Exhibition â14-18, it is our history!â
Sarah Gensburger
Research Professor in Social Sciences, French National Center for Scientific Research | Author of Beyond Memory. Can we really learn from the past ?, Palgrave, 2020 (co-written with S. Lefranc)
Following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer on 25May 2020, and the widespread uprising against institutionalised racism it triggered, June 2020 was marked all over the world by demands for changes to the way the past is remembered in the public space. These demands include pulling down statues, modifying plaques in the street, and renaming buildings. On 19 June, the European Parliament adopted a resolution to call âfor the EU institutions and the Member States to officially acknowledge past injustices and crimes against humanity committed against black people, people of colour and Roma; declare slavery a crime against humanity and call for 2 December to be designated the European Day commemorating the Abolition of the Slave Trade; encourage the Member States to make the history of black people, people of colour and Roma part of their school curricula.â In this context, the transmission of the past, whether by the implementation of a commemoration or de-commemoration (in the form of dismantling statues) are presented as a way to fight against racial discrimination and to bring about social change. These recent events are a powerful example of the memorial paradigm that has been established over the last twenty years both at the European level and internationally. It also simultaneously sheds light on the fact that the exponential development of memory policies to fight against racism and anti-Semitism have very clearly fallen short of their goal. This article sets out to explore this observation and draw lessons from it. To what extent can memory be considered a democratic value and an efficient tool to build peaceful, inclusive, and tolerant European societies?
Can memory transmit political values?
In 2014, in a large survey study entitled Memory to come, more than 31,000 young people aged between 16 and 29, citizens of 31 different countries, mostly from the European Union, were asked about their attitudes to memory and the future [1]. Ninety per cent of them declared that âknowing the history of the Second World War makes it possible to avoid the errors of the past, prevent it from happening againâ; they also agreed with the statement that knowing this history allowed them to âlearn to respect those who are different from usâ and âhelp the victimsâ. Among the respondents, 83% said they thought concentration camps sites should be preserved. The main reason given for this was the need to âavoid it happening againâ. Conversely, they rejected the proposition that âit is the past, we have to put it behind us and forgetâ. Comments by ordinary European citizens are concordant with this, whether they are collected from visitors to memorial museums or during interviews on attitudes towards the past conducted outside any interaction with memory policy tools. In other words, most Europeans agree that public reminders of past collective violence are important in order to pacify societies, to lessen the attraction of calls for discrimination, and in so doing, to guard against the risk of history repeating itself. Memory is, without any doubt, a contemporary European value.
As important as it may be, however, this fact does not tell us anything about the actual capacity of memory policies to transmit and promote values beyond that of memory.
We face a paradox here: memory became a value because of its supposed capacity to transmit democratic principles such as tolerance and inclusiveness, but we have to admit that this alleged capacity is seriously challenged today.
Indeed, after more than twenty years of active European memory policies, the advance of terrorism, populism, hate crimes and discrimination in contemporary European societies forces us to look more closely into how these memory policies work and how we can improve them. The very idea that memory policies transmit and foster democratic values must be put into perspective and assessed in the light of empirical data and social sciences studies.
14-18, câest notre Histoire ! from Tempora on Vimeo.
One of the major events of Europeâs shared history is with no doubt the First World War. Between 2014 and 2018, the Centenary of the Great War gave rise to a large number of commemorations, exhibitions and other memory initiatives. In the European Union, most of the exhibitions tried to present the event from a European perspective, insisting on the necessity of understanding the feelings and views of the former enemies who became partners in building the Union. Between 2014 and 2015, one of these exhibitions entitled â1418, it is our history!â was held in Brussels. It aimed to tell the story of the war from an everyday life perspective and to reach visitors through their emotions. The curators based themselves on the idea that, when confronted with the impact of war on victims they can identify with, visitors will reject war and conflict today and in the future. Through the exhibition, its promoters wanted to reinforce citizensâ commitment to peace and, in doing so, their adhesion to the European project. This exhibition was visited by almost 200,000 visitors.
A group of Belgian researchers specializing in social psychology and political science decided to study the impact this exhibition actually had on visitors. Visitors were asked to express their opinions on a number of issues as they entered and left the museum. In social psychology, these measures are traditionally used to quantify pacifist sentiments. The results were very clear. As they left the exhibition, the visitorsâ support for pacifism had waned and in nationalistic stereotypes had grown; most of them expressed a determination to fight the Germans. Instead of the intended focus on pacifism and European coexistence, the exhibitionâs depiction of raw emotions and the figures of victims provoked a defensive reaction and a form of desire for vengeance against the âOtherâ, here mainly the Germans. [2]
Even though empirical studies of social appropriations of memory policies like this one are still rare, the few that have been published raise important questions about how memory policies (both in Europe and beyond) might move forward [3]. It also suggests that the European Commission should order an in-depth and innovative sociological study on the social appropriations of remembrance policies and initiatives by ordinary citizens, ranging from rejection to support. If memory has become a European democratic value, it is nonetheless impossible to know for sure what kind of values and political positions it induces. For example, the existing (and again far too scarce) empirical research on historical analogies has shown that the very same memory policies can inspire opposing views of the present and incite different behaviours. The controversies on how to make sense of the current âmigration crisisâ in Europe in the light of the Holocaust may be the best example of this phenomenon. Studies have shown that it is easier to reinforce norms in groups that are already predisposed to them than to convince people who are genuinely intolerant or simply indifferent. In this way, rather than transmitting values, memory policies first of all actualize values which preexist in peopleâs minds, no matter how diverse they are. Even though it may seem paradoxical, it is important to acknowledge that an effective memory policy may have to take the risk of creating misunderstandings, and that for this reason it should not be excessively didactic.
