1
00:00:00,630 --> 00:00:09,990
We will move to the second panel, which is about the role of international actors in shaping the hierarchy off of memories.

2
00:00:09,990 --> 00:00:16,590
We have three wonderful speakers to talk about different case studies from different parts of the world,

3
00:00:16,590 --> 00:00:22,620
both about the role of international actors, as about the dynamics within countries and the influence of external actors.

4
00:00:22,620 --> 00:00:30,420
I will introduce two speakers one by one and before their presentations, and then they will have about 12 minutes.

5
00:00:30,420 --> 00:00:34,480
And at the end of this panel, there will be about 10 minutes for Q&A.

6
00:00:34,480 --> 00:00:39,060
So again, I encourage you to post your questions in the Q&A function.

7
00:00:39,060 --> 00:00:47,280
We will start with Professor Yassin's Aggravators, also who's a professor of international politics and history at Goldsmiths University of London.

8
00:00:47,280 --> 00:00:54,030
She's currently working on transitional justice and processes of memory construction of the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s.

9
00:00:54,030 --> 00:01:01,830
She mainly focuses on issues regarding coming at the issue of coming to terms with the past from a comparative perspective and

10
00:01:01,830 --> 00:01:08,640
especially Serbian politics of acknowledging the Serbian Genocide public debates about wartime responsibility and denial,

11
00:01:08,640 --> 00:01:13,440
and various attempts to create truth commissions and pursue this region.

12
00:01:13,440 --> 00:01:19,920
She's the author of Saviours of the Nation of Serbia's Intellectual Opposition and Revival of Nationalism from 2002,

13
00:01:19,920 --> 00:01:30,180
and a co-author and co-editor of A State Collapse in Southeastern Europe New Perspective on Yugoslavia Dissolution, which is from 2008.

14
00:01:30,180 --> 00:01:34,080
Her presentation today will be slightly conceptual,

15
00:01:34,080 --> 00:01:41,910
and it will have the title as memory and justice in the aftermath of war and mass crime, contemporary Serbia and the West German model.

16
00:01:41,910 --> 00:01:48,810
I encourage you to have a look at our website, how demonic narratives dot com, where you can also see the abstract,

17
00:01:48,810 --> 00:01:56,930
and you can read a bit more about the author and the presenters yourself over to amongst you, can you?

18
00:01:56,930 --> 00:02:02,780
I'm just going to share your presentation, so just give me a moment when I load this up.

19
00:02:02,780 --> 00:02:10,070
Thanks very much, Jesse. I'll use the time to just say a big thank you to you and Johanna for organising this and for pursuing it,

20
00:02:10,070 --> 00:02:14,030
even when everything else collapsed in the middle of the crisis.

21
00:02:14,030 --> 00:02:23,360
So thanks to both of you, I know this was no mean feat, to put it bluntly, and that you put a lot of work into this.

22
00:02:23,360 --> 00:02:27,200
OK. So I will be very short.

23
00:02:27,200 --> 00:02:31,130
I've been given 12 minutes and I will try and stick to that.

24
00:02:31,130 --> 00:02:38,270
The title of my presentation, as you can see, is memory injustice in the aftermath of war and mass crime,

25
00:02:38,270 --> 00:02:43,460
contemporary Serbia and the West German model. And it is less, I would say,

26
00:02:43,460 --> 00:02:52,310
about the role of international actors in shaping the hierarchy of memories than about international models and hegemonic narratives,

27
00:02:52,310 --> 00:03:02,480
although of course, the two are related. Now, as Jesse said, I work on transitional justice and memory politics and a post-conflict Balkans.

28
00:03:02,480 --> 00:03:12,470
And the thing that has struck me and I would suggest many of us who work on the region over the years has been the extent to which Germany

29
00:03:12,470 --> 00:03:25,070
and specifically West Germany has been a reference point in so many discussions about dealing with the legacy of the wars of the 1990s.

30
00:03:25,070 --> 00:03:29,000
While I think this has been the case throughout the Post Yugoslav region,

31
00:03:29,000 --> 00:03:38,470
I would also venture to say that it had has been most commonly the case in Serbia.

32
00:03:38,470 --> 00:03:48,850
It should be noted, of course, that the references to West Germany's experience are not unique to the region, as many scholars have shown.

33
00:03:48,850 --> 00:03:59,230
The notion of West Germany as the model penitent to use Thomas Berger's term has achieved global iconic status since the 1990s,

34
00:03:59,230 --> 00:04:04,750
acting as a reference point for international policymakers, representatives, donors,

35
00:04:04,750 --> 00:04:10,680
scholars and activists, as well as for local ones in a variety of settings.

36
00:04:10,680 --> 00:04:17,460
As the German sociologist Misha GABAergic notes in the recent volume, which is called Replicating Atonement and There,

37
00:04:17,460 --> 00:04:27,930
which I highly recommend Germany's experience of dealing with its Nazi past has been used both as a yardstick and a foil.

38
00:04:27,930 --> 00:04:38,010
In other words, both as a model to emulate and as a tool to evaluate other countries approaches towards their own difficult pasts,

39
00:04:38,010 --> 00:04:42,690
usually to show, in fact, how they've fallen short.

40
00:04:42,690 --> 00:04:50,490
Mostly, this has been done by applying an ideal typical German model of atonement, stripped of the specificities,

41
00:04:50,490 --> 00:04:58,270
contradictions and nuances of Germany's actual historical experience of dealing with its Nazi past.

42
00:04:58,270 --> 00:05:04,960
It is also clear that the exact ingredients and interpretations of the German model will vary,

43
00:05:04,960 --> 00:05:16,000
according to the country and the actress who referred to it. So how has the German model of atonement manifested itself in contemporary Serbia?

44
00:05:16,000 --> 00:05:22,600
And here, I would argue the understanding of the German model has been focussed on five main tropes.

45
00:05:22,600 --> 00:05:32,140
The first and the earliest of these references to the German case related, of course, to the creation of the ICJ, why does the new Nuremberg,

46
00:05:32,140 --> 00:05:42,010
in other words, as an international tribunal to judge the war crimes and atrocities committed in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s?

47
00:05:42,010 --> 00:05:46,030
There are, of course, significant differences between the two tribunals.

48
00:05:46,030 --> 00:05:55,690
But what is important for our purposes here is that both of these tribunals had in common an important pedagogic element to their mission.

49
00:05:55,690 --> 00:05:58,240
They were meant not only to serve justice,

50
00:05:58,240 --> 00:06:07,870
but also to counter denial of the crimes and to educate publics in order to promote normative change in the countries affected.

51
00:06:07,870 --> 00:06:15,610
And it is this mission that has been the focal point of the interactions between Western interlocutors and Serbian ones,

52
00:06:15,610 --> 00:06:21,160
as well as in the debates within Serbian society itself.

53
00:06:21,160 --> 00:06:32,110
Secondly. There was the trope of to quote one Serbian activist de-Nazification apology and the example of Willy Brandt.

54
00:06:32,110 --> 00:06:39,640
The call for de-Nazification was particularly hotly debated during the cost of a war in 1999,

55
00:06:39,640 --> 00:06:45,340
when some Serbian activists called for the creation of an international protectorate and a mass

56
00:06:45,340 --> 00:06:52,300
purge of Serbian institutions along the lines undertaken by the allies in Germany in the 1940s.

57
00:06:52,300 --> 00:07:00,350
Neglecting, of course, to acknowledge that de-Nazification was soon abandoned and almost completely reversed by the 1950s.

