When an event is commemorated emotional and rational dimensions both come into play. Commemoration is not a singular or individual act; it is a process that develops within a community. It comes about when an “us” is able to recognise itself as a collective subject with a shared history, a series of dramatic and happy, positive and negative episodes, pride and indignation, pain and pleasure, but it also implies a level of rational and critical analysis of what happened and how it happened.
When we commemorate something there is always the danger of deception or evasion of pain, of ignoring the victims of the given context. When we commemorate and forget about those who suffered, the ritual becomes an industry of resentment, and a focus of hostility. We must stop commemoration from becoming a way to awaken absurd resentments because, as the Letter of Peace addressed to the UN says, these resentments become real obstacles to building peace.
Victims have the right to be remembered and not forgotten and when communities commemorate their history they must be honest enough to tell their own story, to publically recount the dark side of events, all the things that are not written down in the official history books about the nation’s glorious past. The act of commemoration also provides an opportunity to make public statements of regret about how things were done in the past and to move on and take on the lessons learnt for the present and future. In reality what often happens is that specific agendas influence how the story is formed, and as a result commemoration becomes a perfect selection of remembered and forgotten information, expressly sought out to have the desired effect on the masses.
The formal objective of all acts of commemoration is to remember what happened, go back in time to think about what happened, what took place and how it took place. Memories are not emotionally neutral, especially if what is being evoked is a collective memory that left a deep imprint on the biography of a group of people or nation.
The commemoration of independence is a pretext to deepen our collective essence, our national identity and the richness of intercultural contact. It is also an opportunity to think about what your community can do to contribute to a planetary agreement, to help global history to progress. It is not just about looking at the past in order to recreate it, it is about learning from the past so future generations can live in peace in a globally connected world.
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THE ART OF COMMEMORATION: A NEW OPPORTUNITY
Francesc Torralba. Doctor of PhilosophyDirector of the Universitas Albertiana Peace Institutes
CAN HISTORY BE TRANSFORMED?
Inés Palomeque.
Director of Mil Milenios de Paz
A CELEBRATION AND… A PARTY?
Alfredo Fernández. Journalist.
Letter of Peace addressed to the UN
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