What is more, several studies conducted in European countries such as Sweden and France have highlighted the fact that an increase in historical knowledge about the Holocaust has not produced a change in attitudes among students who consider themselves close to the extreme right. First, many of these students already have an extensive knowledge of the period they glorify. Second, encountering lessons on the past at school does little to change their convictions; in fact, memory policies and commemorations tend to reinforce their extreme opinions. [4]
Social interactions and the impact of memory
Another unavoidable and overarching observation is that before they can produce lessons of the past for the future, memory policies provoke interactions in the present. Memory is appropriated through social interactions â rejection or support, recognition or interpretation. Although they are indeed faced with the past, both the promoters and targets of memory policies must first experience things (school textbooks, exhibitions, memorials) or exchanges (between students and teachers, between state or Union representative and citizens, between NGOs and people, and so forth) that are meaningful in the moment, in the context and their social situation. Memory policies do not resolve conflicts from the past, and nor do they foretell the future behavior of their audience. Their memorial message is by nature distorted, because it is always embedded in the social relations, including the economic inequalities, symbolic dominations and power relations of any kind that give it meaning today.
There is, for example, a gap between teaching recommendations and practices. Although the âcivic dimensionâ is emphasized by teachers, as was clearly demonstrated in the Swiss case, and although in France many do use the pedagogical tools proposed by the Ministry for Education during classes dedicated to the violent past, the factual content of the curriculum often remains the core of the class. Teachers do not always follow the imperatives of this ritual of civic conversion through memory, and certainly do not do so systematically. Aside from a theoretical acceptance of the importance of the past in building todayâs society, they do not adopt the civic function ascribed to them as automatically as we might think. For example, and although we do not have a comprehensive study on this, there is reason to believe that the international day for the memory of the Holocaust and the prevention of crimes against humanity, 27 January, is often ignored by teachers [5]. This gap between expectations and practice is not due to the teachersâ lack of support for values of humanism and tolerance, but primarily to the social space of the classroom.
The classroom is indeed a space for interactions between a professional, the teacher, and students who also live in other spaces of socialization. In France, training for history teachers is primarily focused on their knowledge of their subject, rather than on pedagogy or didactics. Once, after receiving a kind of professional socialization, they reach the classroom, most teachers transmit facts, in keeping with the official curriculum rather than the commemorative calendar. In doing so they confirm that the school remains a space for knowledge. Through their professionalism, teachers effectively disappear behind their authoritative discourse, which is primarily directed at the examinations set for their pupils. Moreover, they persuade the students (and indeed the parents) that a consensual reading of history is possible [6]. Turning away from this professional habitus to construct an articulation between history and memory depends on having the time and the ability to adopt a certain pedagogical distance â something that seems unlikely given the organization and means available, at least within the French national education system.
Citizenship education is therefore not simply the transmission of a lesson in memory that consolidates the civic dispositions of students who are attentive because their knowledgeable and impassioned teacher makes good use of emotions and identification.
This more or less factual or moral content is indeed transmitted, but along with a host of other messages, some of which are reactive, intentional, and significant (political rejection, emotional support, etc.), and others which have no connection to the content, nor intention, nor even a clear meaning. The school system transmits a range of things that are not always consistent or intentional; the hidden curriculum, rules of behaviour, educational style, participation practices, the valorization of knowledge, the organization of ideas. It is also the space for the transmission of non-pedagogical learning, insults, love letters, and social skills shared in the playground. Memory transmission at schools takes on its full meaning in these moments where ânoiseâ, rules, and âmeaningless talkâ abound. These chaotic encounters can give them great strength, for example when a student who wants to fulfil the expectations of the teacher (which overlap with those of his or her family environment) identifies with an eye-witness account of history, and finds fulfilment in this role that brings together academic, civic, and moral validation. But the proliferation of background noise can also mean that the message â in spite of its clear strength â will not be heard, or will provoke hostility.