58
00:07:00,350 --> 00:07:08,120
While such calls subsided after the fall of Milosevic in 2000 of longer duration have been demands for an apology

59
00:07:08,120 --> 00:07:16,250
by Serbia to the other post Yugoslav nations for the wars and for the crimes committed by the Serbs in the 1990s.

60
00:07:16,250 --> 00:07:20,210
These have been a constant phenomenon over the last two decades,

61
00:07:20,210 --> 00:07:28,560
and references to Betty Brandt's iconic genuflexion at the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial have been ubiquitous.

62
00:07:28,560 --> 00:07:36,330
A third key reference has been Karl Jaspers famous treatise on the question of German guilt.

63
00:07:36,330 --> 00:07:41,910
And this really has resonated within Serbian intellectual circles in particular,

64
00:07:41,910 --> 00:07:50,550
and many Serbian antiwar intellectuals referenced this text as a guide both to defining Serbia's guilt for the wars of the 1990s,

65
00:07:50,550 --> 00:07:59,090
but also as a way of demarcating their own moral stance towards the crimes that were committed.

66
00:07:59,090 --> 00:08:05,720
Fourth, the post Second World War Franco-German reconciliation has also been a recurrent

67
00:08:05,720 --> 00:08:10,340
trope invoked in particular by representatives of European governments,

68
00:08:10,340 --> 00:08:16,940
institutions and NGOs with Serbian counterparts, as well as other regional actors.

69
00:08:16,940 --> 00:08:19,310
It should, however, be said that in this case,

70
00:08:19,310 --> 00:08:29,050
this particular trope has been referenced less by locals who are generally more sceptical about the notion of reconciliation.

71
00:08:29,050 --> 00:08:35,440
And finally, I think it's important to note that references to the German model have also been

72
00:08:35,440 --> 00:08:43,120
invoked over the years by opponents of a reckoning with the recent past with the 1990s.

73
00:08:43,120 --> 00:08:49,630
And this has included both some Western scholars and also some Serbian intellectuals and politicians.

74
00:08:49,630 --> 00:08:58,150
And their argument is that it is simply too early for Serbia to address its own recent past that even in Germany,

75
00:08:58,150 --> 00:09:05,000
it took 20 years for any meaningful confrontation with the Nazi legacy to emerge.

76
00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:13,250
Some of these have argued that Serbia first needs to focus on rebuilding its economy and establishing a democracy,

77
00:09:13,250 --> 00:09:16,100
and that such a reckoning could come later.

78
00:09:16,100 --> 00:09:23,690
Others, in fact, consider this kind of memory work to be futile and believe that rather than focussing on the past,

79
00:09:23,690 --> 00:09:29,500
Serbia, like other countries, should focus on the future.

80
00:09:29,500 --> 00:09:35,650
I think it is important to emphasise in this very short and schematic overview that the

81
00:09:35,650 --> 00:09:41,140
whole nature of a hegemonic model is not that it is simply exported from somewhere,

82
00:09:41,140 --> 00:09:50,470
but actually that it takes root in societies to which it is exported to use the term.

83
00:09:50,470 --> 00:09:59,770
And it is important to note that the various tropes described have been pervasive in internal debates and public discussions in Serbia,

84
00:09:59,770 --> 00:10:08,160
especially within civil society, amongst intellectuals and in the media.

85
00:10:08,160 --> 00:10:21,570
OK. In the very last part of my presentation, I would like to make three final points that will perhaps open up to questions and and comments.

86
00:10:21,570 --> 00:10:30,210
First of all, I think it is important to note the problematic nature of having any ideal type model for dealing with the past,

87
00:10:30,210 --> 00:10:37,470
such as the West German model of atonement for anyone who has studied West Germany's history of memory.

88
00:10:37,470 --> 00:10:46,260
It is clear to what extent this very complex and indeed unfinished history has been misunderstood,

89
00:10:46,260 --> 00:10:53,640
oversimplified and misinterpreted in order to serve various local and international agendas.

90
00:10:53,640 --> 00:10:55,980
It is also unproductive, I think,

91
00:10:55,980 --> 00:11:07,190
to believe that any one societies experience can be replicated or exportable to very different geographic and temporal circumstances.

92
00:11:07,190 --> 00:11:14,480
A more fruitful way forward, in my view, would be to look at West Germany's experience in all its complexity.

93
00:11:14,480 --> 00:11:19,670
The turning points, the causes and stop start nature of various initiatives.

94
00:11:19,670 --> 00:11:25,490
The existence of parallel discourses and the reasons for their variable public resonance.

95
00:11:25,490 --> 00:11:34,670
Over time, the role of domestic and international actors, as well as the political, social and economic context and so on.

96
00:11:34,670 --> 00:11:41,690
If we do so, we might understand why certain initiatives and memory events had less resonance

97
00:11:41,690 --> 00:11:48,740
than hoped or expected while others were more socially or politically impactful.

98
00:11:48,740 --> 00:11:55,290
Which brings me to my second and related point. When considering Germany's history of memory,

99
00:11:55,290 --> 00:12:03,390
I think it is interesting to see that the troops that are most often referenced in the sort of German model that has been exported,

100
00:12:03,390 --> 00:12:12,030
in other words, Nuremberg, de-Nazification, Jaspers, Willy Brandt and so on that these were not necessarily the ones that had the greatest

101
00:12:12,030 --> 00:12:17,700
resonance internally for West Germany's processes of dealing with its past,

102
00:12:17,700 --> 00:12:26,990
at least not at the time in which they took place. On the other hand, when looking at Germany's history of memory, it does seem that there were other,

103
00:12:26,990 --> 00:12:36,590
more potentially impactful memory events, such as, for example, the Holocaust specific trials in the first half of the 1960s.

104
00:12:36,590 --> 00:12:39,950
And here I'm referring, of course, to the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem,

105
00:12:39,950 --> 00:12:50,840
but primarily also to the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials or mass media events like the screening of the American TV series Holocaust in 1979.

106
00:12:50,840 --> 00:12:58,130
Or certain types of commemorative activities, such as the Crimes of the Bear Market exhibition in the 1990s.

107
00:12:58,130 --> 00:13:03,590
Yet what is interesting is that these have been neglected in both external and internal

108
00:13:03,590 --> 00:13:11,660
references to the German experience and have also been remarkably absent from debates in Serbia.

109
00:13:11,660 --> 00:13:18,920
My third and final point would be and here I'm in agreement with garbage that a more fruitful way of

110
00:13:18,920 --> 00:13:27,140
approaching the West German case would indeed be to see it as a springboard for reflections about other cases,

111
00:13:27,140 --> 00:13:37,580
such as that of Serbia. If we are going to gain from such a comparison, I would argue we also then need to apply the same temporal lens.

112
00:13:37,580 --> 00:13:41,270
And considering that the obvious starting point for Serbia would be the year

113
00:13:41,270 --> 00:13:46,640
2000 following the end of the Kosovo war and the fall of the Milosevic regime,

114
00:13:46,640 --> 00:13:56,030
this implies that any meaningful comparative study would need to examine the equivalent period in Germany from the end of the Second World War,

115
00:13:56,030 --> 00:14:04,760
roughly up until the mid-1960s, analysing both the considerable parallels between these two case studies at the time and also

116
00:14:04,760 --> 00:14:11,870
the very significant differences between them and the implications of this approach in this way.

