Memorials to injustice

Stephan Feuchtwang

pp. 176-194

in: Duncan Bell (ed), Memory, trauma and world politics, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006

Abstract

It is normal to find an event of great loss at the foundation of a nation. It is an occasion of sacrifice in the physical assertion of dignity against its denial. For instance, the first nations, as famously pointed out by Benedict Anderson, were composed of South and North American colonial settlers, revolting against their subordination and waging wars of independence against their distant sovereigns.¹ At the same time they were blotting out their own violent suppression of native and slave rebellions. There is typically, as argued by Ernest Renan, a disavowal or a silenced sub-plot of collective violence at the origin of national stories.² Historical enquiry prompts and can satisfy calls for adequate recognition of such suppressed catastrophes.³

Cited authors

Anderson Benedict

Renan Ernest