Integrating the Past, Engaging the Present
Leveraging History and Memory in the Task of
Building a Just and Inclusive Europe
Margaret E. Smith, Ph.D. American University,
Washington, D.C.
Kippen, Scotland
War memorial
1914-19191939-1945
personal integrity <=> social change
History = the story of God’s unfolding plan
History = the story of “our” group
History = the story of empowering the disempowered
Freud
The past resides in ourunconscious
Trauma
The past locks us into a “threat response”
Narrative
The past is embedded in systems of power
Trustbuilding
Expanding the narrative
Creating overlapping narratives
Europe 2015• Minorities and Immigrants• Contested societies• Post communism• Relations with the
“developing” world• Russia• Ukraine• Mass atrocity – Srebrenica,
Armenia, Ukraine, Holocaust
Immigrant communities
Stories of exile; stories of home
Creating Resilient Communities
The City Walk
Romani people
Telling Roma history
Holocaust acknowledgement
Healing from a discriminatory past
Roma place at the European table
Racismand Colonialism
Transitional JusticeTribunals
Truth commissions
Archiving
Teacher training
Rewriting textbooks
Encouraging professional historians and journalists
Yerevan, Armenia, April 2015
Potocari CemeterySrebrenica, Bosnia and Hercegovina
Ukraine
• Find a narrative NOT dependent on history
• Focus on areas of common concern
• Complexify history
• Long term public airing of painful history
What narrative do we wish to promote for
Europe in the 21st century?
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