117
00:14:11,870 --> 00:14:20,630
I believe the West German case could serve as a useful reference for building Serbia's own history of memory since 2000,

118
00:14:20,630 --> 00:14:31,040
and I would venture to conclude it could perhaps also allow us to understand the very different end points of those both countries 20-year post-war

119
00:14:31,040 --> 00:14:41,360
trajectories with West Germany in the middle mid 1960s really perched on the threshold of some pretty significant change and Serbia in 2020,

120
00:14:41,360 --> 00:14:49,310
appearing further away than ever from engaging in any real reckoning with its own legacy of war and mass crime.

121
00:14:49,310 --> 00:14:53,840
Thank you. Thank you so much.

122
00:14:53,840 --> 00:14:59,310
Not that was, I think, a brilliant introduction also to the panel on how the different experiences can travel,

123
00:14:59,310 --> 00:15:04,320
and I feel that our second speaker is also very well equipped to build on this.

124
00:15:04,320 --> 00:15:10,290
And I think your two presentations are greatly interlinked. And then obviously, we're going to go to Rachel's presentation.

125
00:15:10,290 --> 00:15:13,680
So I think it's going to be a few themes that are going to be re-emerging.

126
00:15:13,680 --> 00:15:19,020
So let me introduce the second speaker of today, which is Lord Allderdice John Allderdice,

127
00:15:19,020 --> 00:15:27,240
whom I should have actually also introduced as the director of the Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict at Harry's Manchester College,

128
00:15:27,240 --> 00:15:32,490
which is just across the road from my department. And Crick is also one of the partners of this conference.

129
00:15:32,490 --> 00:15:39,240
I should have mentioned that in the beginning other days is actually a psychiatrist by profession,

130
00:15:39,240 --> 00:15:44,550
but we probably mainly know him as the leader of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland,

131
00:15:44,550 --> 00:15:54,330
as he played a very significant role in the talks on Northern Ireland, including the negotiation of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.

132
00:15:54,330 --> 00:16:00,930
He was the first speaker of the new Northern Ireland Assembly and he's held many international positions,

133
00:16:00,930 --> 00:16:11,070
including as the president of Liberal International. Since 1996, he has sat as a Liberal Democrat life member of the House of Lords and currently,

134
00:16:11,070 --> 00:16:14,250
as I said, he's not only based at Harry's Manchester College,

135
00:16:14,250 --> 00:16:22,860
but he's also the chairman of the Centre for Democracy and Peace Building in Belfast and president of Libérer Liberal International.

136
00:16:22,860 --> 00:16:29,640
[INAUDIBLE] speak with on a presentation with the title of casting some light on the long, dark shadow of the past.

137
00:16:29,640 --> 00:16:41,260
John, the floor is yours and thank you very much for joining us. Okay, well, let's try and see if we can share this screen.

138
00:16:41,260 --> 00:16:55,210
Okay. Well, thank you very much indeed for the kind invitation to come along and talk a little bit for a short time about how we deal with the past,

139
00:16:55,210 --> 00:17:03,700
which is a very difficult problem for all of us individually and also as communities.

140
00:17:03,700 --> 00:17:08,830
Well, the first thing to say is that we all live out our memories.

141
00:17:08,830 --> 00:17:20,340
It's not possible for us as human beings because of the way that we are constructed to simply come to any new experience and take it as a tabula rasa.

142
00:17:20,340 --> 00:17:29,710
Now all of us come with a perspective from the past when you bump into someone, how they look, the type of name that they have,

143
00:17:29,710 --> 00:17:34,810
what assumptions you make about them from your experience of meeting with similar people in

144
00:17:34,810 --> 00:17:40,830
similar circumstances in the past positively or negatively influences how you perceive that.

145
00:17:40,830 --> 00:17:51,470
And so when we come to these things as individuals or communities, it's impossible for us not to be influenced by the past.

146
00:17:51,470 --> 00:18:01,220
Of course, the question is which memories from the past because we have massive amounts of memory, which of them do we choose?

147
00:18:01,220 --> 00:18:06,770
And of course, I don't necessarily mean choose in a conscious way, although we can do that.

148
00:18:06,770 --> 00:18:14,810
But there are all sorts of assumptions that we make, which I will emphasise some memories,

149
00:18:14,810 --> 00:18:22,640
minimise other memories, ignore some, and in the case of others, completely block them out.

150
00:18:22,640 --> 00:18:30,360
We can consciously do that, but often it it seems to happen in an almost automatic fashion.

151
00:18:30,360 --> 00:18:40,260
Well, one important element of memories from the past in terms of the development of our narrative as individuals or as communities,

152
00:18:40,260 --> 00:18:45,300
and I often do draw things across between individuals and communities,

153
00:18:45,300 --> 00:18:52,440
but I'd emphasise that the psychology of communities is not simply a direct read across from the psychology of individuals.

154
00:18:52,440 --> 00:18:59,250
It's not exactly the same thing. But there are certain interesting common factors because we are human beings.

155
00:18:59,250 --> 00:19:04,980
Well, Islamic Volcan has pointed out that there are two important elements which are

156
00:19:04,980 --> 00:19:10,230
relevant to what we are talking about post-conflict elements which are chosen,

157
00:19:10,230 --> 00:19:15,800
which are victories from the past or traumas from the past.

158
00:19:15,800 --> 00:19:24,200
And these have a profound impact, not only on what we believe, how we function intellectually, but how we engage and identify with others,

159
00:19:24,200 --> 00:19:32,750
our whole way of being in the world is enormously influenced by those things which are positive.

160
00:19:32,750 --> 00:19:46,620
Our victories, successes from the past and traumas from the past obviously defeats our traumas, but there are lots of other kinds of traumas as well.

161
00:19:46,620 --> 00:19:58,350
And and these memories are not necessarily precise memories of single experiences, even when they seem to be.

162
00:19:58,350 --> 00:20:08,600
They are a complex collage which include and indeed exclude aspects of our history and how we feel about these things.

163
00:20:08,600 --> 00:20:14,300
So, for example, specific. Stories.

164
00:20:14,300 --> 00:20:21,830
Memories, experiences from the past seem to be particularly striking, and often people will say, well,

165
00:20:21,830 --> 00:20:27,440
I wonder why that particular trauma was picked out over against all the other traumas that

166
00:20:27,440 --> 00:20:34,130
particular death or did that particular success is picked out over against lots of others?

167
00:20:34,130 --> 00:20:41,960
And is it really very accurate? We heard earlier on about how particular stories can be presented in particular ways.

168
00:20:41,960 --> 00:20:53,810
Actually, they always are. If something is important enough to be remembered, it's usually because it exemplifies a whole series of other things.

169
00:20:53,810 --> 00:21:06,740
It is, in that sense, a kind of example of lots of other experiences, and it may not be that it is a precisely historically accurate example,

170
00:21:06,740 --> 00:21:10,820
but it has all sorts of emotional and other components,

171
00:21:10,820 --> 00:21:16,970
and it represents lots and lots of experiences whenever you experience a certain things that I guess.

172
00:21:16,970 --> 00:21:24,440
Always like that's the way they always deal with us. And so and if you try to point out that, well, that's not entirely accurate.

173
00:21:24,440 --> 00:21:29,440
It doesn't matter. Doesn't convince the person that they should give it up.

174
00:21:29,440 --> 00:21:39,040
Now, sometimes people describe these cultural memories or stories as myths and what they usually mean when they're saying how it is,

175
00:21:39,040 --> 00:21:43,660
it's not accurate. That's just a myth.

