’, in A. Assmann and L. Shortt (eds.), Memory and Political Change, Palgrave, Basingstoke, 2012, 1–16.

Barsalou, J.M. and Baxter, V. Th e Urge to Remember: Th e Role of Memorials in Social Reconstruction and Transitional Justice, United States Institute of Peace, Washington DC, 2007.

Bickford, L. and Sodaro, A. ‘Remembering Yesterday to Protect Tomorrow: How the Current Paradigm of Memorialization Relies on Assumptions about the Relationship between Past and Future’, in Y. Gutman, A. Brown and A. Sodaro (eds.), Memory and the Future. Transnational Politics, Ethics and Society, Palgrave, Basingstoke, 2010, 66–88.


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Bonacker, T. ‘Globale Opferschaft . Zum Charisma des Opfers in Transitional Justice-Prozessen’, (2012) 19 1 Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen 5–36.

Brett, S., Sevcenko, L., Rios, M. and Bickford, L. Memorialization and Democracy: State Policy and Civic Action, International Center for Transitional Justice, New York, 2007.

Feuchtwang, S. ‘Memorials to Injustice’, in D. Bell (ed.), Memory, Trauma and World Politics: Refl ections on the Relationship Between Past and Present, Palgrave, Basingstoke, 2006, 176–194.

Garde-Hansen, J., Hoskins, A. and Reading, A. (eds.), Save As… Digital Memories, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2009.

Gutman, Y., Brown, A. and Sodaro, A. ‘Introduction’, in Y. Gutman, A. Brown and A. Sodaro (eds.), Memory and the Future. Transnational Politics, Ethics and Society, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2010, 1–14.

Hamber, B., Sevcenko, L. and Naidu, E. ‘Utopian Dreams or Practical Possibilities? Th e Challenges of Evaluating the Impact of Memorialization in Societies in Transition’, (2010) 4 3 International Journal of Transitional Justice 397–420.

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Naidu, E. ‘Symbolic Reparations. A Fractured Opportunity’, (2004) TJP Research Brief, Th e Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, www.csvr.org.za/docs/livingmemory/symbolicreparations.pdf (accessed on 2 August 2013).

Naidu, E. ‘Th e Ties that Bind: Strengthening the Link between Memorialisation and Transitional Justice’, (2006) TJP Research Brief, Th e Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, www.csvr.org.za/docs/livingmemory/tiesthatbind.pdf (accessed on 2 August 2013).

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Von Wahl, A. ‘How Sexuality Changes Agency: Gay Men, Jews, and Transitional Justice’, in S. Buckley-Zistel and R. Stanley (eds.), Gender in Transitional Justice, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2012, 191–222.

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Winter, J. ‘Notes on the Memory Boom: War, Remembrance and the Uses of the Past’, in D. Bell (ed.), Memory, Trauma and World Politics: Refl ections on the Relationship Between Past and Present, Palgrave, Basingstoke, 2006, 54–73.

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New!

Over the past decades, the practise of and research on transitional justice have expanded to preserving memory in the form of memorials. Memorials often employ a common architectural language and a set of political and ethical claims dictate the effect memory can or should have after large-scale violence: providing public sites of commemoration and mourning, putting past wrongs right, holding perpetrators accountable, vindicating the dignity of victims-survivors and contributing to reconciliation. Yet what are the general roles of memorials in transitions to justice? Who uses or opposes memorials, and to which ends? How – and what – do memorials communicate both explicitly and implicitly to the public? What is their architectural language? Questions such as these have long been pursued within the growing field of memory studies and provide valuable insights for researchers in transitional justice who mostly focus on the role of memorials as a mechanism to further some form of justice after the experience of violence. The goal of this volume is therefore to situate the analysis of transitional justice within memory studies’ broader critical understanding of the socio-political, aesthetic and ethical concerns underlying these memorial projects. It combines the two by providing a transnational selection of single case-studies that emphasise the global dimension of memory culture while couching it in current debates in the field of transitional justice. About the editors Susanne Buckley-Zistel is Professor for Peace and Conflict Studies at the Center for Conflict Studies, University of Marburg. She holds a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics and has held positions at King’s College, London, the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt and the Free University Berlin. Her research focuses on issues pertaining to peacebuilding, transitional justice, gender and post-structural theory. Stefanie Schäfer is a research fellow at the Irmgard Coninx Foundation and is affiliated with the Graduate School of East Asian Studies, Freie Universität Berlin. Her PhD project focuses on the formation of public Hiroshima commemoration, the historical contingency of collective memory and questions of dark tourism. She received an MA in Japanese Studies from the Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen and began her PhD at the Department of History at Cornell University.

Susanne Buckley-Zistel and Stefanie Schäfer (eds.)

Series on Transitional Justice, volume 16 March 2014 | ISBN 978-1-78068-211-2

xii + 246 pp. | hardback

69 euro | 97 US dollar | 66 GB pound Series price: 58.65 euro

82 US dollar | 56 GB pound


Table of contents Memorials in Times of Transition – Susanne Buckley-Zistel and Stefanie Schäfer I. Connecting Transitional Justice and Memorials Chapter 1. Memorialisation in Post-conflict Societies in Africa: Potentials and Challenges – Ereshnee Naidu Chapter 2. Reflecting the Fractured Past: Memorialisation, Transitional Justice and the Role of Outsiders - Judy Barsalou Chapter 3. Alétheia and the Making of the World: Inner and Outer Dimensions of Memorials in Rwanda – Julia Viebach II. Memorial Spaces and Representation Chapter 4. Detained in the Memorial Hohenschönhausen: Heterotopias, Narratives and Transitions from the Stasi Past in Germany – Susanne Buckley-Zistel Chapter 5. Stories of Beginnings and Endings: Settler Colonial Memorials in Australia – Elizabeth Strakosch Chapter 6. Manicured Nails but Shackled Hands? The Representation of Women in Northern Ireland’s Post-conflict Memory – Kristian Brown III. Contestation and Politisation of Memorials Chapter 7. The Srebrenica-Potocari Memorial: Promoting (In)Justice? – Christian Braun Chapter 8. Memorials, Memorialisation and Social Action in Santiago de Chile – Katrien Klep Chapter 9. Commemorating the Famine as Genocide: The Contested Meanings of Holodomor Memorials in Ukraine – Tatiana Zhurzhenko For the complete table of contents, please visit www.intersentia.com

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Buckley-Zistel/Schäfer: Introduction. Memorials in Times of Transition (Intersentia)

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