Counter-Memories of terror: technologies of remembering and technologies of forgetting

This paper addresses the issue of social representations of the past, focusing on the relation between collective memory and terror. Following the most recent debate within the sociology of memory (Wagner-Pacifici and Schwartz, 1991; Wagner-Pacifici, 1996; Zolberg, 1996), it is argued that cultural shapes of collective memories of terror (i.e., a memorial, a monument, a diary, a public display) are the space and the place were power relations affect the social representation of the past. In this respect, the choice of representing a controversial past, such as a massacre or a slaughter, through a specific cultural form can be viewed as a good terrain where to study the process of selecting one of the competing version of this past. This process, in fact, is very related to the category of power. Particularly in case of controversial events (such as the Bologna massacre, the Milan slaughter, but also the Vietnam war, the Hiroshima bombing), Halbwachs' and Namer's analyses on the social construction of the past become particularly evident. In those cases there is a conflict among different versions of the past, that can be analyzed only by referring to the power relations among the different social groups related to that event. If collective memory is the content, and culture is the form of this content, power is the key to understanding why a certain content embodied in a specific form has been selected in a specific context. Methodologically speaking, the notion of commemorative genre (Schwartz and Wagner-Pacifici, 1991; Wagner-Pacifici, 1996) represents an useful key to understanding the articulation of power in relation to collective memories. The genre, in fact, can be viewed as a schema of perception, able to organize the process of classifying the competing representations of the past. In fact, if the arena where one version of an historical event successfully competes with another is represented by the cultural and symbolic field, the criteria of this competition are determined by the established genre of memorization. In this perspective, the past is viewed as a very conflictual terrain, as the place and space for “institutional work”. Following the original works by Maurice Halbwachs (1925; 1968), in the last two decades the sociology of memory has developed systematically (Shils, 1981; Nora, 1984; Connerton, 1989; Middleton, Edwards, 1990; Schwartz, 1990; Namer, 1991; Assmann,1992; Schudson, 1993; Müller, Rüsen, 1997). Most of the literature dealing with collective memories attempts to address the question of the socially constructed nature of the past directly, by examining the social processes that literally affect and shape a certain representation of the past, and considers the implications of its social nature as a strategy for understanding how contrasting versions of a certain event, sustained by different social groups, compete within the public arena. Social scientists have elaborated several definitions to investigate how societies remember and forget. The past has been defined as «a foreign country» (Lowenthal, 1985), as «persistant» (Rusconi, 1987); the future has been conceived as «Vergangene Zukunft» (Koselleck, 1979), the tradition has been considered as «invented» (Hobsbawn, Ranger, 1983), the memories as «contested» (Zolberg, 1996). Even in the variety of these theoretical perspectives, there are some features common to these definitions: within the sociological literature on this topic, collective memory can be viewed as a general category of knowledge. Following the tracks of the pioneering studies by Maurice Halbwachs (1925; 1968), the past is conceived as a social construction shaped by the concerns of the present. It is not something given once for ever, but instead can be viewed as a work in progress constantly shaped by institutional and individual conditions. But if the past is a social construction, the following problem is to what extent. In other terms, are there some constraints to the social production of collective memories? If not, one could not be able to explain the deceit, the unreality, and disremembering. In fact, neither all memories are allowed, nor all different constructions are possible. The range of different possibilities in the reconstruction of the past is determined by the competing versions of the past. Many recent studies in the sociology of memory document how negotiation and competition among different social groups, actors, and institutions represent a crucial key to understanding the making of collective memories (e.g. Schwartz, 1990; Wagner-Pacifici, Schwartz, 1991; Schudson, 1993; Zolberg, 1996; Foot, 2001; Tota, 2001a). In this process the limits are established by the competition among conflicting and contrasting representations of the same event. Within the literature on social memory a major strain has been represented by the cultural perspective. A way to investigate this kind of topic, in fact, is based on the analysis of particular cultural symbols and their relation to the exercise of power. In this respect, the main aim is to understand how cultural meanings are produced, how an external object (such as a memorial, or a museum) can deeply interfere and intervene in the reconstruction of a certain past. Collective memories are conceived in the relation between form and content. In this perspective, the meaning of the past «emerges and is sustained through the dynamic interaction between the content of historical events and the forms of collective memory available to those intent on their preservation and public inscription.» (Wagner-Pacifici, 1996: 301). Studies concerned with remembering at the cultural level generally focus on documenting the extent of cultural symbols in shaping the content and the meaning of an historical event. If collective memory is «a set of social representations concerning the past which each group produces, institutionalizes, guards and transmits through the interaction of its members» (Jedlowski, 2001: 33), the main question to address has to do with the kind of narratives adopted. As mentioned, by dealing with the relationship between facts and remembrance, in the last decade greater attention has been accorded to the relationship between form and content: once the role of artifacts in remembering has been recognized, the next step has been to focus on the problem of how objects may shape the content of memories. Following this perspective, it has been elaborated the notion of «technologies of memory» (Tota, 1999; 2001a), which identifies artifacts “as potentials for remembering past times” with a kind of code, able to shape the content of collective memory. By dealing with memories of terror, a very question emerges immediately: there is a partial absence in the literature which has to do with the lack of consideration given to the content of memory itself. What it is argued here is that by dealing with the consequences either of a slaughter or an earthquake, one has to assume that the ways in which individual, collective and social memory function may differ a lot. If this seems a very reasonable hypothesis for the process of remembering, this is even more apt to the case of oblivion. The recent debate on forgetting has documented its socially constructed nature (Shotter, 1990; Engeström et al. 1990), Mary Douglas’s work has focused on «socially instigated amnesia», a recent research on the Bologna massacre in Italy has documented the «homelessness of certain memories» (Tota, 2001b), referring to the lack of any cultural form available for the public inscription of a certain past. How do these processes function in the case of a terroristic slaughter and how in the case of a war, such as Vietnam? How can the distinction between individual and collective memories be applied to the case of terror? Many researches documented that the victims of terrorism very often prefer to forget. What on the collective dimension appears as a positive value – that of remembering, may appear as a negative one, if considered from the individual point of view. How can one described this dynamic tension between collective and individual memory? Which can be its consequences in terms of social or «cultural memory», referring to Assmann’s notion? How do victims deal with terror as discontinuity in their life and how terror construct the social identity of victims? How do commemoration function in these specific cases? And how commemorative sites of terror are firstly designed and then used by common people? Which is the role of religious and political symbols? How do communities of memory shape the remembering of terror? These are some of the questions which this paper tries to address. Another very important point has to do with the relation between terror and public discourse, and by considering it, a very question has to do with how the mass media frame the collective remembering of terror.