176
00:21:43,660 --> 00:21:52,750
We heard this said, for example, during the Brexit Remain debate, each side saying what you're talking is just a myth or it's just old history.

177
00:21:52,750 --> 00:21:58,630
Well, that's a misunderstanding. A myth is is not something that never happened historically.

178
00:21:58,630 --> 00:22:00,460
That's not the important thing about it.

179
00:22:00,460 --> 00:22:06,380
The important thing is that it is representing something of the human condition that's actually happening all the time.

180
00:22:06,380 --> 00:22:11,380
Why are we bothered to read Shakespeare or Greek and Roman myths?

181
00:22:11,380 --> 00:22:16,150
These are things from a long time ago, and some people dismissed them as [INAUDIBLE], no nonsense stories.

182
00:22:16,150 --> 00:22:21,490
Well, the reason that they're powerful psychologically for individuals and communities is because

183
00:22:21,490 --> 00:22:28,780
they represent something of what is happening all the time repeatedly in human experience.

184
00:22:28,780 --> 00:22:38,560
In the case of countries, of course, victories or defeats are one can development about particularly related to our subject that of conflict.

185
00:22:38,560 --> 00:22:43,300
So when we look at this, it's it's not a question of us saying, well,

186
00:22:43,300 --> 00:22:52,810
it's really important for me to listen to the myths of this community and how this community interprets its history so that I can correct them.

187
00:22:52,810 --> 00:22:59,100
But that's that's nonsense, first of all, you won't correct them because they will simply not believe what you have to say.

188
00:22:59,100 --> 00:23:05,520
Because they'll say you don't really understand your external. You don't understand my history and my background at all.

189
00:23:05,520 --> 00:23:10,590
Nor can you because you come from another place than me.

190
00:23:10,590 --> 00:23:17,070
If you're coming from an imperial background, you can't understand me because I was colonised.

191
00:23:17,070 --> 00:23:21,810
If you come from a colonising background. It can be the opposite way around.

192
00:23:21,810 --> 00:23:27,060
The person from the imperial background is when you don't actually understand what was happening with us either.

193
00:23:27,060 --> 00:23:34,320
That's not what's important. What's important is that if we listen to the myths that a community tells it,

194
00:23:34,320 --> 00:23:40,800
kind of help us to understand the disturbed historic relationships they have been inhabiting.

195
00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:46,080
And that gives us the potential basis to create new healthy relationships for the future.

196
00:23:46,080 --> 00:23:47,710
If people want it.

197
00:23:47,710 --> 00:23:53,850
And one of the things you learn as a psychiatrist is that you shouldn't assume that everybody wants good relationships with everybody.

198
00:23:53,850 --> 00:24:00,220
Some people are very happy to continue to have bad relationships with some people.

199
00:24:00,220 --> 00:24:07,690
Because it feeds certain stories that they tell about themselves, so we shouldn't assume that everybody wants a good relationship.

200
00:24:07,690 --> 00:24:17,000
But if they do, they're myths can be a way into it, not by believing or not believing them, but by understanding what the purpose of the news.

201
00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:25,690
No. Memories and myths can be described in narrative ways, not very often what we do is as academics, we write papers about things.

202
00:24:25,690 --> 00:24:33,910
We talk about things actually because conveying feelings more than just thoughts.

203
00:24:33,910 --> 00:24:36,440
They can be sometimes much more powerfully conveyed,

204
00:24:36,440 --> 00:24:46,320
something conveyed symbolically important in song in drama and film and music and various kinds of art forms, particularly in folk art.

205
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:50,860
But I'm not dismissing high art, but folk art can sometimes tell us a great deal.

206
00:24:50,860 --> 00:24:56,540
So I'm going to take just three examples very quickly. One, of course, from home from Northern Ireland.

207
00:24:56,540 --> 00:24:59,890
And I've put up here two murals.

208
00:24:59,890 --> 00:25:11,050
It's very common, especially in Belfast, but also in other parts of the world for people to paint the walls of houses with murals that tell a story.

209
00:25:11,050 --> 00:25:18,460
And here are two murals. One on the left is coming from a loyalist Protestant unionist background and

210
00:25:18,460 --> 00:25:22,870
the other on the right is from a Catholic nationalist Republican background.

211
00:25:22,870 --> 00:25:27,440
And you'll see that both of them are telling a story.

212
00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:33,950
The one on the left, you'll see there are two photographs and then the paramilitary in the centre,

213
00:25:33,950 --> 00:25:38,590
and there are two sets of flags one on the left and one on the right.

214
00:25:38,590 --> 00:25:48,430
The photograph of the man on the left and the flags on the right, on the left are from a loyalist organisation from the eighteen hundreds,

215
00:25:48,430 --> 00:25:56,530
which was protecting the position of Protestant loyalists who felt under threat and about to be betrayed by the British, which of course they were.

216
00:25:56,530 --> 00:26:03,550
The one on the right, choose a more recent paramilitary with his badges and flags just below him.

217
00:26:03,550 --> 00:26:13,000
It's linking the memory of the past with the present and also the reality of the history and situation now and then is different.

218
00:26:13,000 --> 00:26:19,090
What they're wanting to do is show a continuity that they are fulfilling from the past.

219
00:26:19,090 --> 00:26:24,760
Similarly, on the right, you can see on the left hand side of the right bureau,

220
00:26:24,760 --> 00:26:30,820
which is a Republican one, you can see pictures of Republicans, rebels,

221
00:26:30,820 --> 00:26:38,290
the IRA from the early part of the 20th century linked over on the extreme right of the mural

222
00:26:38,290 --> 00:26:43,930
with a picture of a hunger striker and someone with a Molotov cocktail representing the crude.

223
00:26:43,930 --> 00:26:53,950
As it was then when this bureau was painted 10 or 15 years ago by Republicans linking their past memory with how it was in the present and on the top.

224
00:26:53,950 --> 00:27:03,190
I've put in the motif of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and that is because it brings together the two divided sides.

225
00:27:03,190 --> 00:27:10,780
If we look at some pictures from Colombia here we see on the left are a politician

226
00:27:10,780 --> 00:27:16,150
who was trying to bring about a peaceful resolution when he was assassinated.

227
00:27:16,150 --> 00:27:18,970
It moved more to the violence of far right.

228
00:27:18,970 --> 00:27:26,440
And you see a painting of the far right leader who died some years ago and a new kind of picture on the right,

229
00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:34,210
which is done by a young artist who's talking about the victory of peace, a bringing together of the two sides in Peru.

230
00:27:34,210 --> 00:27:39,250
Also, you see the history of the past the Incas at Machu Picchu,

231
00:27:39,250 --> 00:27:48,970
who had fled from the intrusion of the imperial Spaniards and on the right the the coffins of

232
00:27:48,970 --> 00:27:54,420
those who were killed by shining path as they fought against those who were in government.

233
00:27:54,420 --> 00:27:59,440
Now I finish, if I may, with two quick slides.

234
00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:09,220
One is to say that in Northern Ireland, we came to accept the myths and memories of both sides as valid and work to build new relationships.

235
00:28:09,220 --> 00:28:16,150
Whereas in Colombia, the hegemonic myth of the governing minority was given precedence and the peace process is faltering.

236
00:28:16,150 --> 00:28:22,600
And in Peru, the hegemonic myth of the minority of the governing minority is the only one that's heard.