So, the importance of this socially embedded dimension of the impact and appropriations of memory policies calls for a shift in the centre of attention. It may not be effective to focus only on the contents, topics and artefacts of memory policies, as has mainly been the case until now. It is necessary to pay at least equal attention to the social situations in which transmission is meant to take place and to the identity and legitimacy of the agents of this transmission. In European societies where schools no longer give the impression of being able to promote social justice and fight economic inequalities, teachers may not be the best actors for ensuring an active and efficient transmission of memory and democratic values. I will take a last example to highlight how taking the social embeddedness of memory policies seriously may be the main challenge for European memory policies today. For a long time now, Europe has organized holiday camps or programmes that bring together adolescents from countries whose memories are conflicting, starting with France and Germany, to help them overcome hostile memories. It would be nice to believe that, in the end, whole societies could be won over to peace and tolerance by the magic of contact between presumed enemies. But, alas, the situation is more complicated.
These young people are not official representatives of their national or community groups; they are also members of social groups, possibly the recipients of their parentsâ political allegiances, and above all individuals, who take either the side of conflict or friendship in their interactions with others. What is created within the safe space of the camps and programmes is not easily transposed into a society that is deeply divided and belligerent. Friendships constructed in conditions of relative equality are threatened by the everyday experiences of inequality and differences. Sociologists have shown that the criteria for equality are not always satisfied; the equality found in a combined curriculum or the opulence of a holiday camp cannot be guaranteed when they return to their âreal lifeâ [7]. Worse still, the contact itself between different social groups could end up reinforcing logics of social distinction and detachment [8], which may occur if the teacher or another authority figure imposes a meeting between individuals belonging to unequal groups, without ensuring that these inequalities do not determine perceptions and are not expressed with contempt (a task that is by no means easy). The transmission of the violent past, in which victims and perpetrators both feature, can reinforce the assigned community identities that it is supposed to overcome.
Taking stock of memory policies today, in Europe and beyond, requires us to take seriously the complexity of the social appropriations of the past. Moreover it is important to avoid the danger of disconnecting the status of memory as a European value from its usefulness as a tool for promoting tolerance, inclusiveness, equality, emancipation. I would like to end with a final story; A few years ago, I conducted an in-depth fieldwork among visitors of an exhibition on the history of Jewish children in Paris during the Occupation. All the visitors clearly linked this memory exhibition with the promotion of values such as tolerance and fight against racism, AntiSemitism and discrimination. But at the end of the interviews I conducted with them, certain visitors expressed, of their own initiative, ethnic stereotypes that were themselves vectors of discrimination â even after stating at the beginning of the interview that their visit to the museum was to respect the duty of memory and fight against hatred and intolerance. One women interviewed as she came out of the exhibition talked at length about the fact that there were relatively few âvisitors of colourâ and âfrom immigrant backgroundsââ among the exhibition-goers, a sign for her that these groups do not fully adhere to the Republic and its principles, and that they are ânot really Frenchâ: âwe do not have the same history [âŠ] or the same valuesâ [9]. This brings us a full circle. In this example, being confronted with memory policies was no longer seen as a vector of democratic values, but as a sign that those values are shared or not. It closes the group that it is supposed to open. Memory policies indeed have their âexpertsâ and those who are ignorant but we must be careful that this distinction does not reinforce the dynamics of exclusion that these policies are supposed to combat.
Footnotes
[1] Fondation pour la mĂ©moire de la Shoah and the Fondation pour lâinnovation politique; results and discussion (in French) MĂ©moires Ă venir. EnquĂȘte internationale rĂ©alisĂ©e auprĂšs des jeunes de 16 Ă 29 ans dans 31 pays, 2014
[2] Bouchat, P., Klein, O. & Rosoux, V. (2017). Lâimpact paradoxal des commĂ©morations de la Grande Guerre. MatĂ©riaux pour lâhistoire de notre temps, 121-122, 26-31.
[3] For more examples, see Sarah Gensburger and Sandrine Lefranc, Beyond Memory. Can we really learn from the past ?, Palgrave, Memory Studies Series, 2020.
[4] Eckmann, M. & Eser Davolio, M. (2002). PĂ©dagogie de lâantiracisme: Aspects thĂ©oriques et supports pratiques. Geneva: Loisirs et PĂ©dagogie.
[5] DE COCK Laurence et HEIMBERG, Charles (2014), «La Journée de la mémoire et ses pratiques scolaires. Une évocation critique», Revue pluridisciplinaire de la Fondation pour la mémoire de la déportation, décembre, p. 119-126.
[6] TUTIAUX-GUILLON Nicole (2008) « Histoire et mĂ©moire, questions Ă lâhistoire scolaire ordinaire », dans S. Ernst, Quand les mĂ©moires dĂ©stabilisent lâĂ©cole. MĂ©moire de la Shoah et enseignement, Paris, Institut national de recherche pĂ©dagogique.
[7] Hammack, P. L. (2009). The cultural psychology of American-based coexistence programs for Israeli and Palestinian youth. In C. McGlynn, M. Zembylas, Z. Bekerman & T. Gallagher (Eds.), Peace Education in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies: Comparative Perspectives. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
[8] Oberti, M. & Preteceille, E. (2016). La ségrégation urbaine. Paris: La Découverte.
[9] Sarah Gensburger, « Visiting History, Witnessing Memory. A study of a Holocaust Exhibition in Paris in 2012 », Memory Studies, 2019, 12 (6), 630-645.