237
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:33,050
And history has just dismissed as just history. The final comment on public policy implications, we need to understand history.

238
00:28:33,050 --> 00:28:39,980
Because the myths that each side tells a new side tells an absolute truth about anything, it's not possible.

239
00:28:39,980 --> 00:28:53,330
All we can do is describe the condensed evening unthinking and behaving of our side, often conveyed best and more nuanced in art of various kinds.

240
00:28:53,330 --> 00:29:02,180
But if we come in from outside and this is the external question from outside and become partisan to accept one side of the argument,

241
00:29:02,180 --> 00:29:06,380
we are simply becoming part of the problem, not part of the solution.

242
00:29:06,380 --> 00:29:18,050
In the final comment. We need to see the Brexit debate, for example, as a conflict of two historic hegemonic narratives.

243
00:29:18,050 --> 00:29:23,060
It's not one side or the other. That's why Britain was so deeply split.

244
00:29:23,060 --> 00:29:32,390
These are hegemonic narratives of profound historic significance, going back to the Reformation and way back beyond that.

245
00:29:32,390 --> 00:29:40,330
And the idea that we tell stories to persuade ourselves and others is absolutely nothing new.

246
00:29:40,330 --> 00:29:46,630
The gospel of Saint John is completely different from the three synoptic gospels because the writer was

247
00:29:46,630 --> 00:29:55,810
trying to get across his story to a Greek Roman audience and not to an old Judeo Palestinian audience.

248
00:29:55,810 --> 00:30:01,820
I leave it there. Thank you for your forbearance. Thank you so much, John.

249
00:30:01,820 --> 00:30:10,160
That was fascinating from Europe and Latin America, we will now move to East Africa.

250
00:30:10,160 --> 00:30:17,120
John, if you could stop sharing, I think our starting group also has a presentation.

251
00:30:17,120 --> 00:30:20,630
So our third speaker, let me introduce Dr. Rachel Brekke,

252
00:30:20,630 --> 00:30:28,670
who is a lecturer in politics and international relations at Goldsmiths College, University of London, as well just as Jasna.

253
00:30:28,670 --> 00:30:35,090
However, her research interests include human rights activism, political violence, humanitarianism and transitional justice,

254
00:30:35,090 --> 00:30:42,320
especially in eastern Africa and in particular in Uganda and also in South Sudan.

255
00:30:42,320 --> 00:30:51,920
She's also a research associate at the Conflict Research Programme at the LSC, and she's widely published in a variety of international journals,

256
00:30:51,920 --> 00:30:59,870
and she's also the author of South Sudan's Injustice System, Law and Activism on the Frontline, which is from last year.

257
00:30:59,870 --> 00:31:03,080
The title of her presentation is We should have learnt from one of the regional

258
00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:06,590
political opportunities and constraints of a hegemonic narrative of genocide,

259
00:31:06,590 --> 00:31:12,200
memory and justice in eastern Africa. We're very much looking forward to the presentation, Rachel.

260
00:31:12,200 --> 00:31:27,050
Thank you for being here and the virtual floor is yours. Thank you, sir.

261
00:31:27,050 --> 00:31:33,800
Step back, OK. Yeah, I want to thank and Jesse and Joanna for involving me in the conference,

262
00:31:33,800 --> 00:31:41,090
which I'm taking really as an opportunity to test out some preliminary thoughts relevant to one of the questions on our agenda.

263
00:31:41,090 --> 00:31:49,430
And this is the question of what constitutes a hegemonic narrative in or after conflict.

264
00:31:49,430 --> 00:31:59,840
And I want to elaborate really on a turn on this kind of discussion in the literature, sort of transcultural turn in the literature,

265
00:31:59,840 --> 00:32:10,190
which explores how hegemonic narratives of atrocity travel and open the way to sort of distinctive

266
00:32:10,190 --> 00:32:15,740
effects with local sensibilities so they have different impacts in different contexts.

267
00:32:15,740 --> 00:32:23,540
And my argument really is that they open the way to contests over memory and justice even before a conflict has ended.

268
00:32:23,540 --> 00:32:30,950
And I want to demonstrate this argument really by looking at the case of South Sudan.

269
00:32:30,950 --> 00:32:38,000
So. And.

270
00:32:38,000 --> 00:32:43,370
First, you already know from the literature that there's a lot of discussion about the way in which memory travels,

271
00:32:43,370 --> 00:32:47,030
it's unbound, it's fluid and flexible, it's globalised.

272
00:32:47,030 --> 00:32:57,260
But at the same time, I think much of this literature shows that it remains contested, contingent and unambiguous in ethical terms.

273
00:32:57,260 --> 00:33:02,090
And I'm particularly interested in an idea that was shared by Lévy and Sneijder.

274
00:33:02,090 --> 00:33:08,750
And some time ago, this idea of this kind of emergence of cosmopolitan memories,

275
00:33:08,750 --> 00:33:17,930
which you know have in some way provided a cultural foundation for human rights and in particular, they talk about the memory of the Holocaust.

276
00:33:17,930 --> 00:33:23,420
And then and this really came into previous work that I did looking at the genocide in Rwanda,

277
00:33:23,420 --> 00:33:29,360
where Holocaust discourses and experts influenced the mobilisation of the genocide.

278
00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:32,030
And at the same time,

279
00:33:32,030 --> 00:33:41,450
the memory of Rwanda's genocide was also itself sort of trans nationalised and taken up in international and regional policy and commemorations.

280
00:33:41,450 --> 00:33:49,520
And in those commemorations, I have previously argued that what we see is both a sort of international politics of regret,

281
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:52,850
which the politically significant in various ways,

282
00:33:52,850 --> 00:34:07,730
but also the sort of shaping of a dominant official narrative how which has also travelled that has been influenced by national political imperatives.

283
00:34:07,730 --> 00:34:15,620
And so I really want to think about how the narratives of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda have travelled beyond Rwanda and the region.

284
00:34:15,620 --> 00:34:19,420
And what is their relevance for human rights cultures in the region and in particular,

285
00:34:19,420 --> 00:34:26,030
I want to explore the effects in South Sudan during the Civil War between 2013 and 2019.

286
00:34:26,030 --> 00:34:35,030
It's still sort of simmering, and I'm drawing here on research that I've done on justice in South Sudan during the Civil War and

287
00:34:35,030 --> 00:34:39,730
in particular and sort of my involvement in civil society processes aimed at memory and justice.

288
00:34:39,730 --> 00:34:45,410
So I'm not really outside of this is somewhat engaged research.

289
00:34:45,410 --> 00:34:53,960
And firstly, I think a key point to make is that there is this kind of regional memory of of genocide,

290
00:34:53,960 --> 00:35:00,650
which has emerged sort of institutionalised itself in the regional body.

291
00:35:00,650 --> 00:35:06,470
The African Union in particular, has been shaped quite profoundly by the memory of the genocide.

292
00:35:06,470 --> 00:35:08,960
And this is for historical reasons,

293
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:17,030
in part because at the moment of the birth of the African Union was also just sort of quite in the aftermath of the

294
00:35:17,030 --> 00:35:24,950
genocide in Rwanda and in particular in the aftermath of a of an investigation in which the OAU looked at its own record,

295
00:35:24,950 --> 00:35:29,300
as many international organisations did during the Genocide and its failings.

296
00:35:29,300 --> 00:35:35,720
And these kind of reflections shaped the principles and practises of the African Union and really quite profound ways,

297
00:35:35,720 --> 00:35:39,620
including in what shaping this constitutive act,

298
00:35:39,620 --> 00:35:44,420
which in a way was sort of the first iteration of a kind of idea of a responsibility to

299
00:35:44,420 --> 00:35:49,430
protect giving the African Union the right to intervene in respect of grave circumstances,

300
00:35:49,430 --> 00:35:53,270
including war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.

301
00:35:53,270 --> 00:36:02,630
And we've seen further evolution of thinking about responding to atrocities at the regional level,

302
00:36:02,630 --> 00:36:07,670
including in African Union policies and transitional justice, which stood being made from 2009.

303
00:36:07,670 --> 00:36:14,720
And more recently, the policy was published and in annual Genocide Rwanda Genocide Commemorations,

304
00:36:14,720 --> 00:36:21,230
which take place at the African Union in Addis Ababa, where they commemorate the Genocide in Rwanda.

305
00:36:21,230 --> 00:36:27,410
And finally, in an African Union human rights memorial, which you can see pictured in this slide,

306
00:36:27,410 --> 00:36:32,150
which was a project actually that I was also involved in,

307
00:36:32,150 --> 00:36:39,170
and I organised a number of consultations which were bringing together people across

308
00:36:39,170 --> 00:36:44,450
the region to reflect on past atrocities and how they should be memorialised.

309
00:36:44,450 --> 00:36:52,340
And as you can see from this quotation taken from one of the presentations during these consultations from an EU official,

310
00:36:52,340 --> 00:37:00,410
he talked about the fact that the EU memorial had really originated in the resolution taken on the 7th of April 2004,

311
00:37:00,410 --> 00:37:05,540
on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda,

312
00:37:05,540 --> 00:37:10,610
and that it was also sort of moving beyond the genocide in Rwanda to think also

313
00:37:10,610 --> 00:37:14,990
about the remembrance of the red terror massacres and also slavery and apartheid.

314
00:37:14,990 --> 00:37:21,050
And I've written about this process in an article in African Affairs with Alex Duvall.

315
00:37:21,050 --> 00:37:29,870
But really, the key point to note is that here we see the institutionalisation many of the memory of the genocide of Rwanda,

316
00:37:29,870 --> 00:37:37,320
but also its extension beyond and in those consultations. We also had, for instance, other Africans including.

317
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:42,180
South Sudanese and then undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture, shock jock,

318
00:37:42,180 --> 00:37:49,740
who was thinking about how to build a national memory in South Sudan at the time, it was back in 2012.

319
00:37:49,740 --> 00:37:55,260
And really, I think that is one of the reasons that have been prompted to think further about the relations between these

320
00:37:55,260 --> 00:38:04,060
two events and how the memory of the genocide in Rwanda might shape prospects for human rights in South Sudan.

321
00:38:04,060 --> 00:38:14,640
And for anyone who knows anything about South Sudan, you will know that is a war torn state in the most sort of profound way.

322
00:38:14,640 --> 00:38:21,660
We've seen a proliferation of atrocities, from slavery to violent colonial pacification and to civil wars,

323
00:38:21,660 --> 00:38:30,630
and these atrocities have largely been forgotten, and we can talk about a state of oblivion, a vacuum of memory in South Sudan.

324
00:38:30,630 --> 00:38:35,670
Prior to 2005, and this very much relates to this idea.

325
00:38:35,670 --> 00:38:40,470
The Sharon Hutchinson uncovers within the South Sudanese state that the head of

326
00:38:40,470 --> 00:38:43,800
the state was really this notion of a power to kill without accountability.

327
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:50,970
It was very much kind of an expression of the net net political idea of the state.

328
00:38:50,970 --> 00:39:04,080
And as Zoe Cormack, one of the few scholars to really have looked into memory practises and memorialisation in South Sudan shows those were,

329
00:39:04,080 --> 00:39:08,130
you know, sort of emergence of rare local memorials.

330
00:39:08,130 --> 00:39:09,300
But even in these,

331
00:39:09,300 --> 00:39:18,040
what we note after 2005 is the interpenetration between different regimes of memory and between local and globalised memory practises.

332
00:39:18,040 --> 00:39:25,260
So I want to take it on from there to think about what happened after, well, during the end,

333
00:39:25,260 --> 00:39:34,470
an ongoing civil war and after the first wave of atrocities in 2013, in December in Japan.

334
00:39:34,470 --> 00:39:44,130
And I think very notably, the first thing relevant to the way in which the regional memory has sort of shaped this response.

335
00:39:44,130 --> 00:39:47,970
We see that the African Union was very quick to mount an enquiry.

336
00:39:47,970 --> 00:39:53,970
And in this enquiry, it was very emphatic about the need for truth, justice and reparation,

337
00:39:53,970 --> 00:40:01,260
something which had really not been considered in the 2005 peace agreement at the end of the previous Civil War.

338
00:40:01,260 --> 00:40:06,360
And since then, we've also seen numerous initiatives to kind of learn from Rwanda.

339
00:40:06,360 --> 00:40:12,150
We've seen South Sudanese travelling to Rwanda, including chiefs including young people,

340
00:40:12,150 --> 00:40:18,450
as part of civil society initiatives to really sort of teach Rwandese about the run up to South News

341
00:40:18,450 --> 00:40:26,340
about the Rwandan experience and to think about its relevance to their own prospects for peace.

342
00:40:26,340 --> 00:40:32,010
And I've actually, you know, to somewhat been involved in some of this thinking about transitional justice in South Sudan.

343
00:40:32,010 --> 00:40:38,790
So, you know, but but there's been a number of civil society, and this is really how I've come to understand it.

344
00:40:38,790 --> 00:40:44,040
But there's also been quite sort of strong claims being made that, you know,

345
00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:48,480
they've come away with ideas that if Rwandans can forgive, why not the South Sudanese?

346
00:40:48,480 --> 00:40:54,570
And for instance, you'll see in the Aegis Trust website, they talk about the idea that this memory,

347
00:40:54,570 --> 00:41:03,180
this kind of experience has really sort of contributed to saving lives.

348
00:41:03,180 --> 00:41:10,120
OK. And so. Well, people now.

349
00:41:10,120 --> 00:41:12,940
Oh, yes, and in fact, it's not only chiefs that have been going,

350
00:41:12,940 --> 00:41:22,840
we also see a hint of the regional tensions in the fact that the former chiefs of staff of the escalating South Sudan,

351
00:41:22,840 --> 00:41:28,120
he travelled to Rwanda also and laid wreath at the mass graves there.

352
00:41:28,120 --> 00:41:34,060
But you know, there's a. His argument was we share a common background of armed struggle.

353
00:41:34,060 --> 00:41:40,120
This is someone who is under sanctions, international sanctions for his role in the conflict,

354
00:41:40,120 --> 00:41:47,620
including sort of accusations of war crimes and within South Sudan,

355
00:41:47,620 --> 00:41:53,890
we've also seen sort of concrete ways in which genocide my memory has manifested itself,

356
00:41:53,890 --> 00:42:01,510
including in the 2019 commemoration of the Genocide in Rwanda, in the United Nations Protection of Civilians sites in Juba.

357
00:42:01,510 --> 00:42:10,750
And you can see here the peacekeepers talking about the ways in which South Sudan can learn from

358
00:42:10,750 --> 00:42:16,090
Rwanda's experience and a bishop also talking about Rwanda as an example for the whole world,

359
00:42:16,090 --> 00:42:18,070
including for South Sudan.

360
00:42:18,070 --> 00:42:25,840
And I think there have already been just the very existence of these sites actually demonstrates quite a fundamental learning.

361
00:42:25,840 --> 00:42:32,260
The fact that the United Nations peacekeepers opened their gates and gave shelter to 200000 civilians in their sights,

362
00:42:32,260 --> 00:42:40,720
in contrast to what happened during the genocide in Rwanda is itself quite significant.

363
00:42:40,720 --> 00:42:49,720
And within these sites, you know, so you know, so we see the memory of Rwanda shaping the kind of very existence these sites.

364
00:42:49,720 --> 00:42:53,080
We should see commemorations by U.N. peacekeepers in these sites.

365
00:42:53,080 --> 00:43:03,640
But we also see and you can see in this picture here and commemorations of the atrocities that took place in Juba in December 2013

366
00:43:03,640 --> 00:43:11,440
and later saw the massacres that have taken place during the war in South Sudan are also commemorated in these sites and outside,

367
00:43:11,440 --> 00:43:20,170
actually. And here is a picture from the protection of civilians sites of a commemoration process taking place there.

368
00:43:20,170 --> 00:43:28,330
And I've got some text there from an interview with a lawyer who I work with another research and he was talking.

369
00:43:28,330 --> 00:43:31,630
He organises these events and he talks about the fact that really this is a

370
00:43:31,630 --> 00:43:37,420
determination to ensure that the the 15th of December will never be forgotten.

371
00:43:37,420 --> 00:43:48,790
And so you see this sort of echo of memory practises that I think what fundamentally we can see is that post to 2013,

372
00:43:48,790 --> 00:44:02,650
we have seen really a shift towards ending silence and impunity for atrocities in South in South Sudan and memory practises that.

373
00:44:02,650 --> 00:44:13,660
You know, our unprecedented meeting in this country, including an online memorial and, for instance, popular evidence that at the popular level,

374
00:44:13,660 --> 00:44:22,090
there's a real demand for truth, justice and reconciliation and healing demonstrated by the Law Society survey and within the peace agreement.

375
00:44:22,090 --> 00:44:27,910
Very significantly, Chapter five of the peace agreement includes agreed principles of transitional justice,

376
00:44:27,910 --> 00:44:33,070
of course, a real reluctance to implement those, but nevertheless very significant.

377
00:44:33,070 --> 00:44:44,080
Now one of the problems here is that, of course, the this is a selective narrative of the genocide and memory that it continues

378
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:49,990
to be contested in Rwanda is obviously not understood as such in South Sudan.

379
00:44:49,990 --> 00:44:57,160
And I mean, there's a whole sort of series of critiques of this selective memory in Rwanda, which I won't go into now.

380
00:44:57,160 --> 00:45:04,300
But it is simply to say that we learn, you know, what reaches South Sudan instead is a much more selective narrative,

381
00:45:04,300 --> 00:45:08,560
the hegemonic narrative that has been institutionalised at the regional level.

382
00:45:08,560 --> 00:45:15,860
However, despite my sort of sense of the troubling exclusions in Rwanda, is set a selective memory.

383
00:45:15,860 --> 00:45:26,160
I want to hold to the view that this commemoration opens up, rather than silencing struggles for memory and justice in South Sudan.

384
00:45:26,160 --> 00:45:33,640
And in particular, I was inspired to think about this and to write about this by an encounter in the Ministry of Interior.

385
00:45:33,640 --> 00:45:39,520
When I was researching my book, which is pictured above the South Sudan Injustice System,

386
00:45:39,520 --> 00:45:44,050
which, as you can imagine, is pretty critical of the law in South Sudan.

387
00:45:44,050 --> 00:45:49,900
And I was rather nervous because the research was sensitive and maybe foolishly

388
00:45:49,900 --> 00:45:55,030
who was reading this book pictured below the laws fragile state by my side.

389
00:45:55,030 --> 00:46:01,180
And I was asked by a uniformed officer to hand him the book and tell him what it was about.

390
00:46:01,180 --> 00:46:10,660
So I passed him my message, but hoping that, you know, I wouldn't be asked to in too much detail about my own research.

391
00:46:10,660 --> 00:46:13,810
And I talked to him a bit about what the contents of the book.

392
00:46:13,810 --> 00:46:24,250
And he simply said, and his response was kind of surprising, and it stuck with me since he simply said, we should have learnt from Rwanda.

393
00:46:24,250 --> 00:46:33,100
And I think this illustrates the way the sort of symbolic power of the memory of the genocide in Rwanda drives

394
00:46:33,100 --> 00:46:41,470
the recognition that the state cannot simply kill with impunity and the ordinary people's lives matter.

395
00:46:41,470 --> 00:46:46,390
And so even if there are problems with this paradigm in terms of how it shapes

396
00:46:46,390 --> 00:46:52,750
transitional justice and that's something I'm thinking a bit more about, know the work at the same time memory,

397
00:46:52,750 --> 00:46:57,570
I think create this memory creates political opportunities and is punished in the

398
00:46:57,570 --> 00:47:04,480
symbolic resource for counter hegemonic struggles in South Sudan and region.

399
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:10,540
Thank you so much. Thank you, Rachel. We now have a few minutes left for questions.

400
00:47:10,540 --> 00:47:13,570
We've already received some questions.

401
00:47:13,570 --> 00:47:22,180
I feel both of them are free, Jasna, but I think either Rachel or Lauren otherwise might actually have some thoughts on the first one.

402
00:47:22,180 --> 00:47:29,470
So let me pose this to Lord, added Ice you Butera from Oxford is asking Is there a particular timeframe that is

403
00:47:29,470 --> 00:47:37,380
required to allow for questions about the past traumas or victories to be articulated?

404
00:47:37,380 --> 00:47:41,190
Well, there are two aspects to this question, Jesse, the obvious one,

405
00:47:41,190 --> 00:47:46,240
which is how long do you need to leave it before people can start talking about these things?

406
00:47:46,240 --> 00:47:56,310
Not. I remember a painful personal experience. I was on Belfast City Council just immediately after we had the ceasefires.

407
00:47:56,310 --> 00:48:04,110
I proposed that we should have a memorial window or something of the kind for all of those who had died in the Troubles.

408
00:48:04,110 --> 00:48:09,210
And I was attacked ferociously by all sides on the unionist side.

409
00:48:09,210 --> 00:48:13,980
I was attacked because they didn't want their people to be memorialised alongside the IRA.

410
00:48:13,980 --> 00:48:20,820
And on the Republican side, I wasn't sufficiently recognising the misdemeanours of the British security forces.

411
00:48:20,820 --> 00:48:29,760
So one lesson I learnt from that is there certainly is it is I don't think it's a period of time that you can define in terms of

412
00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:38,430
it needs to be a week a month a year or a decade because it depends very much on the circumstances and the context and history.

413
00:48:38,430 --> 00:48:45,180
But is there a need for a tent? Yes. And and there will be some people for whom never is too short.

414
00:48:45,180 --> 00:48:49,650
You know, they will never want to engage in these kinds of things.

415
00:48:49,650 --> 00:48:54,990
One side is how soon can you do it? The other side is, how long does it continue?

416
00:48:54,990 --> 00:49:00,600
Well, the experience in Belfast City Council is that on the 1st of July every year.

417
00:49:00,600 --> 00:49:10,250
Still, no. There is a meeting of the City Council to remember those who died at the Battle of the Somme in the First World War.

418
00:49:10,250 --> 00:49:13,910
Now, you can imagine in the context of a Brexit debate,

419
00:49:13,910 --> 00:49:21,800
what sort of things does that raise up the idea that continuing to remember is always a good thing.

420
00:49:21,800 --> 00:49:30,050
It's not so simple. Of course, what you can do is try to find a way of turning that memory to a different kind of use.

421
00:49:30,050 --> 00:49:36,630
So, for example, the memories of the First World War. Which could have been very negative.

422
00:49:36,630 --> 00:49:44,070
We're turned to some degree of advantage by saying, Oh, but don't forget that was before partition at that time.

423
00:49:44,070 --> 00:49:52,850
Protestants and Catholics fought together. Common food, therefore, there have been histories of us doing things together,

424
00:49:52,850 --> 00:49:59,090
and maybe we can celebrate those from the past more than those periods where we were divided.

425
00:49:59,090 --> 00:50:05,420
So there isn't a simple answer to the question. If you try doing it too often, you'll get in trouble.

426
00:50:05,420 --> 00:50:12,980
But if you keep on doing it in the same way without any reinterpretation, it can help to cause you trouble.

427
00:50:12,980 --> 00:50:14,840
Thank you very much, John.

428
00:50:14,840 --> 00:50:20,210
We've got two questions for you, and I ask, no, I'm just going to ask you one and then maybe ask if you could answer the other one.

429
00:50:20,210 --> 00:50:25,520
In a written form, Marica July from Brighton is asking a question.

430
00:50:25,520 --> 00:50:28,820
Firstly, thank you for an insightful presentation.

431
00:50:28,820 --> 00:50:34,640
How does Serbia's transition from memories created as part of the post World War to Yugoslav past to

432
00:50:34,640 --> 00:50:42,520
the memory works regarding the wars of the 1990s in the context of drawing on Germany's experience?

433
00:50:42,520 --> 00:50:52,070
OK, thanks, Jesse, and thanks for the questions. I've seen them all, so I will try to reach out to people independently.

434
00:50:52,070 --> 00:51:00,160
I think there's a way of linking the first question that Lord Allderdice has just replied to as well, and I'll be very brief.

435
00:51:00,160 --> 00:51:04,390
I think it's and again here, drawing on the German experience,

436
00:51:04,390 --> 00:51:10,780
I think is really interesting in that many historians have by now shown that it

437
00:51:10,780 --> 00:51:16,570
is a mistake to think of the first 20 years in Germany as a period of silence.

438
00:51:16,570 --> 00:51:23,890
I mean, I'm thinking here of the work by historians such as Robert Muller and others who have shown that there were times,

439
00:51:23,890 --> 00:51:33,610
even at the time, to make sense of the recent past and of the Nazi period and throughout this period.

440
00:51:33,610 --> 00:51:40,570
But the narratives that were articulated focussed on certain aspects of that experience rather than others.

441
00:51:40,570 --> 00:51:45,610
So the most important experience for Germans during this time was, of course,

442
00:51:45,610 --> 00:51:51,670
the question of German victimhood, which formed the dominant narrative of those first 20 years.

443
00:51:51,670 --> 00:51:58,660
And again, drawing on then America's question on the continuities and the parallels.

444
00:51:58,660 --> 00:52:06,730
I think we can look at that and we can also see very much the same phenomenon taking place in Serbia in the last 20 years.

445
00:52:06,730 --> 00:52:12,040
I mean, the main trope, of course, has been of Serbian victimhood,

446
00:52:12,040 --> 00:52:19,210
and that is very much across the board in in terms of the political discourses that we have seen.

447
00:52:19,210 --> 00:52:23,350
And and there in terms of continuities with the Second World War.

448
00:52:23,350 --> 00:52:31,480
Now, in relation to Serbia, it is very much the same victims who are being drawn out in both cases.

449
00:52:31,480 --> 00:52:36,700
So the victimhood narratives continue. And and so this, you know,

450
00:52:36,700 --> 00:52:46,570
the idea in the nationalist narrative is very much of the Serbs being the victims of the 1990s as well as in the Second World War.

451
00:52:46,570 --> 00:52:55,310
So that would be a continuity and the linkage, I think, to the experience of Germany in the immediate post-war period.

452
00:52:55,310 --> 00:53:00,660
Thank you so much. And I will endeavour to answer all those questions.

453
00:53:00,660 --> 00:53:06,170
Great. Thank you. Rachel, I was wondering, just did last question to wrap up?

454
00:53:06,170 --> 00:53:10,400
You mentioned the concept or the idea of that. There's a few vacuums of memory.

455
00:53:10,400 --> 00:53:15,050
And I was wondering whether you could elaborate on that a little bit, but they'll start really vacuums or what are these?

456
00:53:15,050 --> 00:53:21,440
This is these are white spots that are made out of fear or intimidation or

457
00:53:21,440 --> 00:53:25,220
who are the ones that could potentially in the future fill in these vacuums.

458
00:53:25,220 --> 00:53:32,520
Are there still survivors that could actually invigorate this memory?

459
00:53:32,520 --> 00:53:36,270
Well, when I was talking about this kind of oblivion in the past,

460
00:53:36,270 --> 00:53:46,260
I'm talking about and previous atrocities in civil wars in Sudan that are not publicly remembered that,

461
00:53:46,260 --> 00:53:53,610
you know, survivors don't even really define or kind of coalesce around that memory.

462
00:53:53,610 --> 00:54:02,670
And I think in contemporary contexts, there are also, you know, I mean, the war is still as it were sort of in a fragile peace.

463
00:54:02,670 --> 00:54:09,120
And so I mean, there are many things that are not known about all the kind of aspects of the conflict has.

464
00:54:09,120 --> 00:54:12,300
It's continuing and it's not really in the past. I mean,

465
00:54:12,300 --> 00:54:18,450
it kind of relates a little bit to this problem of when do you start talking about the past

466
00:54:18,450 --> 00:54:25,290
because this is still very much part of the contemporary present and very recent past.

467
00:54:25,290 --> 00:54:31,950
For instance, the memory of the new genocide that I was talking about being commemorated in the protection of civilians sites.

468
00:54:31,950 --> 00:54:37,800
I mean, this is, you know, a very recent memory and it continues to affect people's lives.

469
00:54:37,800 --> 00:54:45,690
They're still displaced. The conflict is not over and they're being protected by the United Nations peacekeepers.

470
00:54:45,690 --> 00:54:50,310
And so I'm not sure if that answers your question,

471
00:54:50,310 --> 00:54:58,820
but it's something to sort of show that this is a country in which, you know, there are many silences.

472
00:54:58,820 --> 00:55:03,500
Thank you very much, and thank you to the panel. We are now moving to the break.

473
00:55:03,500 --> 00:55:09,990
And I'd like to ask the panellists there's a few questions on the Q&A. So there's one for John and a couple for Jasna.

474
00:55:09,990 --> 00:55:18,360
If you had a bit of time just to answer these questions to our audience, I will also enable the chat function.

475
00:55:18,360 --> 00:55:25,850
So feel free to use the chat function now if you want to exchange more details or more links and so on.

476
00:55:25,850 --> 00:55:29,870
And I really want to thank our first panel and we will meet here. I do apologise.

477
00:55:29,870 --> 00:55:37,430
I have eaten into our coffee break, but we will meet here again in about five minutes for our second panel.

478
00:55:37,430 --> 00:55:41,333
Thank you very much.